Practical life lessons are all everyday duties that are part of our life. These lessons help the children learn how to take care of themself and their environment. In addition to these activities, we added classroom jobs this week.

The children are naturally drawn to these jobs. They don’t see them as duties, they want to copy what they see us doing. They find meaning, fun, and satisfaction in having responsibilities in their classroom. It also helps the children gain self-confidence and be contributing members of the classroom. It encourages independence and a sense of responsibility in our children.

The job charts identify the classroom jobs that are completed every day to make it visual and easy to grasp for children. I take pictures of the children doing the jobs and I print them and laminate them. Using a pocket chart hung on the wall, a photo of each job title is placed in the pocket and the name of the child is placed in front of it. These are some examples of the jobs: playing the music box while walking on the line to transition from circle time to start a work cycle, the door holder, wiping the table, and watering the plants.

We introduce the classroom job chart on each Monday during circle time, announcing a job title for each child’s assigned week.

Wishing you a week filled with love and peace.

Kaoutar and Sara

Hosting a fall Primary Harvest Celebration is one of the many ways to celebrate this beautiful season at Fraser Woods. Our Harvest celebration offers opportunities to have fun and experience the different smells and tastes of the fall season. It was very lovely to see the children coming on Wednesday morning full of joy and excitement to start their celebration day.

First, we set up the pumpkin station at circle time. Mrs. Sara carved the big pumpkin, while she talked about the smells, seeds, and ideas to carve the pumpkin. She also showed them how to personalize a pumpkin by adding hair, eyes, and a mouth. Then, she lit a little candle inside the carved pumpkin. Meanwhile, the children were enjoying their beautiful, delicious, and spectacular Halloween cookies with water. We also went outdoors for a pumpkin hunt. The children were very happy searching for their preferred pumpkin and bringing it back to the classroom for decoration. The children had a lot of fun decorating their sugar pumpkin with yarn, googly eyes, and felt. Then, we sat outside our classroom watching the Middle School and Elementary Halloween Parade. The children had a wonderful time during the Harvest Celebration. Thank you for all your donations and s special thanks to Lidia and Kenyon for organizing the event and thinking about every detail to make it an enjoyable experience.

It was very lovely to meet and connect with all of you for Parent-Teacher conferences via Zoom. Thank you for your open communication, our goal is always to work together for the benefit of our children. Please feel free to reach out at any time.

Wishing you a wonderful weekend.

Kaoutar and Sara

One of our main focuses at the beginning of the year is to introduce fine motor works in the practical life area. Practical life includes pouring, squeezing, and spooning. Adding to these lessons are the additional goals of helping the children increase their attention span and follow a sequence of steps. These indirect goals help the children to handle more complex work in other areas of the classroom.

Last month we presented dry pouring and dry spooning. Those skills are taught in isolation until the child masters them. This month we introduced water pouring and water spooning or scooping. To make it fun and appealing for children we add yellow food coloring to the water. We showed them how to pour water by holding the handle of the pitcher with the dominant hand and putting the non-dominant hand under the pitcher and pouring slowly into another pitcher. In case of a spill, we use the sponge to wipe it.

We also introduced the globe this week. Children love to learn about our planet Earth where we live. We find the best way for them to learn the names of the continents is by singing the continents song and pointing to each continent on the globe. As an extension of their understanding, we talk about the shape of our planet earth as a sphere. To transfer this to a large wooden map, we have to divide the sphere into 2 hemispheres. We showed them a visual example of this by dividing an apple in half, with each half representing a hemisphere, using the apple to represent the globe. Children are motivated with spontaneous interest and curiosity to know about the globe and North America. It is a very precious moment to hear three years old at circle time saying, “We live in North America.”

Wishing you a wonderful weekend!

Kaoutar and Sara

Maria Montessori believes that children have a natural sensitivity for language at a very early age. The children at years three, four, and five have a unique fascination for both written and spoken words. This fascination motivates the children to start reading and writing at a very early stage. Children with good phonemic awareness are often ready and eager to build words before their hands are ready to hold the pencil and write.

The Movable Alphabet is for the composition of words. The goal is expression. It is introduced to the children after they have learned sandpaper letters, knowing the phonetic sound of the letters, the letter type (vowel or consonant), and the signs to write. When the children are using the Movable Alphabet, all the letters are in front of them.

Using the Movable Alphabet, the children start to make a connection between the spoken and the written words. This is a powerful connection and the children need to make these discoveries themselves. The children will form CVC words by hearing the sounds, isolating, and blending words like cat, log, and pig.

