Dear Parents,

First off, while I have been on maternity leave, I have been itching to be around my Indigo family, so at the beginning of last week I decided to gradually work my way back into the studio by coming in at least a few times a week to observe the students, offer new lessons, follow up with Anisa, and begin evaluations for conferences. On Monday of last week, I brought my baby Edith in for the kids to meet her (plus I wanted her to meet Miss Luisa, the infant teacher, since she will be joining the infants room shortly). Our students were all so excited, and Edith was very calm, observant, and comfortable– as if she knew them already… Cristina commented to the children, “I think she knows all of your voices from when she was still in Angelique’s belly,” and they all seemed tickled by that thought 🙂

Edith’s first visit in the Primary Studio

Edith’s face immediately lit up for Ms. Luisa, “the baby whisperer,” as I like to call her 🙂

Conferences Around the Corner!

Sign up here to find a time and date that works for you or go to the home page when you get a chance and visit the conference sign-up blog post located below this post.

Anisa will be joining me this year for conferences, and I’m delighted for you all to meet her as she has been doing such a great job at keeping the students productive since I have been away. Could it be true, that I actually found someone as motivated and passionate as myself when it comes to the Montessori Method?! I am excited to say that I think we can accomplish a lot together!

And now, more on what your child has been working on…

The Montessori Fundamentals

As you know, we started the school year with ground rules to help our students understand how to best utilize our environment. They have been practicing how to care for the environment, for themselves, and for each other. Over these early weeks, our students have also been practicing their sense of order through material that they have had lessons on, and we have been encouraging independence as they navigate and discover areas on their own during work cycles.

While I am very interested in focusing on academics, especially during the second half of the school year, it’s important for us to first put our focus on each child’s personal growth by offering them the tools to build a strong foundation from within. We want confident and independent students, so we make a point to focus on the human spirit and the development of the whole child—physical, social, emotional, and cognitive. Within every lesson and action that we make, we are considering the heart of your child as they begin to observe and thoughtfully go about their day.

Feelings

In Montessori, we are all about teaching grace and courtesy, which we see as essential elements of life as a member of society. Peace weighs heavily into teaching about grace and courtesy, and one way that we discuss peace is how we can find peace within ourselves and ways to make peace with each other. We want to help expand your child’s vocabulary when it comes to expressing themselves so that we can better understand them, and so you and their friends and family can also better understand them. And needless to say, the more your child is using vocabulary, the more they can start understanding and respecting one another. We like to go through images of children with various expressions and talk about all of the possible words we could think of that could describe the expression on each child’s face. This also opens up discussion to help our students to brainstorm why one might feel a certain way… I always explain that there are more ways to express ourselves than simply through the words “happy” and “sad,” as we look at the reasoning behind certain feelings.

Mindfulness & Meditation

Eloise… I wonder what she is concentrating so hard on…

When it comes to discipline, there is no room for shame in our classroom. As Montessori teachers, we don’t want to “point the finger” at a child, put them on the spot, or try to make them feel embarrassed in the same way that some of us may have experienced in traditional schools while growing up. We want everyone to feel like equals, and therefore, everyone needs to understand that we are all learning and going through different phases and that we must learn to be patient with each other; some of us are still learning the “ground rules” and some of us are still learning to use our words so that we don’t lash out at others. Conflicts happen and we want our students to recognize that we all go through tough times, but that there are ways that we can work through the emotions that stir during these times. There are also ways to prevent ourselves from getting worked up by finding peace within ourselves on a regular basis. We talk a lot about mindfulness and meditation through breathing exercises, yoga, peaceful music, silence, listening exercises, and so forth. As I mentioned in the last blog, our cozy corner is a place where kids can go at any time of the day to relax, meditate, look at beautiful imagery, hold interesting and calming objects, and use their imaginations to go somewhere peaceful in their minds. Above, Eloise has chosen to take a break from working to spend some personal time meditating in the cozy corner. We also decorate the room with flowers during work cycle to bring beauty and calmness to the classroom. We have a “peace flower” that works as a reminder to listen to our friends by taking turns and gently talking to one another. The list goes on. I have been so impressed with my recent visits as our students have been independently utilizing these spaces and activities to keep the peace!

Elijah, preparing a flower arrangement to decorate the classroomAmelia, listening to a pitch fork alongside Nick who is engaged in some interesting objects…

Yesterday, I observed Nate and Nico from a distance as they decided to take a break from their work to sit at a table and converse with one another with the peace flower. No teacher prompted them- they simply chose to take a moment and communicate peacefully with each other, and then they went right back to working alongside each other during the work cycle. It’s great to see our students showing respect for one another and using their words!

Self Serve Snack Area

Our students love the freedom of serving themselves during the work cycle. Snack time is a great time to practice both independence and one’s social skills. We had lessons early on that demonstrated how to self serve, ways to eat politely while conversing with peers, and and how to clean up after one’s self. As you can see below, we have a buffet style snack set-up. Our students follow the labeled quantities of food that they may take from each dish, with an understanding that this food has been measured ahead of time so that each child in the classroom may have one serving. Children practice pouring their own water as well as cleaning up accidental spills. They are responsible for the space where they eat, keeping in mind to tidy up for the next group of students. Our students take pride in this area as it is an opportunity to show their independence when it is their turn to take a seat and eat 🙂

Below, children take turns washing their dishes, first by scrubbing the dish in a bin of soapy water, followed by rinsing their dish with clean water. Afterward, they place the dish on the drying rack and head back to work cycle.

Have no fear, we teachers rewash the dishes after school hours, just to be safe 😉

Celebrations of Life

This is a time to celebrate each child so that we can learn more about everyone and to acknowledge that each individual has their own special story and journey in life. Since we are on the traditional school year, we don’t typically have celebrations on actual birth dates since many students’ birthdays fall during our time off from school, but we do schedule days throughout the school year to honor every single child in our studio through a celebration of life. We will be reaching out to you within the next few months to schedule a special day for you to come and join us as we celebrate your child’s life. In the meantime, you can learn more here or visit the site later and find the topic under our “Extra Extra” section on the home page. Below, we had our first celebration of the year for our friend Nate.

Nate’s Celebration of Life

Updates

As you know, since I’ve been away, Anisa and Cristina have been working well together to keep the kids busy. Diego has also been filling in on occasion. Anisa is very familiar with the basic Montessori material and has gone over a number of lessons including the red rods, knobless cylinders, brown stairs, pink tower, thermic tablets, rough and smooth boards, pressure cylinders, sound cylinders, geometric solids, as well as some math and language material. If you are curious about any of these materials, feel free to google the names along with the word “Montessori,” to find images. Anisa has also been teaching the kids some sign language through songs.

Work Cycles

Work cycles continue to happen on a daily basis, a time when our students can explore and work on material that they have had lessons on. This is typically a peaceful and productive period where children work independently and in small groups. While working independently helps children to focus and refine their motor skills, working with others requires patience as children practice their social skills to take turns and problem solve with one another. The image below is an example of various students working at their own pace with no interruptions. They take their time and thoughtfully work on material, and when they are finished, they clean up after themselves and put the material way in it’s special place.

Below are images from work cycles that were taken around the end of August ( just before I went on maternity leave) along with some recent ones from my visits during the past two weeks. Your children continue to practice the material found in these images, so be sure to ask your child about what they and their peers are working on. This is a great way to get your kids talking about their day as well and it gives them a chance to reflect on the things they have learned in our studio. I hope that they are feeling very confident with many of these works by now.

Thanks for checking in! I look forward to meeting with you all very soon!

Warmly,

Angelique

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