Hi there,

Hopefully you are enjoying this gorgeous, sunny weekend.  It’s amazing how a little sun can really motivate our entire class as a whole.  We had a great week with the help of some downtime on the sunny playground.  Everyone seemed more focused and happy in general during circle times, work cycles, and even transitions.  Oh, but there was that one rainy day we had this week where we were stuck indoors.  Yuck.   However, a special guest came to visit that had everyone smiling, singing, and dancing…

Special Guest:  Audrey & Owen’s Grandpa Sharing his Musical Talents

Owen is one of our older previous students who occasionally visits our studio whenever he is able to and some of you may also know Audrey, who is in the pre-primary studio and will be moving up into our room next year…  Their very talented grandfather visited us on that rainy day where we combined both of our classes together to enjoy some polka music played on the accordion!  As their grandpa played his heart out, he was incredibly narrative, getting the kids involved in some musical singalongs and dancing.  We took plenty of pictures to share with you…

What a pleasant surprise this was for everyone.  He had so much talent, heart, and soul, which was just what the kids needed to brighten up a rainy day.

Lessons this Week

Reviews on Caring for the Environment:  Every so often, we find it necessary to do thorough reviews on respect of the studio.  Each day this week, we teachers took turns giving some old lessons to remind the students how to properly care and utilize material.  We also had some older material that was beginning to fall apart a little and we showed our students how they could help clean, fix, and prevent this from happening.  In addition, we reviewed some vocabulary of material, letter sounds and numbers.

More Art Lessons… First off, we have to admit, this is by far the most artistically driven group of students that we have seen during our time here at Indigo.  These kids cannot get enough of art!  Sometimes, I (Angelique, the art major), have to pry the kids away from art to take a break and try something else in the studio.  Art is a huge part of my life, which makes it very difficult to discourage at times, so I do my best to find ways to incorporate art into the Montessori material.  I especially do so this year, since we have such creative students who are naturally drawn to the colored pencils and paper…

Drawing Still Life Objects: Begin with a Sketch…

I know what you might be thinking, this sounds a little advanced.  Well, it is indeed a lesson that my professors taught me as an adult in art school.  But like anything when you have a Montessori mindset, you realize that when we begin to expose complex subjects at a younger age, their interest in the world grows and opportunities expand as they get older.  Sooo, I apply the same for art as I do any subject in Montessori.  Whether or not the kids are actually coordinated to draw or not, their positive experience will give them the tools to explore and understand the subject matter.  If you want to read more about the lesson, I have just added it to a new category under “Extra Extra,” but here is also a direct link.

That’s probably enough information you can handle for now, but if you have any questions, let us know.  We will leave you with images from the work cycle this week. Enjoy!