Montessori Mom's Year in Review!

The year 2013 has been a very exciting and busy year for us all.  January to March I was working full time while raising a very busy two year old boy.  He attended the school I work at and did very well in the toddler room.  It's a lot of fun to have him there.  

On April 19th our family was blessed with another boy named Nathan! He is absolutely a blessing and a joy to us all!  Life did not seem to change as much as people told me it would.  It was a tad more busy, but overall the transition of going from one to two babies (yes, I still feel like Noah is my baby) was pretty easy I think, thanks to Noah's personalty.  After our new baby was born, in the months leading up to summer vacation I continued to take Noah to school, but I did not stay with him and teach in the Casa room.  In Canada, the government gives you a year of maternity leave from work to stay home with the new baby, so I am not currently in the Montessori classroom. But I will return to school in April of this new year.

The summer was a fun filled time for our family and we did as much as we could with Noah, all while taking care of a new born.  We took Noah to St. Thomas, Ontario for him to ride his favourite train, Thomas the Tank Engine. It was a chance of a lifetime and he absolutely loved it!  Now if any of you have a small child who loves Thomas, "A Day Out With Thomas" (which is a travelling Thomas train exhibit that visits cities and towns across North America) is an amazing adventure to take the kids to.  They get to ride on an actual train that looks like Thomas, meet Sir Topham Hat, play with trains and just have a great time with everything Thomas.

We continued our summer spending time by the pool, going to the zoo, and visiting the African Lion Safari.  On a few trips, we left the little one to visit with family, and got everyone else together to do things with just Noah, which was really great.  I think that us spending time with just Noah helped him transition so well to having a baby brother around who shares our attention.  We explained to Noah in great detail that when his brother cries we have to attend to him almost right away because Nathan can't verbalize what he needs, and we have to figure it out so we can make him feel better.  I explained to Noah that it would be like us not feeding him his lunch when he was hungry or asking Noah how he would feel if he was hungry and we did not feed him.  It worked very well and from then on Noah was more patient and seemed to be more understanding having a new little one around.  

In September Noah turned 3 and started school in the Casa classroom where I teach (though as I mentioned, I'm still on maternity leave so he's with another teacher right now).  It was all new to him because he was not used to me leaving the school.  Before he just thought mommy was in the next classroom to his, now he sees me leave with his brother and go to my car.  He is doing so much better by not crying when I drop him off at school and leave.  The November timeline for normalization set in for him, and I am so proud of him and all that he has accomplished from Sept-Dec.  In that time he has learned all his sounds phonetically, he writes all his numbers 0-20 with out tracing, and he has started to sound out words. I must be honest, I do work with him a lot at home, but not because I force him to but because he asks me every day to do his sounds and numbers with him. He loves to learn!  We are all very proud of him.

My new baby boy is 8 months old now and growing like a weed.  He has five teeth already and long dark hair.  He loves to jump around in his exersaucer, I keep thinking one day he is just going to jump right out of it! :)  Soon he will be crawling and then the fun really begins!  As Nathan grows older I can't wait to see what his personality will be like.  Right now he is a funny, very giggly, cute little boy.  He loves to talk to us and I already see a connection between the two brothers.  I hope they don't gang up on me when they are older ;)

As I prepare for the new year and going back to work in just three months, I am excited to see what the year will bring for me, my husband, and our two precious little boys.  So I will end with wishing every one a very Happy New Year! 

