The Moveable Alphabet

Renate Hiller "On Handwork"

2011-12-06T01:43:00.000-08:00

This amazing video should be viewed by all Montessorians -

Click here to view: Renate Hiller --- "On Handwork"

Holiday Geometry and Math II

2011-12-06T00:35:00.001-08:00

After watching two of my students methodically divide a triangular tree and a bowed, gift box into individual triangles on the bulletin board, I had one of my assistants prepare an art project that basically duplicated the triangular tree work.

I stated that the triangles had been cut by hand rather than a machine so some were slightly larger or smaller than others and would need to be trimmed to fit exactly. I watched as the elders did in fact do that. It was amazing to see how at times they trimmed only the tiniest sliver of paper so that the triangles fit perfectly together.

The student that did the chalk work in the picture at the beginning of this post re-created it almost exactly in her art piece, including numbering the triangles - her own idea and decision to do so, none of the other students did.

It was a very successful project. Note that the students did not decorate their trees with drawn ornaments or in fact any illustrations. They used pieces of ribbon, but nothing else. This is a sign that they are maturing as they did not need to add more to their pieces. They were satisfied with them without the embellishments.

Fourth World Living

2011-11-30T11:04:00.000-08:00

A parent of one of my students, who makes the recyclable snack bags, has a new blog. Check out Lisa's "Fourth World Living Blog" and support this Alaskan artist.

Click here: Fourth World Living

Holiday Geometry and Math

2011-11-29T22:58:00.000-08:00

I drew a triangular tree on the top left side of the chalkboard and divided the image into triangles. Too, I assigned each triangle a number as I counted how many triangles there were in total.

Then I drew a second triangular tree and asked if any of my students wanted to repeat the work I had just completed with this singular image. I had a child volunteer instantly.

After she worked for almost thirty minutes, a second elder approached me and asked I they could also do the work. As there was room on the chalkboard, I agreed but drew a bowed gift box instead. She looked at it, got a ruler and went to work.

Here are a dozen or more photographs of their work. Note that the children wrote all but a few of the numbers written on the triangles. When the chalk broke a few times, I assisted. It was simply amazing watching them work.

(Note : The board was washed by a younger student just prior to my initial work. I am repainting the chalkboard over the holidays. )

Declamation Poem for December - Winter Solstice Chant

2011-11-28T13:17:00.000-08:00

(Above: My chalkboard sketch to help visualize the poem during our first reading of it in class today.)

This is the December poem for Elders to recite for declamation in my class. If you click "December poem" you may hear it read out loud.

There is a large solstice celebration here in Juneau, Alaska on Sa

ndy Beach which I am excited to attend for the first time this year. Sandy Beach is just behind my school, so this poem is perfect for my students.

Winter Solstice Chant

by Annie Finch

Vines, leaves, roots of darkness, growing,

now you are uncurled and cover our eyes

with the edge of winter sky

leaning over us in icy stars.

Vines, leaves, roots of darkness, growing,

come with your seasons, your fullness, your end -

come with your seasons, your fullness, your end.

Poetry is interpretive. I talk about metaphor in poetry and creative writing often with my students. I want to give them poems to recite that invite them to think about the coupling of imagery and language. This is a creative writing / language lesson.

(After reading and explaining the poem - I added the sun's return in the right corner. I also explained that the sun is in fact always shining.)

Who Has Seen The Wind

2011-11-26T00:48:00.001-08:00

My elders have memorized their first poem. It is such a wonderful thing to listen to them recite it. Just before lunch, every day, we have a moment of silence which is then followed by our pre-lunch song - "The Earth is good to me and so I thank the Earth for giving me the things I need - the sun and the rain and the apple seed. The Earth is good to me."

Two or three times a week now, after the moment of silence and before the song, I say "Declamation." I then call a child's name and then another's until all of the elders who wish to recite their poems have. It is not a demand but an opportunity. Therefore, a child may say, "I decline," or some other similar and brief statement. The younger students are simply captivated when listening to the elders recite. Too, one of my elders has a Broadway stage-like presence. When she does her declamation, she includes a lot of hand gestures. I love it.

Each month, beginning with the month of November, the elders (third / fourth year students) are given a poem to recite. At the end of the school year they are presented their first anthology of poetry - the poems they have memorized collected into a bound, illustrated book. The illustrations are done by them. The small chapbook of poems is a wonderful gift to conclude their year and their time in the primary classroom.

