Color recognition can provide children with essential learning tools in life. For example, in mathematics, color recognition is used to categorize, sort, compare, and organize. Additionally, as children learn to identify colors and use color as a language tool to describe things, it develops and strengthens their ability to communicate effectively. Recognizing and identifying the color names is an important part of a child’s development. It is considered a marker and milestone in a child’s cognitive process.

Colors are part of our daily lessons throughout the school year when using the different materials, games, books, songs, and activities in our environment. This week, due to the upcoming holiday of St. Patrick’s day, we focused on studying the colors of the rainbow and children just seemed to love it!

As introductory activities this week, we used a lot of verbal communication, sorting and classifying games and activities. Verbal communication is a great way to teach the children about colors as we give them some vocabulary for starting to describe the world around them. With our youngest we focused on the primary colors, and with our oldest we worked on recognizing and identifying secondary colors and their light and dark shades. 

Exploring food color is one fun way to connect children with their surroundings. Who knew that colors also serve a nutritional purpose? 🙂 Children learned that it’s important to “eat a rainbow” meaning that it’s important to eat fruits and vegetables from each color to keep our bodies strong and healthy. During snack and lunch, children started to share and have conversations about the colors they saw on their plate. We encourage you to do this at home as well.  

On another note, children were very curious about what food we were going to taste this week as they recognize this activity as a part of our weekly routine. Every week they are hopeful the food tasting item is cake. 😉 Children explored and tasted asparagus, which was very well received by most of the children.  

We can’t wait to continue to explore this beautiful, colorful world with your children when they return. 

Enjoy the pictures and we hope you have a fantastic Spring break!

Stay safe, warm and happy!

Mrs. Hood and Ms. Maria 

Human emotion. We are so very lucky to each experience such a wide-ranging set of feelings, but that experience can be quite the roller coaster, especially if you are a toddler.

Supporting and teaching  emotional intelligence to our students is  definitely one of our main goals. We do so, first of all, by teaching the toddlers to identify and name emotions; their own emotions and the emotions they see in others.  It’s also a good to teach children there are a range of emotions and ALL  emotions are OK. Once children can name their emotions they can better express themselves, feel heard and understood. We can then help the child develop techniques to manage the emotion.

During the last couple of weeks we have focused on talking about this in our environment. We use songs, group games, emotion cards and beautiful books to practice their names and what that emotion looks like. This week, children also had the opportunity to use the emotion cards as an individual work using a table mirror. The children seem to love to observe  the picture cards and copy the facial expressions in the mirror. With the older toddlers, we also use this work as enrichment of vocabulary activities  by establishing conversations with the child and wondering together what they think happened to the children in the picture. Why are they feeling that way? Oh! the stories they come up with are just so great!

Some of the emotions the children have been already introduced to are: happy, sad, angry, silly, excited, scared, shy and surprised. In the coming months we will continue to add more to the list.

For some of you that are very interested in the books we read in the classroom, the favorite books this week has been: In My Heart by Jo Witek, The Feelings Book by Todd Parr, The Color Monster by Anna Llenas, The Calm Down Time and Feet Are Not For Kicking by Elizabeth Verdick. In another note Where is the Poop by Julie Markes and Come Out Mr. Poo by Janelle McGuiness are some of the favorite books as well 🙂

As final highlights, we welcomed a new student and her family to our class, had a blast celebrating wonderful Ms. Maria and we got to surprise our nurse, Mrs. Benoit!  For food tasting we explored Lemons and oh boy! It was fun! Children learned a new word and after tasting the lemon they couldn’t stop saying it: SOUR!

Enjoy the weekend,

Mrs. Hood and Mrs. Maria

“Of all things, love is the most potent.” – Maria Montessori

Humans have an innate desire to connect, to experience dynamic relationships with one another. At around 18 months, there are notable changes in cognitive skills that help real friendships blossom. The toddler becomes more consciously aware of themself and others. Watching toddlers making friends for the first time is truly a delight! In our environment, children show excitement every morning when they see their friends and even though some of them cannot pronounce their friends’ names yet, they point to their friends with a big smile on their faces, pat them on the back (or on their heads) and offer hugs. During circle time, children look to sit closer to their friends and they love walking while holding hands together.

Grace and courtesy is one of the most important areas in our Montessori curriculum. Grace being the outer expression of our inner selves as observed in body language and movements: facial expressions such as smiles, eye contact, tone of voice, inflection of the voice, body movements and the actual words used to express ourselves. Courtesy is the manners given for human interaction. Neither grace nor courtesy are instinctive. They are acquired. The desire to acquire social skills is a fundamental need in a child in order for them to become fully integrated into their culture and fully adapted to society. In our Toddler level the constant, daily lessons in this area are used through intentional modeling rather than specific lessons presented, as children will encounter in our Primary levels. It’s truly amazing to observe how your children have grown in this area, despite their young age. It’s SO wonderful!