My Big Boy's year in review of first year at school

As some of you are aware, I just gave birth to our second son in April (hence the absence from the blogging).  I want to dedicate this post to my eldest son's first year at school in the Toddler Room.  Going into school (age 2), Noah already knew (to me and my family) a lot of educational things.  He knew all his colours, how to count to ten and even how to spell his own name.  I would like to take credit for his learning, being a Montessori teacher and all, however, credit goes to spending the year before with his grandmother (my mom) and her best friend, who Noah calls, Nonna.
At school, I have noticed a big difference in Noah and how much more he knows and the kid amazes us all on a daily basis, good job Miss Mallory :)
Noah has learned to hold his pencil properly, gained tremendous independence, sings morning, noon and night, and he knows almost every animal there is to know.  We are all very proud of our little guy and can't wait to see him grow and develop next year in the Casa room. 
On an emotional level, school was very hard for Noah to adjust to.  I feel it is much more difficult (after seeing Noah go through it) for the child when your parent works there.  He knew I was there and did not understand why he couldn't see or be with his mommy.  Just as he got used to the idea of leaving mommy from her classroom and going to his own there was a holiday in which we had to break from school for two weeks.  This started the whole transition period for him all over again.  Then March break occurred, another two week setback, poor little guy.  Then of course mommy had his baby brother and would be dropping him off at his own room instead of staying with mommy in before care for an hour by ourselves.  But like the trooper he is, he has pulled through everything I have thrown at him :)
So to my big boy Noah (I'm not allowed to call him my baby because "I'm not a baby") I am so proud of you every day and can't believe how much you have learned and grown this year at school.  I love you "baby".

My School Year in Review

This year has been particularly exciting for me, as it was my first year back from maternity leave with my little boy. It was great to get back into the swing of things and see some familiar faces in the classroom upon my return; I couldn’t believe how much my students have grown up while I was away. And as always, it’s a pleasure to meet new kids for the first time; because I just love teaching young minds and watching them accomplish so much throughout the year. I felt ready to go back to school in the Fall, but I admit I missed my baby like crazy!

From September to December things were pretty busy with getting to know my new students and reacquainting myself with my previous students. We also had a few eventful holidays to prepare for; I had forgotten how much fun Thanksgiving and Christmas activities are in the classroom!

Every year I choose different themes for each month, 10 in total, and this year was filled was some pretty exciting themes! We had a “Rainforest” theme in February where students learned about animals that live in the rainforest, the different layers that make up a rainforest, and where in the world rainforests grow. We even had a special day for the students to try different fruits from the rainforest, so I brought in exotic fruits from our local grocery store, and it was a huge hit, even the pickiest eaters in the class tried (and loved) the different fruits!

We also had a really fun “Hibernation” theme in January. The children learned about animals that hibernate and animals that migrate to warmer climates in the winter. For our special day this month, the children had to bring in, not just any stuffed toy, but a stuffed toy of an animal that either hibernates or migrates. And this was really fun for the kids as they got to tell me where the animal they chose hibernates, how it hibernates, and whether it is an animal that hibernates or migrates. The children always have so much fun with these special days.

Academically, my students did very well this year and were very busy working on various activities. The five year olds concentrated on phonograms, sentences, multiplication, and exchanging with the golden bead material, while my four year olds started sight words, reading from the readers, addition, and the golden bead material. My youngest students spent most of their time in the Sensorial, Culture, and Practical Life areas of the room, In Language and Math I worked with them on their sandpaper letters and numbers, and some students moved onto more concrete math and language materials.

Overall, I had a great year with my students and I look forward to seeing them in the fall. Next year will be easier on the emotions as my boy will be joining me at school for the first time, though he will be in the toddler Montessori room with another teacher. :)

Spring Concert

Well , it's that time of year again: yesterday was our annual Spring Concert, and it was a huge success!

 This year's theme was "under the Sea" and we began practicing our singing for it back in March.  Keeping with our theme this we we sang: "When I was One," "Listen to the Water", "Yellow Submarine," "Octopus Garden", and we even included a play about the ever-so-popular story "Rainbow Fish."  Seven of my oldest students performed lines they memorized for the play and I must say they did an amazing job.

The first song performed was "When I Was One" and we had 6 different children act out the actions of the song by holding up their props.  Next we performed, " I Love to Row" where two little ones sat in our toy boat from the playground pretending to row around the stage.  The third song was "Listen to the Water" where we again had different children holding up props that were related to the song.  Following that we sang, "Yellow Submarine" with a giant painted submarine and had two children sit behind it with their heads poling through the submarine windows.  The older children then sang a section of  "Under the Sea".  The reason for singing only part of the song is because it would have been too long otherwise.  Then we had four of our four-year-olds gave their own little performance by reciting a poem that had to do with the sea, and in the finale for my class (we have a toddler and elementary class that were also a part of the concert) we did our very special play of the story "Rainbow Fish" where we sang "Octopus' Garden" in the middle of our performance.

