Beginning of the Year Practical Life

The beginning of the year is an exciting time for families~new environments, new teachers, new friends!  In the Montessori classroom, the beginning of the year is a time for meeting the students, being sensitive to their transition and presenting lessons that will help them function in the classroom/be successful and begin to build their independence.  The first few days of school are spent showing children how to use the bathroom, how to roll a rug, how to push in their chair, how to choose a work, how to follow important safety rules and how to talk and communicate with one another.  In a Montessori classroom, we don't typically go over all the rules in a lecture type fashion.  Instead, we show small group lessons demonstrating how to do things as well as model the correct way to do things.  The children will watch, practice and learn.  We emphasize being respectful to our friends, walking in the classroom so we can control our bodies, using the materials carefully, putting work away when finished, and talking directly to a friend/teacher using eye contact.  In our classroom, the returning students from the previous year as well as the Kindergartners/First Graders begin the first week. This week allows the returning students to settle in, be reminded of their classroom and all that's there for them and prepare to greet the new students.  The next week, the new students arrive and the returning students are ready to be role models and help the new children get acquainted.  It's a wonderful, intentional way to have the environment prepared so that the students can enjoy their school and be successful!

Another important part of the beginning of the year is the Grace and Courtesy aspect of Practical Life.  Maria Montessori saw that along with children's need for order in their physical surroundings, she saw that children also needed order in their social surroundings.  Grace and Courtesy lessons give children the vocabulary, steps and actions needed to build their awareness and build their ability to be responsive to people around them.  At the beginning of the year children are introduced to how to greet a friend, how to shake someone's hand, how to invite a friend to work with them or have snack with them.  These lessons are sometimes given intentionally in small groups or even within a situation that may need some guidance and it is also modeled by the teachers and older children in the classroom.  In addition, children learn how to wait quietly rather than interrupt, and how to walk around a rug rather than walk over it.  These Grace and Courtesy skills grow into skills such as cooperation, team work, problem solving, compassion, empathy and care-taking.  It's wonderful to watch children develop and mature using these skills to function in the world. 

For all of you starting school this week~Enjoy and take in every moment!  Your children are on a wonderful learning journey and we all get to watch it unfold. 

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