Trick or Treat!

Well the kids have been practicing and preparing their 'trick or treat' steps all week. Leaves on the play ground make great 'candy' at recess to both collect and hand out. Building forts in the daycare even creates different 'houses' to practice saying trick or treat at. Yep, I'd say they should all have been well prepared for whatever adventures they had tonight. I can't wait to hear all about it tomorrow...and then have it be over. Now I"m glad with how enthusiastic they are about holidays, in fact I think it's wonderful how over the top excited they get. But we basically had no regular work time today because we knew that they would be so distracted.

Halloween at our school means costumes for all ages, and a little parade of the Children's House around the Elementary classroom. Then the Elementary students usually read poems or sing some Halloween themed songs for the younger children. It's a fun break from routine, and we did a great job this year as adults with helping the children get their costumes on without losing any pieces (I don't think!). Three of us zipped, snapped, Velcro'd and attached countless fairy/angel/princess wings (the accessory of choice for most of the girls in our class) while Mrs. C snapped pictures of the children with our freshly carved pumpkin.

Remember the ones I featured about a week ago? Yeah, they got a little bit soft but luckily we got a donation later and one of our extra staff had time to carve it for us. Hooray!

I do have to say that we had some unique costumes, and even all those fairies and princess were different (though I have never seen so many glittery wings!). We had-

-A squishy Puff the magic dragon
-Olivia the Pig
-A Beaver (with a tail almost as big as the boy in the costume!)
-Princess Lolly from Candy Land (anyone else remember that game?)
-A young king with his older brother Knight
-A plump pumpkin
-A cobra (complete with hood containing heat sensing pits!)

My favorite though was Princess Leia, and not just because it was a home made and well done costume, but from how the boy who was in it explained why he was Leia. "Because Dad is R2D2, my little sister is going to be Yoda, and Mom is Chewbaca." Ahh, family themed costumes, gotta love em.

Games we like to play

I don't want to give the wrong impression that in a Montessori environment that the children never do anything as a whole group. On the contrary we do a lot of things as a big group: birthdays, holiday celebrations, lunch, recess, and outdoor games. Outdoor games are probably the most consistent group activity and all the children who stick around for lunch participate. About ten minutes before the end of recess I'll call out that it's time to clean up and the children know that that's their cue to run their toys to the big blue bin and dash to the side of the school so they can get their 'favorite' spot. The older ones are especially keen on standing in a particular spot,

Normally our games are pretty simple. Things like 'Fishy, fishy may we cross your ocean?", Red light green light, and moving like an animal. We did crab walking the other day and most of the children thought it was hilariously funny, though a few others needed encouragement to even try. All the games we do have very simple rules since even red light, green light is a bit confusing for our younger students.

Photo courtesy of Amazon
(all our domes were picked up by the children
 before I could take a picture!)

And today we had a brand new game to play. Ok, so it really was just Simon says using these colorful domes but the kids thought it was a great new game. After all, it's so much more fun to find a purple dome than it is to touch your nose. And it's even MORE fun when you get to find the purple dome that your best friend is also standing at. And then the teacher asks you to find your favorite color and you not only get to choose but change your mind (just in case you know). Plus what child doesn't want to run around after keeping themselves at a walking pace for the entire morning? Answer: None of the children in our classroom!

They all really enjoy playing, even those who don't fully understand it and those for who it is really easy. We try to keep it non-competitive, not because we don't want them to try hard and feel like they've done a good job, but it should be obvious that there is no way a three year old could keep up with a six year old. Amazingly though children seem to realize this and it's not uncommon for the older ones to handicap themselves. In tag I've seen our biggest and fastest boy purposefully miss the flag when chasing a younger child. In our school they spend enough time with the younger ones to realize that they need to help them, and that if they play too hard they may cause the younger ones to cry. They've learned to give the younger ones a head start, or help them if they fall, and even give them second chances. Mostly without any adult intervention.