Many long hours of preparation were put into our concert this year and I must admit I am extremely proud of all my wonderful students who pulled it all off with great success: :)

MIA

Sorry everyone for being Missing In Action lately. School and family life have been keeping me extremely busy these past few months. But stay tuned because I have some new and exciting things happening in my classroom these days and months ahead.
We just finished two weeks of March Break and my students are ready and eager to get back to the routine.
A sneak peek for April: Our classroom theme is Bees.

January in Reivew

My classroom is buzzing with excitement after returning from the Christmas break. The children got right to work on their first day back and are settling in wonderfully; there are many new items on our shelves, which helped keep them busy for a while.
For the month of January we discussed Hibernation, very fitting of course for the winter season. We talked about what hibernation and migration are, and which animals hibernate over the winter. On a few special days the children were allowed to bring that were related to our hibernation theme. One day was "bring a bird to school day (non living of course)", they could bring in a picture, a toy bird or even a book about birds. Then last week we had "bring an animal that hibernates or migrates to school". Most of the children brought in bears, we had one snake and impressively enough a chipmunk. Both days were a huge hit.
This month we only did one craft: making a bear. I cut out a bear shape from white bristol board for each student, and then the children put glue on their entire bear. Next they decorated their bears by sprinkling, using a spoon, dried tea leaves over the glue they placed on. The bears turned out nice and the tea made them look like they really were covered in fur.
As always we were very busy moving along in our lessons too. I am so pleased with my four year olds and how much progress they have made since school started. Many of them are doing sight words, addition, and making 3 letter phonetic words using the movable alphabet.
January has been a great month and I am sure February is going to be even better!

February's theme is the Rainforest.

Christmas Wishes

I just wanted to take this time and wish everyone a very Happy Holiday and Merry Christmas from my family to yours :) I look forward to what is to come in my classroom in the new year!

Christmas in my Classroom :)

Here are only a few pictures I took of my favourite Christmas work in Practical Life and of my bulletin board.

December is in the Air!

I have been so busy with school as well as having a new toddler running around the house. So I must start off by apologizing for being MIA these past few weeks. And now I am so excited to tell you about all the activities we've been doing in the classroom with the students.

First off, we just concluded our "Colours" theme for the month of November. The children enjoyed making rainbow caterpillars out of construction paper and learning black and white are not colours. We even had a special day called, "Don't Wear Colour to School" day. The students had fun trying to figure out what that actually meant, but they quickly caught on. One parent on the other hand, before leaving the classroom at the door, asked her daughter, "does that mean you come to school naked?" I hope she filled her mother in about our lessons on black and white.
At the end of November to wrap up our "Colours" theme and prepare for the next month's theme, "Christmas Around the World", I did a very simple and neat craft for the students to help me prepare the classroom bulletin board. We each painted white Christmas bulbs brown to make Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer heads with red pompoms glued to the tips of the bulbs for the noses and glued on googly eyes to make his face. We also added brown pipe cleaners for the antlers (wrapped around the gold part of the bulb) and added ribbons so each student could hang their Rudolph on the Christmas tree. And when the reindeers were finished, I cut a large Christmas tree out of green Bristol board and attached it to the bulletin board for us to decorate with our Rudolph ornaments. The students were very excited and had so much fun with this.
In preparation for Christmas, I have been busy going through all the Christmas material boxes and sorting items for the shelves. I found some great things that I know the children will love, such as: Christmas themed erasers for sorting, stamps, Christmas tree decorations to decorate a small tree and Christmas sequencing boards with objects. As the month unfolds I will take pictures of our activities to post on this blog.
I look forward to the next three weeks of learning about "Christmas Around the World", where we will learn songs from other countries, what children in other countries call Santa, what Santo looks like in other countries, and what other holidays are celebrated during December in various places around the world.

