Happy New Year!

No, this post isn't late, today was the start of the new year, at least according to the Chinese calendar. We had a wonderful father who was interested in helping his daughter share some Chinese new year traditions with the class. He donated a workbook and some beautiful decorations for the week so we could tell the children a little bit about how the holiday was celebrated.

Best of all though, he and his daughter worked together to fill some red bags with the traditional orange and 'good luck' envelope for each of her classmates. The little girl was so excited and couldn't wait to hand out the gifts to her classmates! I have to say the funniest part was that we allowed her to pass them out (since she had made them after all!) and she would wait patiently for the child to say "thank you" before going to get the bag for the next child. Not a bad way to help enforce some good manners!

We also put out coloring sheets for the children, with markers even! They were over the moon with excitement about that. I'm not sure how much they all took in about the holiday, but they definitely got the feel that it was a special day. The older children were very interested in learning which zodiac animal was theirs, though they were a little confused about the fact that the animals where for an entire year, rather than a single month.

My favorite part of the day though was something that hadn't been planned. The temperature was hovering just at the 'too cold to go outside for recess' mark and myself and the other teacher finally gave in to not going outside. I'll admit it, we were tired of spending about half an hour getting the children to pack up their lunches and get dressed to go outside. Yeah, we wimped out, but I promise I made it worthwhile for the children!

Thinking about what little group activity we would do at the end of free time a light bulb went off. (Warning: slight smugness and ego boosting ahead!) While keeping one eye on the playing children I pulled off a decent 'lion' mask out of leftover cardboard, construction paper and paper towel tubes. Several of the children watched the process and with some coaxing did guess that I was making a lion for Chinese new year, but they weren't quite sure for what.

When all the toys were picked up I introduced the mask to all the children, and told them about the lion constumes in new years parades that had multiple people in them. At this point some of the older children were catching on to my idea and were already bouncing in their spots and raising their hands to be the first ones to try it out. I called up one of the oldest to be the lion head, showed him how to hold the two pieces and then called up two other children to help make up the body of the lion. one brown sheet and viola! We had a lion costume!

They had a blast pretending to be in a parade. I put on some music (not very parade appropriate music but the children didn't care) and they wiggled around the line on the tile area. The others thought this was pretty cool too and I had more eager volunteers than I could handle to take the next spin the lion costume.

Not too shabby an activity for something put together in about 10 minutes, plus the added bonus of fitting in to the theme of the day!

Starting the day off right

It's not just breakfast that starts a day out right, and even having a good breakfast doesn't necessarily make the day good. But working with children? Something's bound to make the day brighter.

The troop from daycare came in eagerly this morning but I didn't get my usual good morning handshake. I got hugs instead! I don't know if I looked like I needed a hug or what, but it was a nice way to start the morning.

And it kept getting better.

J came in, a giant grin on her face and an eager handshake. She had been sick the day before and just when I finished saying that I was glad she was back one of the 4 year olds came up and said the exact same thing to her. J looked at her, a little confused, and asked, "Why's everyone so glad to see me?" I had to laugh and ask her "Well why wouldn't they be?" And her face just lit up with a huge grin.

Later this same girl took out the moveable alphabet and wrote more words with it than I've ever seen her do before.

But wait!

There's more!

L came into the classroom, literally skipping with happiness. She held up a hand for me to shake, grinned out a good morning and then danced off to find work.

So about that rule for walking...who can stand to curb that kind of excitement?

Words of the day

I walked up to E and asked if she was done with the drawing tray, since she had left her table and was wandering around with the piece of paper in her hand.

"No."

"Well then you need to stay with your work."

"But I need a new piece of paper!"

She held it up, showing off a very small amount of coloring surrounded by a lot of empty space.

"You don't want to add any more?"

"No, it's for O."

"Don't you think she'd like it to have more color?"

"But I blessued on it."

"What?"

"I blessued."

Pause

"You sneezed on it?"

Vigorous head nodding.

"Ah, well then let's get a clean one to color for her."

I hope O appreciated her friends artistic sacrifice in an effort to keep her germs to herself!

Getting ridiculous

So I understand that everyone, everywhere in the USA is experiencing this polar vortex so I can't complain too much....

But seriously, 7 snow/cold days off already this year is getting a bit ridiculous.

And it's only January! Lots of opportunities to have still more days off. And I know I really shouldn't be complaining about getting free time but it gets a little old when it's too cold to enjoy it. Oh well, at least I'm getting lots of classroom materials made. I hope the children enjoy them.

