Better Days

Ok, so Monday's post was a bit of a downer. How about some success stories for a boost tonight instead?

Story 1: The farm

Remember those two kids struggling to get the farm set up? Well today we used a timer (not very Montessorian, I know, but sometimes things need a little prodding to get going). The verdict? A HUGE success! Not only did they get the entire farm set up, but they kept the energy rolling and made it through the entire packet of labels...though they didn't quite know where to put 'the', 'a' or the 'and' labels that somehow got mixed in with things like 'the spotted white dog' and 'kicking horse'. Oh, and that 'kicking horse' label took a little bit because they read it as the 'chicken horse'. I can understand how that would be hard to label since I"m still not sure exactly what a 'chicken horse' is exactly....

A successfully labeled farm!

Story 2: When Mommy comes to visit...

When mommy comes to visit some kids don't leave her side, or they are inconsolable when she leaves. But then there are some who don't do either. Instead they buckle down and show how much work they can do. Thank you A and O for doing just that. Both their moms visited today and without any suggestions both of them promptly took out their favorite works, set them up at a table near their mom's observation stool and got right to work. As far as I saw they both concentrated and completed their work and put it away for the next person. If only we could get that to happen with every kid class would go A LOT smoother. Thought O did get a little bit jealous/protective when some of the other children began talking to her mom, but she just went over and listened and walked back to work whent he children left. Oh well, her mom said she had a good visit anyways.

Story 3: Writing can be easy

How good is your phonetic reading?
1. Pony
2. Strawberry
3. Pink
4. Working mat
5. Teddy Bear

Oh yes, writing actually can be easy...when you know all your letter sounds. This afternoon I suggested to M that she take out Moveable alphabet for her language work, and after needing a reminder about what material it was I thought maybe I should check and see which letter sounds she knew before suggesting words to write out. Turns out she knew them all. Yes, all of them. Now in my training they made it sound like of course every child should know ever sound when they're using the moveable alphabet but really, that doesn't always happen. We don't want to hold them back if they're really eager to start writing, or if they're getting stuck with learning sandpaper letters sometimes presenting the same information with a different material works better.

M wanted to get out some objects and write the words for them, but I tried to encourage her to think of some of her favorite things instead, hoping to give her some different practice analyzing the sounds. She did pretty well, didn't need my help finding any of the sounds she was looking for...though I think maybe we need to practice listening to ALL the sounds. After all, I'm pretty sure that 'strawberry' has a t in it somewhere.....

In over their heads

Usually there's a lot of success stories over the course of the day, but coupled with those has to be some stumbling.

Story 1: Too much work

M and M decided that they wanted to do "Big" addition. Guess they were really inspired by the one we did in the afternoon last week. They spent a good twenty minutes trying to recruit another friend to work with them since doing addition with the golden beads works best with three people; two to add their numbers together and a third to be sort of in charge and help get the counting done. After failing to find a third they were still inspired enough to set it up for just two children with me giving them the numbers to collect. They gathered their cards and beads with just a little difficulty and then got stuck. This whole thing took about half an hour and when I noticed both of them just wandering around, occasionally returning to their mat I had to step in and ask what step they were on. I reminded them to set out the big set of cards and left them at it, hoping it would spur their memory of how to finish up the activity.

No such luck. By this point they were still a little fuzzy on what to do, add that to the fact that they were tired from working on this one project for about 45 minutes But they pulled it together, finished the work and without a second thought began cleaning up. I wish they could have done it completely on their own, but on the other hand I didn't want them to get frustrated or bored so much they didn't want to ever do it again. Oh well, better luck next time.

Story 2: Toy temptations

This story happened in the afternoon, when only the oldest children are in the classroom. E and A had the farm out, one of the most coveted and anticipated materials in the classroom. The farm is just what it sounds like, a play farm. It is used in the classroom to teach the parts of speech (noun, adjective, etc.) and isn't introduced until children can read fairly well. Of course all the younger children recognize the fun animals that go with it and want to play with them. Even the older children can get distracted from the reading by the temptation to play with the animals.

So when I heard E telling A about how 'super pig needs to be here to he can tell all the other pigs what to do,' I went over and reminded them they needed to finish setting up the farm animals so they could label them. They buckled down for a little bit, but not long after I noticed they were simply arranging the animals in a tight circle. I asked E to come and read some of his book to me, telling A she could arrange the animals while waiting for her turn to read. Usually things get less silly if there's only one child but still they couldn't get those animals arranged. They were just too tempting. I could tell that E and A both knew they weren't using the farm like they should have though, because as soon as I said they needed to put it away since they weren't using the labels they complied without a single complaint. Sigh, well at least they knew what they were supposed to be doing.

Story 3: You can't read with hands in your eyes

Reading is hard. And it's even harder when you're struggling with it and you really want to do it, but you can't, and all your friends have read the books you're still struggling through, but you still can't make out the words, and you just can't stand to look at the words on the page anymore and your eyes hurt from it.

Yeah, I think that sums up the frustration A was feeling this afternoon. She has such a hard time remembering what sounds the letters make that reading is nearly impossible for her. Sounding out 'it' or 'rag' is almost impossible when you can't remember what sound a 'g' or a 't' makes. In a Montessori classroom we really focus on helping children recognize the sounds of letters so they can read and write phonetically, then as they progress forward we introduce 'puzzle words' (things like 'the' 'two' and 'these' that can't be sounded out and just have to be memorized). Poor A has such a hard time recalling sounds that she treats ever word like a puzzle word, staring at it and reading it over and over again until she can recognize it on site.

It's a long and laborious process. I could tell how hard it was as she struggled to read the short book, constantly rubbing her hands over her eyes and looking away from the book. We spent nearly 20 minutes on  a book with maybe 25 phonetic words in it. Most of that was focusing on getting her to keep her hands away from her face so she could actually see the words, rather than just trying to guess what is on the page. A did agree with me that it's even harder to read when you can't see the letters and kept trying to stop herself rubbing her eyes. And we did finish. We're going to have to read that book again tomorrow, but that will be ok. All I can say is that I hope it gets easier, because I know she really wants to read like her big sisters.