Work Cycle and Normalization

Here is a great article on the Work Cycle as well as Normalization.

Enjoy~would love to hear your feedback!

http://www.michaelolaf.net/lecture_secret.html



www.CMontessori.com

Raising Good Decision Makers

At last weekend's Parent Workshop, we discussed rewards/punishments and allowing our children to experience natural consequences of their decisions.  Good decision making is acquired from making poor decisions and figuring it out, on our own, how to turn it around.  Think about the lessons you have learned in your life-did they come from someone telling you?  Did they come from reading it?  Probably not~lessons you have learned probably came from experiences you had and figuring out when something went wrong or a way you didn't want it to.  Helping children learn how to make good decisions is done by allowing them to make a decision and allowing that decision to play out.  By allowing our children to get clear and accurate information-which may be learned the hard way that the stove is hot-we start them on the path to learning to decide independently how they will act. 

Keeping our children from experiencing natural consequences of their actions/decisions can be detrimental to future growth. Some would argue that young children are having a harder a time potty training because of Pull-Ups.  Pull-Ups on children who are learning to use the bathroom independently can actually cause a set back because the Pull-Ups keep children from experiencing when they have gone to the bathroom in their pants.  Pull-Ups can be convenient, but they can also keep children from experiencing what they need to learn about their body and using the restroom.  Sippy cups can pose a similar issue.  Children need to practice drinking from a regular cup so they learn not to spill.  Yes, there will be spills while they are learning, but practicing drinking from a cup will make them more successful.  Start at a young age (right around 1), pour a very small amount of water in a cup and allow your child to practice drinking.  You will be amazed how successful they can be!  Drinking from a sippy cup doesn't help children learn how to drink from a regular cup.  Again, they are convenient and almost always guaranteed not to be messy, but what is your child learning drinking from a sippy cup? A diet of finger foods can keep children from learning how to use utensils.  It's a good idea to think about the skills we want our children to learn rather than what is convenient in the moment.

Allowing our children the freedom to make age appropriate decisions can be painful.  Watching them live out what they have decided can be challenging.  However, resist the temptation to rescue your children from decisions they have made.  In the end, it will be fruitful and your child will be learning so much about life and themselves.  Here is a recent Facebook post from a Mom who I respect greatly.  You can hear the pain of allowing her son to live out his decision, but you can also hear her love and support of her son as he is walking out a decision he made:

I just let my new middle schooler walk out the door with no breakfast, no lunch and his hair not brushed because he was so frazzled trying to pull all his homework together for class today. I asked yesterday for him to get everything together and he said he would later. It broke my heart to watch. I gave him a big hug, told him I loved him. We both are growing up a bit today.

Be brave and allow your children to make some decisions in their lives.  They are genius's!  They will figure it out, even if it's learning things a difficult way.  And, they will greatly appreciate your belief in them!

www.CMontessori.com

The Beauty of Mistakes

See link for a great article on making mistakes.

http://mariamontessori.com/mm/?p=2136



www.CMontessori.com

Lessons From The Snack Work

The students at Community Montessori were shown snack this week.  Snack is an independent work in our classroom.  Each day a child is scheduled to bring in a snack to share with the class.  That snack is placed at the snack work and students can choose freely during work time.  There are three spots at snack and when there is a spot available, a child can choose it.  The snack work has many steps and the steps need to be done in a sequential order to get the desired outcome, so students are learning a lot going through the process of snack.  Here are the steps:

Decide to choose snack
Look/Observe-is there an available spot? If so, proceed in choosing snack.  If not, choose another work until spot is available, or wait.
Find name on the side of the shelf where all names are listed
Place name at an available spot
Wash hands
Get napkin, open it up to a big square
Go to snack shelf and see what is offered and get snack (there is a number indicating how much snack a child can get.  For example, 1 banana, 6 grapes, 4 carrots etc).
Use utensil to get snack (tongs, spoon, scoop etc)
Place snack in bowl to transfer to eating space
Return bowl so another student can use it
Get a cup, pour water from pitcher into cup
Sit down, enjoy snack, enjoy friends at snack table
When finished, push in chair, throw away any garbage-napkin, peel from banana etc
Pour unfinished water into sink
Place dirty cup in dirty cup basket
Clean snack area-use a sponge to wipe place mat or use a small broom/dustpan to sweep any crumbs
Place name in basket on table to indicate you have had snack for the day

These steps are impressive when you think about it.  Children love order and structure and this work provides that as well as an opportunity to sit with friends and socialize.  It's fun to watch some kids make a plan to have snack together, meaning they have to wait for 2 or 3 spots to be available.  It's also fun to see new friendships blossom while eating at the snack table.  The older children give reminders to younger children if they forget a step.  It's also very fun to see a child try a new food they may not be willing to eat at home.  One little boy clearly didn't like one of the snacks this week; however, he so wanted to do snack so badly  he kept saying, "I love carrots Jamie" and the look on his face was priceless!  He didn't end up finishing his snack, but went through all the steps nonetheless!  This work represents what so many works represent in our classroom-a child's ability to practice important life skills in a child safe environment where it's ok to make mistakes and be in the process of learning.  They are also building their confidence as they try new things and are successful. . Their coordination is being built through managing their bodies/utensils/space.  They also become organized little beings when they are offered an orderly environment. 