Making a book

So this actually occurred yesterday but I got distracted by the chicken pox and forgot to write about it. Please note that I will only be using the first letter of the students name for confidentially, while still trying to keep the story a personal experience (aka. not just calling the girl, 'her' or 'she' through the whole story).

L made a book.

Parts of a Horse puzzle from Montessori Services
(we use most of the same parts for making books)

Yep, an actual book. Well, ok it was 6 or 7 pages of printer paper stapled together, but it's still a book. And she illustrated it herself. L is one of youngest students, this is her second year in the Children's house but she's still only three years old and hasn't started too much of the academic materials yet. So it was a big deal when the head teacher invited her to make a book on the parts of a horse. Boy was she excited. First they took out the laminated cards with the different parts of the horse colored on each one and went over the names. Then L got to pick her favorite one and color that part in on her own, blank copies of the horse. Horse, body, mane, tail, forelegs, hind legs, neck, forehead, ears, she colored them all.

Next came the exciting part--stapling! With her book bound she 'read' it to me, stumbling over just a few of those parts. Hey, it's hard to remember which of the legs are which! And I think L carried that book around the rest of the afternoon she was so excited. She finally moved on to a new work when I promised that I would help her remember to get it into her blue bag on Friday to go home and show mom.

Today I caught her checking on it still in her bin, and showing it off to a few friends. I'd have to say that she's still pretty proud of herself for completing such a big kid work.

What's something every school has in common?

Notes on the window for parents

The passing of germs and alerts to prevent pandemics of school-wide proportions. It's the annual chicken-pox alert at school! Ok, so it's probably not quite an annual thing, but I'm sure it's close to that. We've already had reports of lice earlier this year, now chicken pox, as well as the normal coughs and colds that travel around in this season.

We had 8 children out sick today. 8. I think that might be a new record. It felt so quiet in the classroom with that many gone, and I felt almost in the way. One of the reason Montessori classrooms limit the adults in the environment is because we want to step back and let the children work without interference, even if they're not doing something exactly right. Normally in our classroom there are enough real problems (like thread tangling, or lost scissors) that keep us three adults busy enough to not interfere too much and give the children a chance to figure things out on their own.

But today with so many children gone (and I will admit they were some of the ones who require more attention!) it was a different story. I found that I had to force myself to back to the counter and just observe for a bit, recording what lessons each child was practicing. Now I do want to say that normally I really like just taking time to sit on a stool and just observe. However today we had some students from the local university came to observe and as we had four of them in at a time all the stools were taken and I felt slightly awkward just standing at the counter to observe. It's kind of amazing how the smallest things can throw you off. I have to remember that, it's a part of the reason we really try to keep the environment organized and clean for the children. If everything has a place and is in order, one knows what to expect and can focus on other things.

Maybe tomorrow it will be a more normal kind of day and I focus on really observing. There are some children who need new work to do and I'd really like to observe them a bit and see what they're really interested in. It always makes a presentation go better when they're actually engaged and interested!

Montessori Sunday: Scrubbing a table

I apologize, this was scheduled to post and never did for some reason...sorry about the delay. I did actually write it on Sunday, promise!)

Ah practical life, definitely one of the most relaxing and normalizing areas of the classroom. Dr. Montessori talks about the process of the child normalizing, or coming back to the normal path of development. According to her books children who are this normal path of development are calm, eager to learn and develop themselves. Think about it in context of being an adult. Is there any activity that you do that calms and centers you? Many people run, work on a craft, bake, garden, etc. Usually these activities include some kind of repetitive motion that you can lose yourself in as it becomes habitual (the word cathartic comes to mind).