Here is the first poem. Note that they also state the name of the author at the conclusion of their declamation.

Who has Seen the Wind?

Who has seen the wind?

Neither I nor you:

But when the leaves hang trembling

The wind is passing through.

Who has seen the wind?

Neither you nor I:

But when the trees bow down their heads,

The wind is passing by.

---

by Christina Rossetti

Follow By Email

2011-11-23T20:06:00.000-08:00

follow by email

Since creating the Moveable Alphabet, I have received emails from readers who wanted to follow my blog but didn't have a Google account and didn't want to get one. Years later, I have a solution. Notice on the right sidebar that I have added a "follow by email" box. I hope this new option is a good fix for those of you looking for a second option to follow my posts.

A Poem About Gratitude on the Eve of Thanksgiving 2011

2011-11-23T18:58:00.000-08:00

Messenger - by Mary Oliver

My work is loving the world. Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird - equal seekers of sweetness. Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums. Here the calm in the speckled sand.

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn? Am I no longer young, and still half-perfect? Let me keep my mind on what matters, which is my work,

which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished. The phoebe, the delphinium. The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture. Which is mostly rejoicing, since all the ingredients are here,

which is gratitude, to be given a mind and a heart and these body-clothes, a mouth with which to give shouts of joy to the moth and the wren, to the sleepy dug-up clam, telling them all, over and over, how it is that we live forever.

Happy Thanksgiving to all my readers and to the children who fill your lives - Susan Y. Dyer

A Blue Turkey

2011-11-19T10:55:00.001-08:00

Today in school I watched a 4 year old illustrate a handout of a turkey, He colored it completely blue. I quietly approached him and said, "I really like how you are working on that picture. I was wondering why you chose blue to illustrate it." I said all of this in a soft, respectful voice. He looked at me as if I had a light out in my head. "I'm coloring Susan. This isn't a real turkey. Coloring means using colors." Then he looked at me like, "Wow, they let you teach." I had to leave the room because I started to joyously, belly laugh at all he had revealed to me. "Coloring, Susan. Yeah, ya know where they use colors!"

The Head or the Face?

2011-11-18T00:21:00.000-08:00

Two of my elders were illustrating a handout at the start of the day this morning (I provide these on occasion as warm-up work). The work that they were doing was truly amazing considering one is 5 1/2 and the other is 6. One of the students did the above work. It will be completed tomorrow. When I walked by their work table, I overhead one of the girls asking for clarity from the other regarding a statement she had made.

"Are you talking about the head or the face?" she asked. "The head is the entire upper shape of the skull, not just the front of it but the back and the sides, too." Then the student stopped and used her hands to illustrate the entirety of the head. "The face is the front of the head including eyes, nose, mouth, cheeks - all of the face. So are you illustrating the head a certain color or the face?"

Lately, I have heard many similar conversations between the elders. Their lunch table is like a dinner party where the guests discuss religion, art, literature and mathematics. They are forming ideas, questioning themselves and their peers. They are maturing and growing confident enough to debate with each other on a wide range of subjects. They are already preparing to leave the environment. When June 2012 arrives, they will be ready to take flight.

Something As Simple and Complex As A Line - Updated

2011-11-16T23:10:00.000-08:00

I took these two photographs to use as examples of a student using the small, roll of thin rope or yarn to create a shape after receiving the lesson below on the line. Prior to creating an outline with the material representing a line, the student carefully copied the artwork on the postcard. She is an excellent artist. She is 5 1/2 and is the only student in my current classroom that expresses an interest in abstract art.

After observing the student above's work for a few minutes, a "drawing" on the chalkboard caught my eye. A second later, an animated version of the drawing was running through my mind, as was the children's book, "Harold and the Purple Crayon." During our afternoon work, I invited the students to sit with me and look at the "drawing" on the chalkboard. I then asked the student above to show her work.

Next, I asked my students if they could see a relationship between her work and the image on the chalkboard. I then asked everyone if they could imagine the "drawing" on the chalkboard as a single, unbroken line. Too, instead of viewing the image as scribbling, to acknowledge it as art. The same above student looked at the chalkboard soberly, smiled the slightest smile and said, "It's moving."

