“Green, yellow, orange… green, yellow, orange,” a child whispered to herself as she carefully placed each bead on a pipe cleaner. The afternoon enrichment project that day was making autumn colored bead bracelets. The children enjoyed picking out the colorful beads and participating in a fun fine motor activity. When a teacher presented the project, she encouraged the children to try to make a pattern if they wished. Patterning is an excellent activity for enhancing the child

"To give children freedom and be watchful and ready is not easy, but we must be prepared to do all this." Maria Montessori Over the past weeks the children have been exploring new works in the Practical Life area of the classroom. Activities like zippering vests or buttoning a dressing frame can assist a child to master these tasks. Montessori had other reasons for presenting these life skills in the classroom however. Two and three year olds are particularly motivated to lea

One of the key principles of Montessori is independence. The children are working on doing things for themselves throughout the day. This involves dressing and undressing, bathrooming, being responsible for things in their cubbies, and being responsible for the works in the classroom. Serving themselves snack is a multi-step exercise in independence. They begin by going to the snack table and checking to see if there is a snack necklace available. If there is a necklace,

“Play fosters belonging and encourages cooperation.” - Unknown Each Wednesday afternoon the kindergarten class participates in classic children’s games. The focus of this activity is to teach cooperation and listening skills, as well as build friendships and promote teamwork amongst the children. This past week, we played Mother, May I?. None of the children had played this game before and were excited to learn how to play. Simple and fun, the game consists of one person play

Certain works appear in the classroom that mesmerize the children. One such work is rock painting in the language area. Before the children are shown how to use the work, they find a basket of rocks, a paintbrush and a little bowl on a tray on the shelf. They explore the rocks and dust the dry paintbrush over the entire work. Some of the second year children recognize the work and ask to get water for the little bowl. The work was finally demonstrated at circle and it ha

“Look, a butterfly!” a very excited child showed her mother the beautiful monarch butterfly, which had hatched from it’s chrysalis overnight in a jar on our science shelf. One of our preschool families brought in three jars with chrysalises for the children to observe. The timing was perfect as we are currently studying living and non-living things as part of our science curriculum. We discussed that all animals are livings things and that most living things use their legs, w

“True peace...suggests the triumph of justice and love among men; it reveals the existence of a better world where harmony reigns.” Maria Montessori For a young child between 2-3 years sharing will be a skill that is learned with a lot of practice. Grabbing and taking may be the first “go to” for a child that is navigating social challenges in school for the first time. In the Montessori environment one of the teacher’s goals is to assist the children in expressing their wan

One child, a senior kindergartner, chooses a reading work, The Command Cards. He invites a younger child, four years old, to do the work with him. She accepts and they set up a work mat together and place the work on the mat. The five-year old chooses a card and reads aloud the command written on it: clap your hands. The four-year old happily obliges, giggling as she claps a few times. They proceed to go through most of the cards together, the older child practicing reading s