This week, at the beginning of work cycles, we have been encouraging individuals to focus in areas where they especially need challenged.  Now that we know the kids pretty well and recognize their individual needs, we can especially help direct them to choose from a variety of work that will challenge them as they learn on an individual basis.  Everyone tried something different this week, and we are pleased to see all of the progress.

I am taking a different approach on the newsletter this week, just to change things up.  I thought I would just explain some of the random photos at work cycle, to give you better idea of what the different age groups have been up to.  Hope you like!

This week, the kindergarteners learned about some colorful wooden Montessori shapes that represent grammar symbols.  They were introduced to articles, nouns, verbs, adjectives, and conjunctions.  We did some fun exercises to help identify some of these symbols as they built simple sentences.  They especially enjoy coming up with their own sentences by choosing from a variety of words at random.  Until I was introduced to Montessori, I had no idea that learning about grammar could be so fun!

Several of our students who are 4 years old and up are expressing interest in the kindergarten material, which we are always happy to introduce if a child appears ready.  Above, Linnea and Laidy were introduced to skip counting.

Above, Zoë and Ellie worked long and hard sounding out 3 letter words on their own.  They were so determined!

Below are a few of photos of students trying out some new approaches to playing music.  We had group time lesson was given on creating patterns when playing music this week.  For example, instead of just randomly hitting piano notes, the kids were encouraged to go back and fourth between two notes or to play one note several times quickly and then another one slowly to change the tempo. So many kids were found at random this week, trying so hard to work together on creating some order to their music.

As the kids continue to learn more about new shapes and geometric solids, we gave a group time lesson on tracing shapes from our shape cabinet. We especially saw our younger ones trying this out and we were happy how well they are making an effort to color between the lines.

Here, Bill is working on perfecting writing his numbers while using the bead stair.

Above, Linnea and Eva were having fun sorting through two sets of the knobbed cylinders of various dimensions.

Melia came up with a great idea—Building words with an alphabet puzzle!  We found several others doing so this week after they noticed her. It’s so great when the kids come up with additional ‘works’ for the classroom.

Beckett and Winsloh also made a game out of a matching work.

Colin and Lidia were recieving individual lessons here on material they haven’t tried yet.  Colin was learning vocabulary for camping gear and Lidia was learning to make different types of triangles by putting triangles together.

Above, Maya reviews the ground rules of the classroom.  It’s wonderful that our kids strive to be respectful in our environment. 

On the left, Edison is oh, so carefully spooning marbles and beads into bowls.  On the right, Winsloh just finished up a matching work of the months of the year.

Above, Waylon uses small tongs to pick up buttons and place them into a tray with compartments, after having a lesson on properly using these small tongs.

Thanks for your willingness to read along and learn more about what we’ve been up to!  You are very much appreciated!

Have a great week, y’all.