The lovely table washing set from my Montessori Training cente
(note how there is red color coding to help distinguish the set)

Many practical life activities try to help children lose themselves in these repetitive motions for the same purpose. Table scrubbing consists of these lovely, repetitive circular motions that satisfy the child's need to move while directing that energy into purposeful work. And when I talk about purposeful work I'm not really thinking about the table getting clean. In fact most often the table will end up being soaking wet and possibly even still soapy when the child finishes. Instead the purposeful work is for the child themself. These repeated motions are helping them learn how to control their movements and build up their muscles. Everything the young child wishes to accomplish they must repeat over and over until they master. We as adults have long forgotten how impossibly thick our fingers used to seem when we were trying to learn a new task. For children almost every task is new and requires immense amounts of concentration.

But let's get off theory for a bit and look at the actual activity of table scrubbing. The activity begins with the child putting on an apron and choosing a table which may or may not be dirty and need scrubbing. They move the chair aside and set up a chowki (a small, short table used while sitting on the floor) and lay an oilcloth on it. The materials are all brought over and laid out in order of use on the chowki; scrub brush, soap, sponge and drying cloth. The small basin is filled using the pitcher, and then the scrubbing can begin.

The child is shown how to wet the bristles and apply the soap using a circular motion. The table is then scrubbed, top to bottom and left to right. Circular motions, beginning slowly and then speeding up in the middle of the table, and slowing again as the end is reached demonstrate paying attention to the edges of the table. The circles are overlapped and the child is show up to apply more soap as needed.

After the scrubbing the teacher demonstrates how to wet the sponge and squeeze it until no more water drips back into the basin. The sponges is then drawn in a straight line across the bottom of the table, collecting the suds and stopping just short of the edge. This is the only time a circular motion is not used. The child is show how to rinse the sponge out in the basin and squeeze it dry before collecting the last of the suds. Finally the drying cloth is pulled out, folded into a small mitt around the hand and (using circular motions!) the child is shown how to dry the table.

And of course once everything is cleaned the child is responsible for drying the materials, wiping up any spills on the floor, and returning it to the shelf for the next person. Typical expectations for any Montessori activity. If you're ever having a bad day I honestly suggest setting up something similar at home, it's actually really relaxing and you've got a nice clean table when finished!

I spoke too soon

So this post is a bit late but with good reason. (there's always a good reason isn't there?) Anyways, my previous post was about pumpkin carving, and how trying to have even just one organized activity made the day a lot longer. Well the day after that the head teacher of our classroom was gone for the day to get her son in for a long overdue doctors visit. So after a long Wednesday I found myself playing at head teacher the next day. So yeah, get ready for another me centered post rather than one about the awesome children I work with. Don't worry though, they'll return soon!

Don't get me wrong it went great. The kids were very well behaved, and a few of our youngest children were out sick so the day wasn't quite as busy as it normally would have been. Because it was Thursday the children also had French. For this they go out of the classroom for about 15 mins for the younger children, and half and hour for the older. While the rest of the morning was pretty smooth, it was nice to have the class size reduced by about 10 when French began.

Next came our recess time adventure. Recess is a part of my normal schedule, but dogs jumping the fence into our play yard is not. There's a Shepard/Collie mix in one of the yards behind our school who gets really excited when the kids come out and start running around. We're talking excessive barking, pacing and putting front paws up the fence. Well this particular day the dog got so excited that he used the wood pile as a vaulting block and ended up in our play yard.

Then he must have decided he really didn't want to be where all these screaming kids were and that's when he discovered he couldn't get back over the fence. Of course all the children were so excited about the dog, some were nervous but most just really wanted to go and pet it. Luckily they all respond really well when I yell "Line up at the school" since that's the phrase we use every day to start our game. So we got the children all corralled in one part of the yard and with the help of the neighbor got the dog back over the fence. The children could hardly talk about anything else the rest of recess.

Then the afternoon rolled around. My normal afternoon is pretty relaxed. After getting the younger children into the nap room I have almost an hour to take my break and prep any materials we need in the classroom (usually cutting paper or designing artwork). Then when the first group of nappers gets up I go back into the classroom to help with the children who are awake. With our regular teacher gone I was busy all afternoon. The extended day children (those who stay awake all afternoon) kept themselves busy brainstorming ideas for 'we missed you' cards for our missing teacher (there was a decided Halloween theme!) while I helped get the nappers ready.