The image below is by the internationally famous and recently deceased artist Cy Twombly. He is one of my favorite artists. I have asked myself why many times. I know my answer as one of my other favorite artists is Francis Bacon. I can see in my mind's eye, as if it was yesterday, where I first saw these two artists. I was on a 4th grade field trip with my class and teacher to the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. I was blown away and fell in love with art that very day.

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Over the past several weeks I have shifted back and forth between lessons on geometry and on art (as well as many, many other lessons on a variety of subjects). The bridge I have been using between these two areas was initially the geometry cabinet as it may be used in a variety of ways to assist in art work.

The oval is used to draw the initial, basic outline of a face:

A trapezoid is used to make a volcano:

I then moved my students towards a more abstract concept. I asked them what all of the geometric shapes had in common. They had some great answers: triangles, circles, etc. I thanked them for their responses and explained that while all of their answers were correct that I was looking for a different commonality. I was asking about what is called the line. I next placed a single length of white narrow rope on the table besides a few of the geometry insets. This would serve as my model for a line.

I demonstrated how a single line had both linear and non-linear qualities. I moved the line so as to create several shapes. Some were linear and others abstract or non-linear. My next step was to have the children manipulate a length of rope so as to create their own shapes:

They were invited to glue down the shapes that they decided they wanted to preserve.

I let all of that information seep in for a few days and while that seeping was occurring I returned to the shape of a triangle. I handed out black and white scenes of mountain peaks and asked that my elders and afternooners take rulers and isolate as many triangles as they could. It took them a long time as when they thought they had found them all, I turned the paper upside down and asked them to look again. They found dozens more.

Then one night as I was preparing for sleep, an image of a snake came to my mind. I saw it slide across a desert landscape with mountain peaks in the background. I saw, too, the the geometry of its skin and I saw the flexible line that formed the outline of its long body. I knew that this one image would manifest itself into a presentation that would provide work for the children which would in fact solidify, in a single project, all of the previous lessons I had given over the past couple of weeks. Too, I knew that it would serve future extensions on those lessons.

I placed several color copies of an illustration of a rattlesnake on one of the classroom tables the next morning. I again invited the afternooners and the elders to locate and isolate triangles and other geometric shapes using a ruler and a pencil. They pulled one material after another from the shelves to assist them in their work.

I then reminded them of our discussion on the line a week or so ago. Following this discussion, I handed each of them a length of line, a small pile of construction paper triangles, glue and card stock to be used for background. I asked them to think about all that we had talked about regarding geometry, math, linear, non-linear, polygons, irregular polygons and art. I then asked them to make a snake using details based on those lessons. They worked with such an intensity that it was hard at times to not abandon the rest of the classroom and students so as to simply sit back and watch them. It was mesmerizing. They used their rope lines to create the body of the snake:

They filled in the body with triangles:

Two days later, I placed bowls of white buttons, of gold glitter, of this and that for them to use as collage materials for the landscape beneath and above their snakes.

It was interesting to see that they did not copy each other, but selected materials that met their design criteria.

After a week of continuous afternoon work, they brought their projects to a conclusion:

As a follow up to this work, I presented an all class lesson on making one stroke with a paint brush - moving from dark to light colors. I placed in a small box a roll of paper for this art work; an aesthetic metaphor and off shoot of a line and a ball of thin, white rope.

These two objects are now always available for children of all ages to explore with infinite results.

Next week - construction of a snake polygon with the constructive triangles:

And, hmmm...doesn't this look like familiar cutting work - those polygon snakes are everywhere.

There too, along with those polygons and other elements of geometry, is something both simple and complex - the line.

Reading this once more, I much confess there were many other presentations that went into all of this. I hope to write about some of those after next week's Parent Conferences. Which makes me think about the upcoming AMI Conference - I will be there! Say hi if you see me!

I Have This New Gig...

