“Movement, or physical activity, is thus an essential factor in intellectual growth, which depends upon the impressions received from outside. Through movement we come in contact with external reality, and it is through these contacts that we eventually acquire even abstract ideas.”- Maria Montessori- The Secret of Childhood

One of the main advantages of our prepared environment is the opportunity for children to move freely! Children engage with the materials as long as they want and are able to choose activities that perfect different skills – all while they think they are just playing! In addition, this week we observed that it was a great experience to go to the gym. ( We actually did it twice! Yay!) This year our toddlers have access to the gym all week at different times! We are so thankful for it, since we truly are able to “follow the child” and adjust activities according to their needs without interrupting their work cycle.

Children enjoyed the obstacle course, jumping and running as fast as they could! They enjoyed playing with the balls and they even stopped at the music station to show off some quite impressive dance moves! 🙂 Their smiles and loud laughing were just incredible! We had so much fun!

In the classroom we continued focusing on apples! In addition to all the choices they have on the shelves, children experimented with painting and they couldn’t believe we were using a real apple for stamping! They found it hilarious and fun!. 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 but now those cravings are gone! 😉 Conversations about decomposition have also been an engaging tool to develop language this week.

We can’t wait to start our unit on pumpkins next!

This week children enjoyed a fun Sensorial activity: Dissecting an apple! With senses full of curiosity children touched, observed, smelled, and tasted a delicious apple. Children observed what parts we find in apples and were exposed to new vocabulary such as “skin,” “flesh,” and “seeds.” They also experienced the difference in texture and flavor between the skin and flesh of the apple. The remaining half of an apple is part of our observation tray where children are able to observe the different stages of decomposition.

Some water projects were introduced this week as well. As children are getting more familiar with the rules of the environment we introduced water pouring in our practical life area and introduced it as part of our self feeding activities-both using glass vessels! The children absolutely LOVED it! It’s so incredible to see the look of inner pride on a child’s face when he or she is able to accomplish a task! Independence is of extreme importance to the child. In order to grow and develop, the child must be able to function by himself. This will set a pattern for good work habits, a sense of responsibility, and will help the children learn, think, and discover for themselves!

This week was a lot of fun for everyone! We had Madison Jackson’s mom Lisa come in to help us make rain sticks with the children. Each child received one of the empty water bottles that you all kindly donated in the fall. My daughters and I gathered sticks from around our yard during a break between snow storms and these were broken down and each child placed a few in their bottle. Using funnels, the children then added rice and glitter. The end product looks like a tiny winter wonderland in a bottle and sounds divine! We even used our rain sticks with Mrs. Kim during our music class with her this week! We will keep the rain sticks in our environment to continue making music and send them home as the children wish to do so.

Another enjoyable activity this week was a food tasting. Montessori philosophy is all about learning through the senses, and taste is definitely an enjoyable sense to explore at this age.

Language, more than anything else, distinguishes humankind from other living creatures. Communication, among other significant advantages, is the most important benefit we derive from language. Language also plays a vital role in the life of an individual and therefore, can provide insights into a child’s development. Although a child does not need to be taught to speak, he must have exposure to language in order for it to fully develop. Beginning in infancy, the sensitive period for language acquisition undergoes significant growth and culminates around the age of six. We believe that the study of language is an essential feature during the first few years of a child’s education. Mrs. Wilson and I have been committed to provide the gift of language for each child in our class as they navigate through the most important years for language acquisition.

As we know, during the second year of life, there is a rapid growth in language comprehension. Towards the end of the second year the child is able to combine two or more words into basic sentences. This year is marked by a sudden and rapid development that Dr. Montessori referred to as the explosion of speech. “Every child… bursts out with a number of words all perfectly pronounced. And all this occurs at the end of the second year of his life” (The Absorbent Mind, 10, pg. 103).
This has been so evident in our environment during the last couple of weeks. Suddenly children have the desire to share stories, to create stories, ask more logical questions, have conversations with their peers, and many of them have improved on working on problem solving with their friends without much assistance from us as Guides and making their needs to be known without using much tears.

This week one of their favorite activities has been the Sequences set. These are little picture cards which they need to order to make stories. Through this they become familiar with concepts of time, logical thinking, language development and verbal expression. It helps them to talk about images by narrating a coherent story. They love it!

Another favorite work this week has been the picture to transparent overlay picture matching. They need to figure out what overlay corresponds with the picture on the wooden board. They repeat this activity over and over again.

One of the things that we as guides enjoy the most has been witnessing the development from watching your children sitting and looking at the picture books to now “reading” out loud while analyzing the pictures and creating the stories.
Some of them are moving into the analysis of letter sounds and formation, specifically with their written names. This is so exciting!!

In Practical life, children have been enjoying mirror washing! This is a multi-step activity that aims to hand and eye coordination, order,independence, movement and developing of the hand which supports their pre-writing skills. Another work they love have been the culturally diverse cloth dolls where they practice zipping, buttoning, snapping, velcroing and lacing. Through this exercise they also learn seriating skills.