On another note, based on Valentine’s day, children had a blast preparing for our Friendship Celebration! They really enjoyed experimenting with shaving cream and food coloring to create beautiful marbled hearts to decorate their Valentine’s day bags, they practiced their food preparation skills by spreading sunbutter on a delicious apple ring and decorated it freely with sprinkles to create “donuts” and they seemed so joyful sharing their lovely valentines with each of their friends! During circle time that day, we talked about how hugs make our brain happy and it was just so amazing to see how each child chose a friend to offer a hug. We read and reflected on one of the most beloved books from your children lately called: Kindness Makes Us Strong by Sophie Beer and we finished our morning with an epic dance party with heart balloons!

Love was and IS still in the air and we couldn’t be more thankful!

Enjoy the pics,

Mrs. Hood and Ms. Maria

“Learning to use the toilet is a natural process that begins when your child’s desire to be grown up and his neurological development have reached the point where he can control his bladder and bowels. We don’t train children to use the toilet, we support them when they are ready.” (How to Raise an Amazing Child: The Montessori way to bring up caring confident children, by Tim Seldin)

As children continue to work on their self-caring skills, we want to focus our attention this week on what has become a popular topic (and sometimes a dreaded one) between the parents: “potty training.”

In our Montessori environment we call it “toilet learning” since we believe that using the toilet is a very natural and gradual process that develops at the child’s pace, rather than when the adult decides the child is going to be toilet ‘trained.’ In our experience as Montessorians, we have witnessed toddlers as early as 20 months to as late as closer to three years old master these skills. Also, we have observed that apart from the developmental stage the child is in, one of the main factors for success relies on the parent’s commitment early on to support this process at home by making their child an active participant in the diaper changing process as we do in our environment.

You might be asking yourself: “But how do we do this?” “How can we support our child at home?”

As this topic can be extensive due to the fact that this type of support can start even when your child is a young baby, we are going to leave you here with some important tips focused on your specific toddlers and their stage of development:

1. Ditch the changing table and start changing your child in the bathroom area. This is important as it sends a clear message to the child that this is where we go to be changed and use the toilet.
2. Prepare the environment. You may use a potty to start if you feel your child needs some more balance or you may add a toilet seat to your regular toilet. If using the latter, please find a stable stool where your child will feel secure and encouraged to use the toilet. Add a basket with clean diapers and wipes and also a basket with books, so children are encouraged to sit on the toilet and wait when needed. If your child is showing signs of readiness, a basket of clean training underwear and a basket for wet underwear should be part of this area.
3. Incorporate CONSISTENT toileting into your child’s routine. Offer the potty/toilet at times when the child normally urinates or has bowel movements (Ex. after waking up, before going outside, after coming in from outside, after lunch/before nap etc.)
4. Say “It’s time to use the toilet,” rather than “Do you want to go to the toilet?” (The answer will usually be no.) As the child becomes more aware of their body they will be able to tell you, “No, I don’t need to go.” You can then say something like, “Of course, I know you will tell me if you need any help when you need to go.” You can also use an alarm clock set at regular intervals to remind them to go, “The clock says it’s time to use the toilet.”
5. Never force a child to use the toilet or potty.
6. Do not interrupt the child to use the toilet—for example, wait until they have finished their puzzle, etc. before offering the toilet.
7. Focus on encouraging your child to be active part of the process by asking them to push their pants down, open the tabs of their own diaper, recognize if they have had a bowel movement or not (we always ask this as to teach the children that if they have had a bowel movement, they will need our support to remove the diaper), wipe (when having a bowel movement we provide a small stool where they can turn around and put their hands on it for stabilization and the adult will clean them), place diaper in the trash, pull their own pants up after receiving a new diaper and wash/dry hands. This is a daily routine in our environment. As soon as you incorporate this at home, we believe your child will increase their interest and signs of readiness will become more obvious.
8. Provide clothing that supports the process. Avoid zippers, buttons, tight clothing, dresses, onesies, jeans, overalls, rompers, etc.

Reminder: Please avoid this type of clothing on your child for school as well.

When should my child transition into wearing underwear?

When your child is staying dry for long periods, telling you when they are wet or soiled and they are having consistent success using the toilet at home and at school, it may be time to transition into underwear. The thick, quilted training pants work best as they allow the child to feel the wetness, and are more absorbent than the thinner cotton underwear. When circumstances allow, you may let the child go bare-bottom at home. This can help them see and understand what is happening. Please be aware that toddlers usually show signs of readiness at home first and as they become more confident in the process, the transition into school life usually is peaceful and successful.

Communication between home and school is vital in this process. Please always reach out with any questions you may have! We will be more than glad to assist you!

We can’t wait to share more information about this, related to your specific toddler in our parent-teacher conference next Thursday, February 17th.

Enjoy some of the pictures of your busy bees this week!

Have a great weekend,

Mrs. Hood and Ms. Maria 

“There should be no pressure, no reward or punishment, no adult deciding when the child should learn to use the potty. The environment is prepared and the child is free to explore and imitate in these natural developmental stages.” (The Joyful Child)