2011-11-16T01:51:00.000-08:00

So...long term readers...have you ever wondered what my voice sounds like? Well, new readers and old readers of my blog may now hear me on NPR's national women's program 51%. I was asked by the show's producer, Susan Barnett, to do a 6-7 minute monthly commentary on my life here in Juneau called "Alaskan Diaries." The second "page" of my diary was just archived and during it (towards the end) I speak about my life as a Montessori teacher. If you want to listen to it go to this link. If you are just interested in hearing my piece move the recording to the 18:00 mark and you will hear me sharing my story about my first 100 days in Juneau, AK.

http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wamc/news.newsmain/article/0/663/1871433/51..The.Women%E2%80%99s.Perspective/51.Show.1165

Whales and Bubble Net Feeding

2011-11-08T15:39:00.000-08:00

We had a wonderful guest speaker last week who gave a lovely lesson on whales and bubble net feeding for both Primary afternoon classes, together. Humpback and Orca whales, as well as other types, live in Alaskan waters.

Then, this week, when I introduced peeling and slicing hard boiled eggs to the Practical Life shelves, I found myself asking the children to look at the slicer and tell me if they saw anything that made them think of whales (actually, I hadn't seen the connection until I saw the egg slicer myself) - baleen was their collective answer. The metal wires that do the slicing recalled how the non-toothed whales use baleen to gather and eat their food. It was an interesting connection.

The lesson the visitor use to demonstrate how baleen whales gather food is as follows. She poured blue colored water into a large, plastic container. She then sprinkled pepper onto the top of the water. The pepper represented herring. Next she took a large toothed comb (model for the baleen) and drew it through the water demonstrating how the "herring" is collected and consumed.

A Baleen Whale:

An egg slicer:

Whales and egg slicers - who would have thought?

Re-usable Snack Bags

2011-11-06T14:37:00.000-08:00

I wrote a post a few weeks back about a child's re-usable snack backs. Such a simple way to make a green statement - no more baggies. Well, as it turns out his mother has a wonderful Etsy page where she sells her handmade items. Support Alaskan artists - view her page and the wonderful work she does. Go to: lisamaybehere

How to Read A Clock

2011-11-06T14:18:00.001-08:00

The Friday before clocks were turned back an hour, I began our first lessons on how to read a clock. I have much, much more work to do. I have a chalkboard in my classroom so I use it on occasion along with the Montessori materials: the long five chain and the clock model with usable hands. There is so much paper work out there for telling time. I am trying to avoid all of that now and instead, as we always light candles at lunch and for our afternoon work, I will next do a lesson on telling time by measuring increments of a candle burning. See below for a section taken from a post I wrote about this work during my first month of writing The Moveable Alphabet:

I am now remembering a lesson I did years ago on measuring a half an hour. I took two identical tapered candles and placed them in identical candle holders so that their height would be exactly the same. Next, I lit one candle and set a 30 minute cooking timer. When the timer sounded I immediately blew out the lit candle. I then placed the now slightly shorter candle next to the one that was not lit and made a mark completely around the second candle which was level to the lit candle's current height. The fine line which ran around the never lit candle represented a half an hour. I repeated these acts until the first candle was only a small stub and the second had several rings which denoted 30 minute increments. The next step was to wait for another day (so as not to overwhelm the children) and then light the marked candle and see if the markings were correct. My five year olds wanted to watch it the entire time. Yes, they did match - candle and clock. What a great memory of a successful presentation.

Potato Mashing Makes A Smash Hit

2011-11-06T13:14:00.001-08:00

Our new Practical Life work - Potato Mashing or Mashed Potato Making - is a smash hit. I have one of my assistants boil a few potatoes with the skins on and place them in a bowl in the morning. The other two ingredients are butter and milk. Oh, and they may add salt and pepper, after the potatoes are mashed, as they please. I have to say that my younger students devour their own good work. Actually, they share their potato work with one other student, so they both clean their bowls.

Left to Right - a small white bowl containing four tablespoons of butter with the paper wrapper still on (the tablespoons are separated by knife markings made by my morning assistant), a bowl of boiled potatoes, a circular tray that has several items placed on it. There is a medium sized white bowl for a child to place within it one large piece of boiled potato. Sitting within the medium bowl, for balancing while carrying purposes, is a small container of cold milk. Also on the tray is a child-sized potato masher, a tablespoon, a serving spoon and two small bowls to serve the mashed potatoes in. Note that the child places the round tray on her working table, removes all of the items, returns the tray to the shelf, takes the medium white bowl to get both a piece of potato and a tablespoon of butter which she then warms up in the microwave independently (we have a 30 second button highlighted for the children to use to warm up food) and then takes to her table. Next she pours the milk into a one tablespoon measuring spoon and adds that to the potato and butter. Finally, the mashing begins.