Myself and the older children read a chapter from the boxcar children and made cards, then got back down to serious work. The older children have these checklists they are supposed to complete during the day. These checklists are just to make sure that they do a writing work, another type of language work, and a math work. It also helps prepare those who are going in to Elementary where they will plan their own projects and make the deadlines for them. Right now though only two of our children are confident readers, the others need help reading the options on their checklist. And I made the mistake of just reading the lists aloud without seeing what was on there. That was how I ended up trying to give three new presentations as well as trying to deal with the normal mishaps that come up in the course of the day. Oh, ad did I mention that soon after starting this I had the newly awakened nappers come join our classroom? Luckily there were only two who didn't sleep. But still, it was a far cry from a normal afternoon when there are two adults in there for the majority of the afternoon.

So yeah, while it went well I was pretty exhausted by the end of the day. But I'd already told some friends I would go climbing with them. Waiting for them to get to the gym all I could think about was doing this-

Oh, and then on Friday one of our other staff left at 1 o'clock instead of 3:30 like normal. So I was in charge of taking out all the garbage in the school (it's amazing how much we generate, mainly from paper towels) and extra daycare duty after school. Nothing that I haven't done before but it was a good thing that it was Friday. A day of pumpkin carving, having our regular teacher gone, then filling in for yet another staff member wiped me out. Hopefully next week will be more normal....except for there's Halloween....I better rest up.

Why I don't teach regular preschool

It's because of the pumpkins, or more specifically what I ended up doing because of 4 little pumpkins.

Obviously Halloween is coming up. For school we'll have a little 'parade' of costumes through the elementary classroom who will then perform some poems for us. Then we'll get a special snack (pumpkin seeds) and that's it. Pretty simple as far as halloween parties go. However, we had a really nice couple of parents donate pumpkins to us for decorations, and decided that we had enough to let all the children help clean and carve them.

I want to say that it was great to be able to get all the children involved, normally only the children who stay awake for the afternoon help in this special project. These are children who are kindergarten age or close to it (the others are napping). Since we had 5 pumpkins donated we decided to let the older children do one as a group,  including measuring it, guessing how many seeds it contained, and then counting the seeds. Meanwhile the younger children would just clean out the 4 smaller pumpkins and draw faces for me to carve later.

The plan didn't sound so bad. I'd get the pumpkins all ready to go, bring the kids out in groups of 6 and when they finished I'd bring out the next group. And I have to say that the first group went pretty well with only a few unforeseen circumstances. The pumpkins we had were so little that it was hard for even the children to get their hands in the hole, much less the scrappers. So instead of letting the children scrape I had to loosen up the inside periodically so they could pull the guts out with their hands. 2 children took turns with that, while the other four sorted the seeds from the guts so we could save them for snack. Some children were a little hesitant about touching the squishy, sticky insides, but when they saw the others digging in most joined in with enthusiasm.

The other problem was our aprons. Because there was so much pumpkin gunk and sticky hands aprons were pretty much a necessity. Our normal aprons in the classroom are velcro, and definitely designed to be taken on and off independently. Unfortunately there aren't enough that I could borrow six for the entire morning, so I had to borrow the spares. All the spares, though, are tie aprons. I think we have 2, maybe 3 children in the classroom who can actually tie a bow, and none who can tie one behind their back. So guess who ended up tying and untying aprons for group?

Are you seeing the problem yet? Not only had I put myself in charge of the whole group, but given myself the added responsibility of scrapping the pumpkin and tying/untying aprons. Oh, and because of the time crunch and messiness of the project it wasn't worthwhile to let the children help clean up lit normal, so that was all on me too. After an hour and a half, and 24 children later I was exhausted, and there was a very orange, sticky table and floor.