www.CMontessori.com

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. 

www.CMontessori.com

Self Awareness

Another wonderful benefit of the Montessori classroom is that children learn to develop self awareness.  Being able to have freedom in the classroom allows children to unfold and develop naturally which helps children learn about themselves.  Each child is unique, individual, and has many facets to them-personality, temperament, likes, dislikes, family values etc.  For each child to be gifted the time to learn who they are and how they can contribute to this big world, is wonderful and assists in the development of their self esteem.  Focusing on certain behaviors or certain gifts keeps the focus on a child so narrow that it doesn't allow them to figure out what they are good at.  If someone really values being a good piano player and everything is judged against the expectation that everyone should be a good piano player, what is a child to do if they don't like playing the piano or they are not good at playing the piano?  Having narrow expectations or standards put on a child truly limits their beauty and potential.  Allowing children to  learn about themselves brings about a healthy understanding of themselves as well.  They may know that they are really good at 'this' and know they aren't so good at 'that', but knowing that and understanding that doesn't effect their self esteem-it's a healthy perspective of themselves that shows the world they have a lot to offer and they also have the confidence to improve on something they may not know how to do.  It's amazing that in the classroom, the children figure out who to go to when they need help with certain things. They have such intuition to know who is good at something or who is helpful or who can tie shoes or is really good at puzzles.  Since the environment is set up in such a way and the teachers view children in such a way that children are seen as unique individuals and that they all contribute to the classroom community, then the children see one another as individuals.  This perspective in a classroom also cuts down on competition and placing certain behaviors or skills above others.  In traditional environments, much emphasis is placed on grades, being a top athlete, or being popular.  So, if you are someone who is an average student, doesn't like sports, or isn't in the 'in' crowd, there is a real danger that those kiddos don't feel valued, since the culture of the classroom/school is such that only certain things are valued and if you aren't demonstrating those things, you may not fit in.  I find this quite tragic.  Every child is a gift and has things to offer the world.  Helping children feel successful in who they are and helping them become the best them they can be, is what Montessori classrooms are all about.  And, because we believe it-the kids show us their uniqueness and beauty everyday!  

www.CMontessori.com

Control of Error

During all of her time with children, Maria Montessori discovered that children would much rather correct themselves, or discover something new themselves, rather than have an adult move in.  Because of this, she developed many of her materials with a built in 'control of error'.  This means that children can self correct and notice an imperfection themselves while working.  This control of error is built into the physically prepared environment and allows children to use their reasoning and problem solving skills.  It also gives them quick feedback on their work, rather than having to wait for an adult to evaluate what they have done. Some examples of this are:

*Furniture in the classroom is light weight enough to be moved without adult help and will also be knocked over if a child is not carefully controlling their body. 

*Objects in the classroom are breakable which teaches them to handle things carefully to avoid damage or breakage.

*Sometimes in many of the matching or sorting works, a small dot will be placed on the back of the picture/word card so children can check their work.  So, if a child is sorting land/air/water pictures, they may complete the work, then turn over all the cards and see that all the land cards have a brown dot, all the water cards have a blue dot and all the air cards have a white dot.  This indicates to them that they have sorted correctly. 

*Knobbed Cylinders-there is one space for each cylinder and they all fit perfectly-if a child is working with this material, they will notice that if a piece doesn't fit exactly, there is not space for all cylinders.  We have observed on many occasions children focusing and working until getting it right. We have also seen this material be returned to the shelf with some cylinders out of place which just indicates that a child is practicing with this material and has not yet developed the visual discrimination skills to see the imperfections.

*Many of the Sensorial materials have a built in control of error-the Red Rods, the Pink Tower, and the Brown Stair show an imperfection in how a child sees them.  With the Red Rods, they are grading the rods from longest to shortest. When the rods are graded on the rug, the child may notice they have graded incorrectly if the rods are out of order.

*Sorting works will have the same number of objects so if the child sorts, but doesn't have the same number of objects for each row, they will know to go back and check for a mistake.  For example, if a child is sorting items according to how they feel (rough vs. smooth) and they end up with 6 items under rough and 4 items under smooth, they will need to go back and check the work to see where they made a mistake.

Making sure that all materials in the classroom are prepared and ready for a child to work with them is another important part of how teachers prepare the classroom.  Each day teachers tend to the materials and works-refill, straighten, count, clean and prepare so that children are drawn in and attracted to the works.  Part of why a Montessori classroom functions so beautifully is because there are so many wonderful things for children to engage in.  They love being at school, they love their friends, and they love how the environment makes them feel~respected, cared for, capable and empowered!

www.CMontessori.com