Here an almost three year old mashes her potato:

As it is somewhat physically challenging for her to push down the potato masher while sitting, she chooses to use her body weight and stands to complete her work:

A second child mashes potatoes. I am very interested in her wrist rotation, which she used to move the potato masher around the bottom of the bowl. I am asking myself where else a child uses that type of muscular wrist movement.

Oh yeah! The pleasure of eating your own good work and of sharing that work with a friend!

Handicrafts in the Classroom

2011-10-19T18:32:00.000-07:00

I truly love watching children sew, weave or crochet/knit in the classroom. We haven't gotten to crocheting or knitting yet, but there has been much weaving and sewing.

We began weaving in the afternoon program the second week of school. My older students immediately fell into the over and under rhythm of the work.

One of my student's completed his weaving project and immediately made a belt out of it. His posture conveys his sense of satisfaction with his work:

Pillows have been hand printed and sewn:

And needlework has been made into purses:

Amazingly, the cursive handwriting of each of these children has dramatically improved since the beginning of the year, as has their attention to detail and their ability to bring work to a conclusion.

A Brief Note About A Small Package

2011-10-19T18:05:00.000-07:00

Everyday at lunch one of my students pulls this from his handmade lunch bag. Out of this small cloth envelope he pulls pretzels, pistachios (we are not a nut free school) or some other lunch tidbit. This simple to sew snack pouch is one of the most "greenish" things I have seen in lunch boxes in a long time. Farewell to all those plastic zip-lock baggies. His mom told me she has about a dozen of these that she whipped up on her sewing machine and that she throws in the wash as needed making baggies obsolete. Love it!

Never Underestimate The Creative Intelligence of a Child

2011-09-28T05:41:00.000-07:00

"Never underestimate the creative intelligence of a child." This is one of my favorite Maria Montessori quotes. It is always lingering in the back of my mind. It has called upon me to stop and pay attention to the details of an individual child's work in such a way as to see the infinite possibilities of expression - to see through the lens of a child's mind and to celebrate what is viewed. I have much to write about as it has been a very busy month. But, for now I will simply share with you two groups of photos in which lessons given were internalized and then expressed in another medium other than the one I anticipated.

The first group of photos are of chalkboard drawings I turned to view just after a lengthy lesson on fractions to my elders, but which was also attended to by two young four year olds. One of those four year olds listened intently at all that I said and watched carefully at the materials I manipulated to demonstrate my lesson.

I remember asking myself if perhaps the lesson was over her head and that maybe she was bored rather than captivated. She wasn't bored and she used the chalkboard to express what she gathered from the presentation. I stood in awe when I first saw it and then, yes, I got somewhat teary eyed at its magnificence.

The second group of photos is of a work an elder was doing - a six year old who is in her third year in Primary. She came up to me excitedly with clay in her hands. I was moving towards a three year old that I had promised a lesson. I looked down quickly at what the older child was trying to show me but only glanced at it briefly until I heard her say, "Nine plus eight plus three. I made math with my clay." I gave the three year old a look that promised I would be there shortly and turned my attention to the clay. She had made indentations in the clay to denote quantity. Another elder came up to us and said, "You need to make a plus sign." A few minutes later the equation was on the floor and a sum had been determined. I too was on the floor watching her enthusiasm for her work. I took a photo or two, maybe more, and found my way to the waiting three year old.

Never underestimate the creative intelligence of a child and always remember that you are in the midst of great minds at work...the minds of young children. Lastly, allow space for children to express their thoughts. Paper is only one medium for expression and may be limiting to some. Allow children room to breath intellectually and artistically. If what we are truly seeking, in regards to the children grasping knowledge, are "leaps to abstraction" then make room for the leaping to happen in your environment. Think less about misconduct and more about wonderment.

The Summer Session concludes at Juneau Montessori School

2011-08-21T19:29:00.000-07:00

Some of my students enjoying the school's garden. I have easy access to it, as do my students, as there is a door to the garden in my classroom. I often opened it during the summer session and let the children flow inside and outside picking raspberries along the way.