In a regular preschool this kind of group activity happens most of the day, and in even bigger groups. The adults seem to spend most of their time going from one child to another, trying to make sure everyone is at roughly the same point in the project so they can all finish together. Some schools have the children clean up, but even then the clean up is minimal, like putting all the markers in a basket. I want to give a thumbs up of appreciation to anyone who works like that five days a week and still likes doing it. This little project really made me appreciate how helpful teaching the children in our class to be independent and not only work without direct supervision, but to also clean up afterwards. It makes it so much easier for us teachers as well actually giving the children the opportunity to have quality one on one time, since we don't need to focus our attention on multiple children learning how to do the same project.

Oh, and after all the busyness in the morning I still spent almost an hour in the afternoon actually carving the pumpkins and finishing sorting the seeds. Though they did turn out pretty cute!

Our children designed pumpkins,
(just a little soft from sitting inside over the weekend...oops!)

What happens at home, doesn't always stay at home

Even as an adult it's sometimes hard to leave the troubles of home there rather than bring them to work (and vice versa), children have the same problem. A lot the kids come in, either really excited for the day or sad and dragging, wanting to go home. Sometimes their parents can tell us what's bothering the child when they drop them off. The other day one girl was in a pretty foul mood because she was only allowed to have one flavor of yogurt instead of mixing all the containers together. Yep, that was it, yogurt. Yogurt led to an extremely scowley face and stomping feet.

Sometimes though we don't get to know what's up. This morning I shook hands with lots of happy children, a few who were even jumping they were so excited to be back at school (yeah, my job's usually pretty nice huh?). But there was one hand I didn't get to shake and I didn't even realize it until about halfway through the morning. Some kids get louder, act out or cling to adults when they're feeling off; this girl clammed up and kept to herself all morning. It was such a change from her normal, chatty demeanor that I flat out asked her if she was feeling ok, thinking that she must be sick. A lackluster nod didn't make me feel much better so I invited her over to the conversation area, hoping I might be able to figure out what was bothering her.

Unfortunately I didn't find out anything. We chatted about the other children's bins, discovered that almost all the pictures on them were things you could ride, etc. Not really any helpful hints for me, especially since this is usually a very verbal child with lots to share. So I let invited her to work with me and we practiced identifying and tracing the sandpaper numbers. She perked up a bit and was really eager to try writing the numbers on a chalkboard.

I wish I could say that cured her for the rest of the day, but it didn't. She was pretty reserved at lunch, entirely missed recess because she couldn't focus enough to get dressed, and repeated this lethargy through snack and afternoon recess-even with a 2 hour nap! Sometimes you just can't push the right buttons to get the child perked up, and just hope that tomorrow will be better.

On the opposite side of the spectrum was another girl who is usually so hyper she can't contain herself, gets in trouble for it, and then gets upset. Today she came in laughing and eager to work, and though we teachers had to remind her a few times to slow down or quit bothering her classmates she had a relatively calm morning. But most amazingly at recess she managed to sit quietly on the bench when asked. The bench is somewhere that is sort of like a time-out area, but we don't call it that and really only direct the children over there if they really need to calm down. Usually when she's sent there this girl will whimper, whine, bounce and constantly ask when she can get up. Today she sat so quietly that I almost forgot she was there and actually ended up thanking her for doing so.

Who knows why these two girls were so contrary to their normal behavior today. I don't know what they did over the weekend, how much sleep they got, what they had for breakfast, if the snow on the ground disturbed them. All I know is that each day they're going to be a little bit different.

My bin, your bin, we all have a bin

My bin, your bin, we all have a bin...for work! Most Montessori schools have bins for the children to keep their 'work' (art projects, writing strips, handmade books, etc.). At our school the children bring this work home at the end of the week in their blue bags. They all get super excited for 'blue bag day' and often there are tears if a child forgets to bring the bag back and so cannot take their work home.