Language materials ready to laminate!

The long road to sleeping

O slept during nap today.

And yesterday.

And the day before that.

And two of the five days last week.

I don't want to jinx it, but I think she may be finally settling in to the routine! I guess it just takes some children...5 months...to learn how to lay quietly on a blanket. We've had to do lots of little tweaks to reach this point.

The first two months were exclusively trying to find a place in the nap room, thinking she just needed to adjust to the space. After it was pretty clear that wasn't the case O was placed on a chair outside the nap room until she could control her body and keep from waking the other nappers up.

Hence began the time of shifting. Shifting her off the cot, shifting her out of the nap room, shifting her to the classroom to rest, shifting her to the coat room, and shifting an adult to sit by the coat room to ensure she wasn't doing circus tricks.

Finally we had gotten her to the point where she could stay on the blanket, though not necessarily still or quiet, for the rest hour. But the crankiness and occasional meltdowns when it was time to go home convinced us teachers that she needed to actually sleep as well.

And so the little tweaks started. Choosing 3 books to look at and help make the transition. A light stool defining the space for her blanket between it and the wall. And a pep talk about how important it is to focus on laying still when she gets impatient.

Phew, talk about a lot of work to get one little girl to sleep.
Welcome to the world of Montessori preschool....I don't recall covering this in training.....

New and exciting

Sometimes brand new things can be exciting, but in our classroom it's more likely that something old is made to seem new.

Yesterday I introduced a new aspect to the clay work. Up to this point our clay has been just the ball of clay and some small wooden shapes. I noticed that the children were not really using the shapes and decided to mix it up some by introducing some tools to add textures to the clay. And the kids took off with it. That clay work was THE work to have. Everyone wanted to use it, they all wanted to observe the other children using it, there were negotiations about who would use it next. With one simple change that work has become of the utmost interest to children who could have cared less about it a week ago.

Hopefully I can snap a picture tomorrow of how interested they have been.

Another old material that became new today was the pink tower and the brown stair. A couple of children where being a little silly with the material and the other classroom teacher gave them a little direction. She showed how they could combine them into a tower and then carefully remove the cube of the pink tower (kind of like jenga). They thought that was just the coolest thing and another child who had just been watching was so excited that he asked to join them. Together the three of them started really exploring different ways to build the tower.

After a while though I noticed they were just sitting talking, and when I heard that they were talking to each other about who was the baby, the daddy, the mommy, etc. I stepped in and asked what they were going to build next. They looked a little lost and I suggested that maybe they could build something long instead of tall. Their eyes lit up and one immediately jumped up to go and get another mat.

The next time I looked they were screeching in delight as they rolled out a 4th mat in order to accommodate the growing 'snake' they had built from the blocks. Their excitement drew a crowd and other children started marveling at how long the work was. Unfortunately it did ramp up the noise level of the room and I felt like I need to ask them to contain the work back on one mat so there was room to walk around again. Luckily they were pretty happy to do so, especially because they each had their own mat to roll up because they had taken out so many.

And when they finally put it away, guess what happened? Someone else immediately took it out and started exploring for themselves. Success.

Learning to work together

Both S and L didn't fall asleep at nap today, so they came in to the classroom with me for the afternoon. By this point in the day the oldest children are about an hour in to the afternoon workcycle and so it's important that any nappers who can't sleep don't disrupt them. I usually try to take advantage of this to work one on one with the younger children but had some cutting prep for an art work to do. So instead I proposed this to S and L-

"Do you guys want to work together?" "YEAH!" I had them set out the color tablets, showing them how to get out only one of each color. Then I used a small indicator stick to point to one tablet and sent both girls out in search of something that was the same color. After a couple more turns, making sure they understood the 'game' and the idea of taking turns, I stepped back and let them run it.

This is one of the hardest things to learn as a Montessori Directress, when to step back and leave the child working. The role of the teacher is simply to guide the child in how to use the material, and then let them explore and learn from it at their own pace.

I purposely set up my cutting work at a table where I could still see and hear the girls without being in their way. S and L did come and check in with me a couple times, mainly to show off what they had found for colors. Otherwise they were quite happy to take turns choosing the color and then both going to find an object to show the other. Finally they got stuck on looking for something gray and kind of gave up and put the work away.