The favorite books this week were “Hands are Not for Hitting” by Martine Agassi and “It’s Raining, It’s Pouring” by the renowned illustrator, Christine Davenier. Thankfully, it seems the song “Rain, rain go away” incorporated in this book worked as we finally were able to enjoy one day outdoors!
It felt GLORIOUS! We all were so excited!

 

What a fun, short week we just had! The children absolutely loved to play in the snow before it melted! They were so surprised the sandbox disappeared! They were so determined to shovel all the snow to find it!  They worked hard on their independence practicing how to put on their own snow pants, hats, boots and mittens! Their expressions of pride when they are able to do it is just so great to see!

With the incredible changes of weather these days we have had conversations and observations in our sensory bin on how solid water turns into liquid. This week, this topic got translated into art as well with the fun project called “melting snowman”, using puff paint. The children had so much fun creating them and laughing at how silly their melted snowmen looked!

Since the children have been showing a fascination for color games and snow, we created a mixing color activity we called “rainbow snow”. Children got to exercise their hand muscles by using spray bottles filled with colored water and painted the snow! This turned out to be the favorite work this week, not just for the fun of squeezing colored water into the snow but because they could see how mixing colors created new ones!

As always your children had fun with Ms. Kim during our weekly music class and exercised their gross motor skills in the gym!

Reminder: Please make sure your child’s winter gear is labeled clearly with your child’s name.

Due to our day off from school, our bananas from snack were overripe and perfect for baking banana muffins! Ms. Sara brought in some vegan butter and applesauce to make the recipe vegan-friendly for some of our classmates. The children enjoyed adding ingredients, stirring, and of course eating the final product! It was a wonderful learning experience for the children to see that the bananas may not have been best for eating raw but were just right for baking.

Over winter break, my daughters and I looked through materials they no longer use and wished to donate to our Toddler environment. We brought in some puzzles and a wooden cookie making kit. Only one donated puzzle is out on the shelf right now as too many changes in the environment can be overwhelming. It is a ballerina who has five changes of clothing that the children can mix and match to their heart’s content. Another item out on the shelves is a wooden and Velcro kit that allows the children to place “cookies” on a tray, then decorate them with “icing”. Both items have been well-received which makes my daughters very happy!

To match the icy weather, we painted icicles on our art easel. Mixing glitter paint and liquid watercolors made a slightly runny mixture that the children squeezed from pipettes onto silver paper. The children enjoyed watching the paint slowly drip down to form long “icicles”.

Thank you all for sending in snow gear for your children. As you can see from the pictures, we all had a wonderful time outside!

With the New Year comes a new school term and mostly new Community Volunteers. Sadie has returned to us with her friends Siddharth, Paige, and Eric. This awesome team shoveled paths to the playground for us, helped us get our gear on, and played with us in the snow! We are thrilled for the support and friendship!

Wednesday marked our first birthday celebration! Eme and her parents brought in delicious cupcakes, showed us her favorite toy, and pictures of her over her two years! The children loved the pumpkin cupcakes and enjoyed learning more about Eme through her pictures. Thank you, McGoldrick family for such a wonderful time!

We started this fabulous week celebrating a birthday!  Happy Birthday, Lily!  We are so thrilled to see her grow and blossom in front of our eyes!! The brightness in her eyes and her beautiful spirit are a gift to us every day! Thank you to her mom, Mrs. Lamb for coming in and sharing one of Lily’s favorite’s books with the class and sharing some super yummy strawberry cupcakes and juice with all children!

We also have welcomed a new student! Her name is Nina Guedes and all the children have been making sure she feels welcomed! This is one of the things that I love the most in Montessori environments. Older children get to take leadership roles in the environment and care/model for the younger ones. It has been so rewarding to see children mentoring her on how to put her shoes on, how to walk around the classroom, showing her the right way to use the materials, holding  her hand to dance, and hugging her.

New works have been introduced in practical life. One of the  favorites is transferring sand using a funnel. Children enjoy seeing the sand falling into the small vase! They seem to feel so accomplished when they see they were able to pour the sand through the very small opening of the vase!

Counting has been a big work this week. Children seem to love the new 1-5 Math work. Children place a number card into the square box and use cylindrical pegs as counters, then they get to pull the handle and see all the pegs falling. It’s so much fun!

One of the favorite games this week has been color hunting in the classroom. One child at the time chooses a color card blindly, and then everybody has to go on a hunt to find a piece of material of that color around the environment and bring it to the teacher. They always feel so proud of themselves when they find the correct color!

Until the weather allows us to return to having fun outside, we have enjoyed visiting the gym daily! The scooters are always a big hit! They really enjoy running “competitions” and kicking the balls in addition to the usual fun!

Stay tuned for our outside snowmen creations and our winter experiments!