Because we like to review what the children are bringing home, to see how they're progressing and what they are interested in, a teacher fills up the bags right away in the morning. This week it was my job and I have to admit I found some of the most interesting items in the children's bins. Some flower petals, a broken pencil, hoarded colored pencils, hair ties, and a sweater (which just barely fit in the plastic bin).

Probably more interesting though wasn't the items themselves, but the stories they told. One younger students pin was packed absolutely full of beautiful artwork. None of which she had drawn herself, but she has a very loving older sister who loves to draw pictures for her and give them as gits. Actually finding gifts in other children's bins isn't uncommon, and it's usually best to ask if you find a piece of paper with a different child's name on it in a different bin.

I also found a bin nearly entirely empty except for a couple of scribbled drawing an a thick, stapled stack of writing strips. The strips had some really well formed cursive letters on them, completely contrary to the half-hearted scribbles of the coloring work. I would have guessed this was a younger child's bin, with the letters being  a gift from an older student, but unfortunately that's not the case. This is the bin of a student who was just on the edge of being old enough for kindergarten this year. She should have lots of beginning math and writing work filling her bin right now. Unfortunately the scribbles are more her usual style right now. The only reason the nice letters are in there, is because her mom came to observe and the little girl wanted to show off some for her. It's just frustrating because looking at the letters she has written she's more than capable of doing the more advanced work...the problem is she's not interested in focusing to learn MORE letters or even practice her numbers to get beyond these basics. We'll just have to find something to inspire her with.

Anyways, while we can learn a lot from what the children choose to put in their bin, there's always the aspects of school that can't go home. Like the help I get when it's time to hang all those blue bags back on the right hooks. I have so many children ready to help me that I can't hardly fill the bags quickly enough to keep up. I grab a bin, scan the work quick and dump it in the blue bag. One child looks at the little picture on the bin (which matches the picture near the hooks) and brings the filled bag in the coat room to hang up. Meanwhile another child returns the empty bin and helps me find them next one, which I can hopefully empty before the first child returns. Meanwhile there's still a crowd of children wanted to help put blue bags away. It's a pretty exciting process since it only happens once a week.

And I have to admit, they're pretty good about getting them on the right hook, or at least coming back to tell me they forgot who they were looking for!

Yum, it's snack time!

It was cornbread today for snack today, yum! Ok, I'm just guessing that it tastes good because the children devour it so quickly that I have yet to be able to try any. I'm taking that as a good sign though.

You know what else is good about cornbread though? The crumbs. Yep, that messy part of it actually works perfect with the grace and courtesy lesson my fellow teacher gave today. It was called: "How to have snack". Yes, that is an actual lesson in a Montessori classroom. Along with how to blow your nose, shake hands, introduce a friend, etc. And I will admit that the children probably get the most excited about the snack one.

If you think about it, having snack can be a really long process, even if it's already prepared in individual servings. Some schools simply put out a big bowl or two of whatever is for snack and then use a chalkboard or dry erase board to help the children get the appropriate amount. At our school though we portion out the snack of the day in dixie cups so it's ready to go and doesn't take as much time. However the full cycle of activity is quite long.

Now imagine that you're hungry, and decide that you want to have snack. But before you even get to snack you  need to wash your hands...with soap.
And if there's a line you need to wait in it. Oh, and if there are already 2 children having snack, you need to wait your turn for that too. Then, and only then are you actually ready to pick a snack and sit down. Unless of course you want a drink of water. Then you need to pour yourself a glass from the small pitcher on the hutch and carry it to the table. Ah, refreshing.


But even when you finish eating snack isn't over, oh no. There's crumbs to be swept up, water spills to be sponged dry, and that darn chair to push in. Then you can wash your dishes. Oh, and if there's a line you might have to wait (again!). Scrub that water glass, rinse away the bubbles and place it in the rack to dry. Whew! Now it's time to go back to work...wait...wasn't it a lot of work just to have snack.

Apparently not for some kids, since they decide to have snack twice, even though they are only supposed to have one. Oops!