But still, they're 3, that's a pretty good process for them. They cooperated, took turns, and even decided together when they were finished working. Actually sometimes I think those younger children end up working better together than the older ones!

Sometimes there's more chaos than order

Today I stopped a child cutting a table with scissors.

Today I found two children playing hide and seek with the coat room door.

Today I saw a child encouraging another to dunk their snack in the water cup until it splashed.

Today I spotted a child army crawling around the classroom.

Today I noticed two children using a working mat as a boat. (creative but....)

Today I halted a lot of running/skipping/hopping/twirling feet.

Today I caught one falling child (doing one of the above actions)

Today I beheld several colliding children (also doing one of the before mentioned actions)

Today I watched a child fall out of a chair.

Today I observed a child chewing on a pencil.

Today I noticed two children standing on the windowsill.

Today I found the tablecloth underneath the table.

But today I also taught a child how to sew a button, watched another begin taking responsibility for his work, and yet a third child concentrate, oh so carefully, on building a delicate tower.

Sometimes there's more chaos then order

P.S. Can I blame the full moon...or is that cheating?

Presentations, presentations and more presentations!

A presentation is what a Montessori directress calls the process of showing a new material to a child. Most children love getting presentations, even if they're not particularly excited about what the activity is they love the one on one time with the adult. I normally don't do a lot of new presentations in our classroom because we want to limit how many new things the child is introduced to at a time so they go back and practice what they have already been shown. So my fellow teacher and I have decided that it's best if she does the majority of the presenting and I focus more on showing the children extensions and reinforcing what they learned the first time. Today though it just worked out that I had a lot of opportunities to give new presentations.

I caught L right when she came in and said that magic words "I haven't worked with you in a while, what would you like to do?" The first thing she blurted out was the color wheel. I grinned and reminded her that she already knew that work so well that she didn't need me to help her. Instead I offered to show her the leaf cards and had her set out the mat. She laid out one set of the cards and I read off the names of the leaves before handing her the card to match.

Unfortunately I was interrupted a few times during the presentation. Ideally this should be a time where the teacher is completely focused on the one child, but with one of the other teachers busy greeting children at the door I had to step away from L to remind other children to stay in the classroom. Luckily L was patient and I did try to leave her with a card to match when I stepped away. Overall I think L enjoyed matching the cards and she was really quick even though there are a lot of different leaves to look through, and since they're real leaves they aren't truly identical.

My next presentation actually started before I even finished doing leaves with L. A came in and the first thing she asked me was if I was going to give her the presentation I had given her friend M the day before. I told her sure, surprised she had remembered that I wanted to show her subtraction and seemed pretty excited about it. So I had her start setting up the cards for the golden beads. That's one of the really nice things about working with the older children, they can really take direction, and set up even new works independently.

A and I flashed through the process of doing subtraction. She knew exactly how to count the beads, remembered the numbers she needed to get and eagerly followed the steps. In fact she had such a good time that as soon as we finished reciting the problem she asked if we could do it again! I apologized that I needed to work with some other children and suggested a few other friends who knew subtraction that she could ask to work with her. Unfortunately they all declined and she just cleaned it up instead.

Next I reviewed a counting work with one of the four year old boys, helping him recognize his numbers and double check his work. I got another boy started on the sound book he was supposed to be making, helping him find a table where he wouldn't get distracted. I also tried to engage one of the four year old girls in to doing a fetching work since she wasn't working, but rather being silly and distracting her friends. She didn't like that idea though and turned me down. Ouch. Though she was polite about it. Just asking though had desired affect of getting her to buckle down and choose a work to do.

As the day was drawing to a close I saw N running around the classroom, trying to play chase with some other children. I got him to stop running, asked if he had a work out and then told him to come with me and choose one of the chains. This was the first presentation I gave today that wasn't optional. Usually it should be optional if the child wants to come to the presentation, but occasionally, like in this situation, it's necessary to divert them to something more productive.

So N chose the short 7 chain and I introduced him to the arrows that went with it. He quickly caught on to the idea of counting and placing the arrows. Since it was so easy for him I also introduced him to writing the numbers down on special graph paper. Why hold him back when he's obviously ready for more challenging work? It took right up until the end of the work cycle, but N finished writing his number for the chain and I'm sure he's excited to bring that paper home.

Whew, a lot of new materials today. Now hopefully they all liked the work enough to try it again tomorrow.

Quote of the day

Overheard from the hallway- "When I grow up, I want to be an adult."

Good goal little girl, good goal!