Dear Families,

Since the last post, I have especially been directing children on an individual basis to focus on areas where they are ready to try new challenges. Each child has been evaluated on their development in language, math, practical life, and sensorial skills in order to determine new focus areas. Our youngest ones are especially focusing on problem solving skills and fine motor development while many of the older students are encouraged to learn more about math, writing, and beginning letter sounds. The strengths and challenges that we see in our students are completely different from one another, and the Montessori Method allows us to focus on each individual’s specific needs. We look forward to meeting you all later in the week to discuss our observations that we have gathered for each child.

Lessons that Challenge Both Young and Old Students in the Primary Studio

Music: Introduction to Sheet Music

Over the years, I have come up with a color system by placing stickers on our baby grand piano to teach chords, encouraging kids to explore the piano peacefully during work cycles. I based these colors off of this vibrant set of bells that chime the scale of C major, beginning with middle C on the piano to its ascending octave. This year, I drew up colorful notes and scales on a staff to give the kids a visual introduction on how music is written. I presented this work as a “two person work,” encouraging one child to point to the notes one at a time as another child plays the bells. So far, I’m really pleased with how quickly students have picked up this simple technique. It definitely helps to have a friend pointing to the notes, as most children are still learning to read from left to right.

In the images that you see above, the kids are practicing the song, “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.” More songs and extensions coming soon!

More Music: Singing Songs and Scales We have such a musical group this year, often asking for more opportunities to sing!  They continue to practice singing letter sounds in scales to warm up their voices as there are lots of fun (and sometimes silly) exercises. As for songs, I continue to choose songs that often tell a story. When introducing a new song, I read the lyrics first and we talk about what the song writer must have been thinking during the process. I find that treating songs like short stories is a great way for kids to develop an appreciation for what they are singing as they make their own interpretations of the songs. 

Beginning Sounds Mugs  These mugs filled with objects that teach beginning letter sounds are a hit all year long, because there are so many uses and extensions to this material. This year, we have already had a variety of lessons on sorting the objects by sounding out the beginning letter sounds. Of course, kids also love to play with the objects and make up their own stories (as we encourage story telling at Indigo), but in order to do so, they know to trace the sandpaper letters and say the names of each object before and after their brief session of “story time.”  This way, they can become familiar with the most common sound that each letter of our alphabet projects.

Montessori Sensorial Material

Younger students practice working on grading our sensorial material by order of dimensions, while older students who have developed their sense of order now explore extensions of this material to challenge their perspectives. Students that have been in the Primary studio for at least one or two years have these “Aha” moments when they realize that certain materials work as puzzles with other materials to create new building blocks. We like this realization to be natural for each child so that they can make discoveries on their own. After we give a lesson, we encourage kids to be constructive and creative with our sensorial material to open doors to creativity.

Celebration of Life

We recently had a Celebration of Life for Simon and learned about his life as an infant up to present day. Thanks, Daniel and Amanda, for sharing photos and stories!

A Surprise Visitor

Jackie has been teaching the kids about gently handling babies, and brought a surprise guest to visit the kids during circle time to talk about a child’s development. We plan to have an infant visit in the near future, but this little one was terribly happy to visit the big kids during a recent circle time!

Work Cycles

While I’d love to share more about what we’ve been up to, I’ve got to focus on preparing for conferences, so be sure to ask your child to tell you more about our work cycle photos below. Jackie and I are excited to share the progress of your children, so hopefully everyone is signed up to meet on Thursday and Friday. Hope to see you all soon!

Note: If your child is only shown once in this post, it’s because I have so many photos to sort through, so don’t worry! You will see the rest later this week during conferences!  See you soon!