The Movable Alphabet is an exploration of children’s language and our goal is not to read at this point, which is why we don’t read the words back. It will be the children’s discovery of a magical moment when one day they read the word back.

Virtual Parent-Teacher Conferences are coming up on October 28th! Please look for an email this coming Tuesday with a link for you to sign up for your conference slot. 

Grace and courtesy are well-known values and norms of behavior which enable children to move and work cooperatively. In the Montessori environment children may move freely, but not run or push. They may talk softly, not loudly. Grace and courtesy lessons help children understand polite social norms.

In our Montessori classroom we believe that, through daily modeling and lessons, even very young children are capable of much more than is traditionally expected of them.

As Montessori teachers we are guides and role models for our young learners. We are very cautious about how we act in front of children when interacting with other adults at school as well as with young learners. In the classroom we model soft voices, walking feet, and carrying the tray with two hands. We also have a deep respect for the child’s concentration while they are working; we are always careful not to interrupt the child’s work. These are examples of our daily interactions with children.

Teachers introduce lessons explicitly to teach grace and courtesy. We observe and take note of any undesired behavior. We select a neutral time when everyone is calm and ready to absorb the lesson and show children step by step how a certain behavior or activity is done. The following are some of the exercises of grace and courtesy:

• Watching others work without disturbing or interfering
• Waiting for turns
• Covering a sneeze, yawn, or cough
• Conflict resolution (how and when)

Through the adult’s daily display of acts of kindness, attention, and respect for others, the children will grow up to be caring human beings.

Mrs. Semmah and Mrs. Sara

“The child is both a hope and a promise for mankind.”

Maria Montessori, Education and Peace

Maria Montessori strongly believed in the children’s potential and capacity to attain peace on earth and for all. A Montessori classroom is a peaceful environment where children learn about the values of respect, compassion, and kindness through everyday interactions with each other and the adults in the environment.

Children are shown respect, so they learn respect. Children are shown compassion, so they learn compassion. Children are shown kindness, so they learn kindness. In the Montessori curriculum, we show an appreciation for diversity and respect for all cultures. It is possible to avoid or fear whatever we do not understand, and in the Montessori classroom, we seek to understand.

Following our yearly tradition at Fraser Woods, we celebrated the International Day of Peace on Tuesday, September 21^st. We talked about the meaning of peace and ways we can promote peace in our environment. And quoting the children, peace is “being calm,” “being nice to others,” “playing together,” “sharing my toys with my sister,” and “giving a flower to Mommy.”

May children everywhere enjoy the peace and be our hope and promise for a better tomorrow.

Peace!

Mrs. Semmah and Mrs.Sara.

Starting a brand new classroom is both exciting and meaningful.

It is essential to implement some special strategies for a successful start, feeling safe and secure, and experiencing a smooth transition.

During these first weeks, children are looking for teachers to give them a sense of security. Hugs, smiles, and kindness are our daily acts to respond to our children’s needs. Children have to trust that there is someone in the room who can be there for them. They may need a lot of assistance developing independence in the bathroom and with snack time. For them, feeling connected to their teachers who care and love them is the key to maintain a trusting relationship and feeling loved.

Throughout phase-in days, children come to school for just an hour and a half to two hours. We select a few familiar materials like puzzles, blocks, and crayons on tables or on floor mats for them to use. We greet children with a handshake, and we show them the arrival procedure. We give special attention to children who might be feeling separation anxiety.

On the second day, we still have materials on the mats, but we also open the practical life shelf that includes lessons of pouring, transferring, and bead stringing. Our main role is to supervise and support children as they move between activities. During circle time, we review a few items from our grace and courtesy lessons. Examples: circle etiquette, floor, and table lessons, and how to handle materials with care. We also try to give small group lessons of 4 to 5 children and showing them the complete cycle from beginning to end. Start at the shelf, show how to handle a tray, how to do the work, and how to put it away.

By the second week, children have picked up on some basic routines and have learned how to work with some basic lessons. We focus on mastering the routines and introducing a variety of lessons while opening a new area of the classroom every day during this week including sensorial experience, math, science, geography, peace corner, and language.

I feel strongly that devoting attention, affection, and support to new learners is very rewarding. It takes a lot of repetition of basic lessons consistently, so children can see the practice repeated until they master the new skills.

Enjoy these second-week pictures!

Mrs. Semmah and Mrs. Sara