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I taught the last eight days of the summer session. Basically, the summer session is an extension of the school year and so it is simply Montessori all year round. One of the most amazing contrasts between the way the school operates here and those I have worked at on the East Coast is that the children and teachers go outside almost everyday - and it rains almost everyday here. Forget staying inside when it sprinkles...nope. Children laugh and play outside when it is pouring rain and they are rarely sick. It reveals how we adults condition children to the outdoors editing their natural instincts to play in the rain and the snow based on our preferences. What makes going outside so successful - attitude and gear. Rain gear is playground attire.

Although I was only a lead in the classroom for a week and a half, much work was done. I have several photos to share. Some of the pictures highlight lessons and materials you have seen me post previously, but at a different school - Blue Hill Montessori School in Canton, MA. There is a wonderful sense of continuity about that. My readers can see the thread that runs through the narrative of this blog - the Montessori materials and the method. These are not limited by geography but instead echoed across the globe. Montessori schools are found all over the world. There is a comfort to walking into a school in Warsaw, Poland and in Juneau, Alaska and viewing the pink tower for both teachers, students and parents.

So let's begin. My first lessons were with the botany cabinet. Yup - leaf drawing and illustrating. Most likely you have seen photos of this work before, but isn't it beautiful work.

Next, I presented two lessons. One was on the short chains and the geometry cabinet.

The second was on the jeweled tower and the glass bead squares.

Here a child received a lesson on squaring chains. She was absolutely captivated by the work.

Five "squared" equals twenty five. The visualization of this mathematical equation always impresses me. It has an architecture to it. The construction of multiplication. It's eye candy for this theory head.

Volcanoes. Every child and the adults in the classroom wanted to see this work again and again.

First I demonstrated how the geometric solid - the cone - illustrated the shape of a volcano's form.

Then we put vinegar and baking soda together -

The next day I extended science to include art - I showed the children how to make paper volcanoes:

The student is drawing lava rocks around his volcano -

The piece is almost finished. He worked on it steadily for more than an hour -

Like so much of the work in the classroom, this project provided opportunities for mentoring. Here the student that created the volcano above shows another student how to make lava paper strips -

Finally, the writing component. I asked the student, who in the above photo was mentoring a fellow student, if he would be so kind as to write a chapbook on how to make a paper volcano for the other students to use. He obliged. Below is the first page of the six page chapbook:

On the last day of summer camp, the mother of one of the students visited and told stories about salmon fishing. I spent my lunch hour putting together some arts and crafts projects to compliment her stories. First, I laid out sheets of paper printed with images of several types of salmon for the students to illustrate. Next, I gave each student a circular, paper image of a salmon to cut out, punch a hole in and then thread string through. The students loved their handmade salmon necklaces.

Lastly, they made canoes and illustrated them using a salmon motif. I helped with the people - drawing them (we were short on time).

I cut vertical slits in them so that the oars could slide up and down as if they were actually rowing in the canoe.

The work was truly beautiful:

One student's finished work -

A second student's work below -

And of course there was a lot of walking on the line:

Walking on the line with a lit candle:

A lot of food work:

The classics - pickle work and jam spreading

And too, pizza making, mixing together the ingredients for bread pudding and making homemade granola. These were made on different days to be used as afternoon snack for the elders (3rd year students, and a few second year ones also) and rising nappers.

My new lead assistant captivated the children with a demonstration on how to cut a pineapple. She also informed the students that determining a pineapple's ripeness was done by pulling on its leaves. Here a child does just that.

There was sooo much more good work done in those few days. The new school year starts Tuesday, August 22. The day begins in the classroom at 7:30 am and ends at 3:30. Coffee is always brewing in the staff kitchen!

Am I happy here at Juneau Montessori School in Douglas, Alaska? Oh yeah!

Geography In The Primary Classroom : Puzzle Maps and Flags

2011-07-24T17:49:00.000-07:00

On Friday I sat and observed as the upstairs teacher, Andrea, (who is working in my classroom this summer) assisted two children (5 year olds) with their puzzle map of North America. I watched as the two boys carefully lifted each puzzle piece from the tray and placed them on the work rug. I listened as they questioned out loud the names of each country. Two of them were instantly named - the United States and Canada. One of the boys placed a small puzzle piece in the palm of his hand and seemed to be teetering on identifying it. Andrea looked at him and gave him a little clue, "It starts with the sound C - like Cat." The second boy blurted out, "Cuba!" He was correct. Next Andrea invited them to go to the wall poster that listed the names of countries on the left and the flags of each on the right.

