Dr. Maria Montessori introduced Practical Life exercises to provide the children with opportunities to perform simple tasks that they have already observed at home. Practical Life exercises enable the children to care for themselves, take care of the environment and develop respect for others.
Care of environment activities encourage the child to interact with the environment, exhibiting respect and love. These activities help the child form a connection with their environment and find a personal responsibility towards it.
This week we introduced one of the most beloved activities in our Montessori environments: flower arrangement. This is a beautiful activity that offers so much to your child’s development. Through this exercise, children develop a sense of beauty, the mental task of sequencing, they learn to exercise the judgment of size and capacity in matching flowers to vases and in pouring water, also, manual dexterity in using scissors. This activity also indirectly prepares your child for botany studies in our Primary program and offers a great opportunity to work on independence and concentration. Your children love it! We can’t thank you enough for your weekly flower donations!

On another note, children had a great time learning how to play “Roll and Play” in a group setting, using a cube of different colors and following the directions commanded on each play card. Through this game children review colors, numbers, feelings, animals, and develop critical skills. It’s one of their favorite activities!

For food tasting we explored a green apple. Some of the children’s facial expressions when they saw a green apple were priceless! They couldn’t believe there were green apples! It was so funny to them! Needless to say, they enjoyed every bit of it!

To close our apple unit studies we presented a basic graphing exercise, where children had the opportunity to taste the three types of apples we explored during the last weeks: red, yellow, and green apples. Each toddler chose their most favorite and at the end we all counted the results.

Do you want to know which one was the winner? (Drum roll please!) To our surprise, every apple had 5 different votes! All of them were the winner! Hooray for apples!

Lastly, Shake Your Sillies Out by Andy Mason was one of the new favorite songs and Arriba (up) and Abajo (down) were the 2 new commands in Spanish learned this week.

Skin, flesh, seeds, and stem are words that we can hear often in our environment. Every morning children arrived to the classroom with one mission: Check the apple on the observation tray! Our little friends have been so amazed at the changes. At the beginning of the week, they felt tempted to bite some of that apple, in fact, one of the corners was gone. But by the end of the week those cravings were gone! 😉 Conversations about decomposition have also been an engaging tool to develop language. In contrast, this week children explored a fresh yellow apple and enjoyed the taste of it.

One of the main highlights this week was working together in making a delicious apple sauce! Using an apple peeler, each student peeled, sliced, and cored a fresh apple. Then they helped by opening the slices, arranging it in the crock pot, adding some fresh lemon juice and water. There was no need for sugar or other ingredients! Our environment smelled so delicious and children were eager in tasting the results. 100% of our class ate every little bit of it!

Food preparation is one of the main areas in our Practical Life area of the curriculum! There are many benefits to involving children in food prep. Even the pickiest of eaters has been known to be more willing to try things when they have had a hand in preparing it. These works also help develop fine motor skills, build coordination, and create a sense of community, as well as increase knowledge of nutrition, science, and math.

In addition to this fun project, we used this opportunity to present a lesson on Grace and Courtesy. Two of our oldest toddlers worked into spooning some apple sauce into small bowls and serving the younger toddlers in Mrs. Wilson’s class. They felt so proud of their work. It was precious!

On another note, children worked this week in a special art project that will be exhibited in Oktoberfest this coming Saturday, October 5th, from 4-8pm at FWM! We really hope you and your family can join us! It’s going to be great fun!

Fall is here everybody! As the season changes and temperatures start to drop slowly, we entered our unit on the exploration of one of the most delicious seasonal fruits: the apple! With great expectation, your children enjoyed the fun sensorial activity of dissecting an apple! With senses full of curiosity, children touched, observed, smelled, and tasted a delicious apple. While children observed its parts, they were exposed to new vocabulary, such as: skin, flesh, seeds, and stem. A remaining part of the dissected apple is now part of our observation tray where children can observe the different stages of decomposition.

In the language area students that showed readiness were also introduced to three period lessons using different materials. Three period lessons are a fundamental approach in our Montessori environment to introducing a new concept (not just vocabulary) to children. They are used to move the child from basic understanding to mastery. The three period lesson was developed by Edouard Seguin, a French physician who worked with special needs children in France and the United States during the late 19th century. He discovered ways to increase children’s cognitive abilities and believed in the importance of developing their self-reliance and independence. Seguin’s writings were a major inspiration to Maria Montessori and the source of many of her practical ideas. In simple terms, the three steps, or periods, are:

1. Naming (Introduction) “This is a dog.”
2. Recognizing (Identification) “Show me the dog.”
3. Remembering (Cognition) “What is this?”

In the practical life area we focused this week on a fundamental lesson: how to clean a dry spill! As basic as it sounds, this was one of the most popular activities of the week. Practical life activities are the most important activities for toddlers! Activities for care of the environment are both fun and great for developing order, concentration, coordination, and independence.

Other highlights of the week were the introduction to our new song: “Way up High in the Apple Tree,” where children practiced the numbers one through five, and their favorite books: Ten Apples Up on Top by Dr. Seuss, Apple Countdown by Joan Hulub, and Apples, Apples, Apples by Nancy Elizabeth Wallace.

As the weekend approaches, we encourage you to enjoy the sunshine and the beautiful weather and visit an apple farm with your little one. It will be a great experience for them during the continuation of our apple studies.

Reminder:
Oktoberfest is just around the corner! (October 5th) Come and join us for an afternoon of fun activities for the whole family! We really hope to see you there and have a great time together!