October News!

The month of October has gone by so fast!
The theme of the month was Trees and the kids have really enjoyed it. We collected leaves and pine cones and checked a book to see what tree the leaf or pine cone belonged to. We also studied the parts of a tree: branches, leaves, trunk and roots. We used our "Parts of" cards and puzzle which is something the children work on all year round. The children now know the difference between coniferous and deciduous trees. So much so I have quite the collection of leaves and pine cones in the culture area. Every day one of them tells me something about the trees in their yard. It is so nice to see the joy they get from learning new things about nature.
As part of our tree theme I have the children make Family Trees, which were a big hit with the kids and parents. This was an activity I have done in the past and it has always gone well, so I knew everyone would be excited about it. Each child was to bring in pictures to cut out faces of their family members. I only had the children bring in parents and grandparents (both maternal and paternal). We glued the faces on leaves and then glued the leaves to the tree branches. The child's picture went in the middle of the tree.
This last week of October has been very exciting. Two of my younger students (who have just turned 4 years old) made their first words with the movable alphabet, so they are well on their way to reading! It was wonderful to thrill their parents with the big news when they came to pick their children up at the end of the day and share their enthusiasm with the kids. The older children have been working hard with incredible attention on some more challenging Practical Life activities this month, like the tying frame. I have never seen so much concentration going on while working on a piece of work!
Today was our Halloween party at school. We had the party today instead of Monday the 31^st because we know that sometimes if the children wear their costumes to school for the whole day, they do not want to wear them any longer when they go home to go trick or treating with their friends and family. The party was a great chance for the kids to take a break from all their hard work on areas of the classroom and enjoy. We played Halloween games (Witch, witch, ghoast, musical chairs and hot pumpkin), watched a Halloween movie and went for a nice walk outside.
Overall October has been a great month in my classroom, and I’m looking forward to next month’s theme of “Colours” hoping it will be just as successful as “Trees” has been. I’ve got some exciting things planned so stay tuned :)

Happy First Birthday Baby Boy

Last week was pretty crazy. My baby turned 1 years old on Friday! I can't believe I no longer have a baby boy, but a little man. And personality this kid has :)
This post doesn't have anything to do with Montessori, however, I wanted to acknowledge Noah's birthday. I am so proud of him and I know he will always make me proud no matter what he does in the future.

Around My Classroom

I can not believe the month of September is almost over. Where did the time go?
My class has been very busy working on "All About Me" posters or drawing self portraits. I am in the process of receiving baby photos for our "Guess the Baby" game, in which I will display pictures of the children as baby's and they will guess who is who. The children are very excited to see one another as babies. And the parents are having a lot of fun trying to find pictures of their child so that the other parents can't tell who is who.
I had planned on doing family trees as mentioned in a previous post, but, time does not permit. However, since the theme for October is "Trees", I have decided to move the family trees to next month.

What's the Point of Practical Life?

In today's post I will discuss the concept of Practical Life
in the Montessori curriculum.  Practical Life is the first
curriculum area taught in the Montessori program and is often the
most popular area with students. The main purpose of Practical
Life is to develop skills that prepare a child for reading, writing
and arithmetic.  Therefore activities are designed to develop hand
eye coordination (when holding a spoon or sewing a button),
concentration when repeating sequences (with matching or folding
socks), and independence (by learning to pour themselves a
beverage to drink), to name  a  few .

Practical Life is divided into smaller sections:
1) Control of Movement which includes cutting paper, sorting an
array of items and transfer activities.
2) Care of Environment, which is their classroom.  This involves
washing windows, watering plants and washing a table.
3) Care of Self, which covers learning how to button, zip, lace and
velcro clothes and tie shoes and washing hands.
4) Grace and Courtesy, which teaches children how to greet people,
prepare foods and serve them to their friends

In Montessori teaching,  every lesson in Practical Life and
Sensorial prepares the child for further development in reading,
writing  or arithmetic.  This is accomplished by what we call,
"direct" and "indirect" aims.  Indirect aims mimic aspects of
advanced cognitive skills.  For example, in spooning, children
move items from the left bowl to the right bowl, mimicking reading
patterns and therefore indirectly preparing for the complex task
of reading.  The direct aim in spooning are things such as
developing independence and developing concentration.  One may
look at it in simpler terms as direct aims being those goals we can
not see because they come from inside the child (for example,
concentration).

I'd like to share an example of how children have the need and
desire for Practical Life activities in a Montessori classroom and at
home.  I had a little boy in my class one year who's mother said it
drove her "nuts" because all this child wanted to do was roll
everything in sight, including the bathroom mat outside the shower
and she had no idea where this came from.  This parent attended
our information night on Practical Life and Sensorial and it was
then  that she found out we roll our mats the children use to do
 floor work.  We practice this on a daily basis with the children
so they can master this  skill.  It turned out to be his favourite
 thing to do :)

I'd like to finish my discussion on Practical Life with a quote from
Maria Montessori:
"If teaching is to be effective with young children, it must assist
them to advance on the way to independence.  It must initiate
 them  into those kinds of activities, which  they can perform
 themselves. We must help them to learn how to walk without
assistance, to run, to go up and down the stairs, to pick up fallen
 objects, to dress and undress, to wash themselves, to express
their needs and to attempt to satisfy their desires through  their
own efforts.  All this is part of an education of independence".
(The Discovery of the Child,  pg 56-57).

Practical Life at the Beginning of School Year

Here are a few pictures of what my Practical Life area looks like so far. Practical Life at the beginning of the school year is very different than Practical Life at the end of the year. I always start off with very simple lessons to accommodate the new and young students. As you can see to the right, my Practical Life is minimal however, that will change in October where I add more to the shelves and change a few things around. I like to start with the basics to remind students how Practical Life lessons are to be completed correctly.
Below is our simple transferring lessons.

Next comes the lacing, sorting, and fine motor lessons.

The last two shelves are cutting and care of the environment. The students are in charge of most of the cleaning up.


Our theme "All About Me" is officially underway and I will have examples of what the children are working on in the next few days

First Day of School

After 18 months off on sick and maternity leave, it's finally time for me to go back to teaching. It has been a bittersweet transition for me, though teaching is my passion and I love working with the other children, it's tough to be away from my own baby all day while I'm at work. But when I return home at 4:15, the moment Noah and I see each other is the best feeling in the world. Today when I arrived home Noah would not stop kissing me :)
I had a good first day. Since Montessori schooling teaches that the classroom is t he responsibility of the children, and my role is simply to direct them through activities and tasks, it is the children that keep the classroom in order and tidy. So on our first day together we went over the rules and routines of the classroom to remind them what is expected of them all.
I only have a few new students this year; most of the children are returning students who I have worked with before, so we have been spending time doing activities getting to know each other again and having fun. And I look forward to the days and weeks to come when the class settles into routine and normalization occurs.

I must stop typing as I am falling asleep at the keyboard. Good night everyone :)

Music for Montessori

I have always had a passion for music. In fact in university, in addition to my primary focus of Sociology, I also minored in Music. And fortunately I have been able to apply my skills and love of music over the past 10 years at both of the Montessori schools I have worked at as the school Music Teacher.
In a previous post discussing the annual conference for the American Montessori Society, I briefly mentioned my excitement when meeting Frank Leto and how I was so impressed by him that I purchased all his CDs to bring back to my school and play them for the children. As many of you may know yourself, from searching online and in bookstores as I have, Montessori music is very hard to find, so this was a wonderful opportunity for me to get more teaching resources for my music programs at school. Click here for Frank's site.
All of my students absolutely love Frank's music, and I appreciate his work very much because Frank Leto is a Montessori teacher himself and I now model my music classes on what I have learned from him. He takes music elements and translates them into simpler versions for the age group 3-6. He makes music more hands on rather than sitting at your desk learning what a "whole note" is. He gets the young children involved which makes it easier and more fun for 3-6 year olds.

My son, Noah loves to watch Frank's Youtube videos, click here to see his favourite . Every morning he gets very excited pointing to indicate he wants to watch Youtube with me, and then he sits dancing on the spot for a good half hour listening and watching Frank perform. It is a joy for me to watch him. I hope this is a sign of things to come. Perhaps Noah will love music just as much as his mommy! Will I have a new concert partner one day? he he he :)

One Month Left...

Very soon I will be going into my school to set up my classroom for the upcoming school year. It will be a big new challenge this year being a "working mom" for the first time, but I am ready to be teaching once again and very excited to share my new ideas with all my future students.
I am planning on holding a "Guess the Baby" contest during the "All About Me" unit and children at our school. It is always fun to see the parents match baby photos and discuss the photos with the teachers. I will include a picture of myself and of my son (just to throw them off a bit). But it shouldn't be too tricky, as most parents already know my son from extra events held by my school over the past year. Even though I have been off on maternity leave, I still enjoyed attending our school events, such as the Winter Concert and Family Fun Day.
I have also decided that another fun activity for my students to do as a part of "All About Me" will be to build a family tree. They will bring in pictures of their immediate family members (up to first set of maternal and paternal grandparents), cut the faces out and paste them on a tree with no leaves and then label their names. I have done this activity with students in the past with much success! And will post pictures of their works of art once school gets under way.
Until then, however, I have 4 weeks left of summer to enjoy some time sitting by the pool, entertaining friends and family and most importantly, treasuring my time with Noah.

Up and coming year

As my maternity leave is coming to an end I am busy getting things ready for my classroom and enjoying my little guy before he spends more time with grandma!
I have all my themes picked out (my school has a monthly theme), which I am very excited about and can not wait to share with all of you once school gets under way :)
Every three years I like to start the year with the theme, "All About Me". Since Montessori children are in the same classroom for three years, this ensures that my oldest children do not repeat any themes throughout their schooling. Starting with "All About Me" is a great way to get to know the new students and know the older children better. The students love learning new things about each other, as do the teachers. By getting to know my students on a more personal level it helps me when giving lessons, especially those that a child is having problems with mastering. I can gear the lesson towards something they are interested in. The best way to interact and learn about each child is to go around the circle and discuss with them events, their likes and dislikes that are currently going on in their lives.
As for material on the shelves, I have a fair bit for this theme, and every three years the homemade materials increase. I always get the older children to make a little book about themselves. The younger ones make a house out of construction paper and place the people in their family on the windows of the house. It is funny because some of them make up people in their family. Even though I know a new baby does not exist I still let them place them on their house. It is always fun to see the parent's expression :)
In the current school I am teaching at, we try and put materials on the shelf that are theme related each month in each curriculum area. All About Me is a little challenging, however, I make it work. For September we do not really put out a lot of materials on the shelves because we like to discuss and practice classroom basics, for example, tucking in chairs, folding mats, washing hands, ect.
Once school starts I will post pictures of the materials I have created. I will be going into the school in August to set up and get all the materials for each theme being done for the whole year ready. Each month I will share what my students are doing with each theme.
Now it is time to go for a swim (39 degrees out there, it is hot!!!)

New ideas are always welcome, please share your thoughts!

HELP!

As I am sitting here waiting for Noah to wake up from his nap, I am thinking of ways to improve my Montessori blog. I would love to turn to all of you for ideas and help on how to get more followers and/or more exposure out there in the blogging world. I am not exactly a computer genius so any suggestions would be appreciated (keep in mind you may have to comment in detail how to do your suggestion to my blog).
Please comment on how I can make my blog more enjoyable or more beautiful. Thanks in advance!

Observation

I will be honest, Observation class was not my favourite in Montessori training. However, 9 years later I find myself very content sitting either beside Noah or across the room watching his every move. Right now he is trying so hard to crawl. Today I observed him moving his knees and moving only once in a crawl. It seems his knees give out and he falls onto his stomach but without prevail, he tries again. The child has perseverance! I could just sit all day long (if the hubby didn't want to eat ) and watch Noah explore and learn!
Observing has now become my favourite thing to do :)
What is your favourite thing about Montessori?