The boys left the Cuba puzzle map on the work rug and went to the poster looking for that first sound "C" followed by "uba" They found the image of its flag and then turned to the shelf where the flags are displayed and chose the one that they had identified. They came to the work rug and placed it next to the puzzle piece now recognized as Cuba.

The boys continued this work for a good 40 minutes. While they continued, two other children (older 4 year olds) begun working on the continent map. After removing each continent from the frame, they were now attempting to replace the puzzle pieces correctly. I overhead snippets of their conversation regarding which piece should go where.

"I am pretty sure that Africa is found below Europe," one of the four years said to the other. "Yes," the other noted, "Africa is below Europe." The first four year old placed the continent Africa in its correct place and then quietly sat back. He seemed to be pulling various tidbits of information gathered through lessons and work with the materials together in his mind so as to make a statement, which he then did. "There are no children in our classroom from Africa," he said. The second child agreed. The next continent placed was Australia followed by Antarctica. Soon the map was completed and put away. So too were all the flags of the North America puzzle map, as well as the map itself and the work rug.

My long time friend Sarah Endsley from Lake Country Montessori School in Minnesota, which I was fortunate to work at years ago while I took my training, wrote the following regarding Geography in the Children's House (CH):

Geography at the Children's House Level

Dr. Montessori spoke of “giving the world to the child in this first plane of development.” The prepared environment, trusting adults, and the freedom to explore, give the child the world.

CH geography comes from the children understanding their world and their place in it. It comes through imaginative storytelling, accurate and descriptive language, sensorially rich experiences and beautifully made materials that allow for exploration and classifying experiences. The sphere handled by the three-year-old one discovers later to be the same shape as the globe of oceans and continents. Land and water forms can be filled with water to create a lake, an island. a peninsula, an isthmus, a strait. A ball of clay is rolled into a sphere, cut in half, and flattened into two circles that become hemispheres. Each continent on the puzzle maps is made up of parts that can be manipulated and put back together again, building a memory in the hands long before the memory in the words.

I have traveled far to find myself again in a classroom where children are discovering the world via the puzzle maps. I returned home that evening remembering that a friend of mine had visited Cuba. I wanted to call her and have her describe every detail of her journey. I wanted to mentally envision the place who's flag continues to fluttered in my own memory. On Monday, I will sit and listen again to the global citizen of the classroom. As I write this, I am excited to simply imagine where they may take me with them next. The world is at their fingertips.

Observing in the Classroom

2011-07-13T05:57:00.000-07:00

A four year old skips past the bells

I recently had the opportunity to sit and observe in my new classroom as it is where the summer school program is being held. I took some photos and want to share them with you, but first let me tell you how I felt that first day when I entered the room.

I came into the empty classroom slowly and quietly. I must confess it was quite an emotional moment. Perhaps I should use the word spiritual instead as it felt like I was entering a sacred space - a place where children find their school day home. The classroom has a warmth to it that embraces you as you first enter.

Here are a few photos of the classroom, children working and some materials. Just outside my classroom via a door is the school garden. When standing in the garden you can see both the masts of boats at the pier and the white cap of nearby mountains:

The classroom is composed of two large areas with the sink in-between.

A child used the scrambled egg tray to crack, beat and pour her egg onto the skillet.

The finished scrambled egg that she ate with a huge smile.

Looking out the classroom window at the garden just outside.

Each of these four spoons has a small shell on it. They are to be used with walking on the line exercises.

Everyday the children bake bread. These two loaves are just out of the oven.

More photos to come. I am suddenly quite hungry for some scrambled eggs and toasted homemade bread. It's all good...so good actually!

I Have Arrived!

2011-07-05T11:29:00.000-07:00

Juneau Montessori School - Juneau, Alaska (Douglas Island)

Preparing for My Move to Juneau

2011-06-22T10:16:00.000-07:00

As I pack and pack...and pack, I am composing in my mind a Practical Life and Math lesson for the classroom. The Practical Life lesson is an extension on napkin folding and gift wrapping applied to wrapping items in packing paper before placing them in boxes. In the past few days I have repeated many variations of this work. For math, the lesson has to do with estimating. Various miniature boxes would be placed on a tray along with various sized items. The child would visually assess and determine the number of items that may fit in the box. Before determining whether their answer is correct they would choose a number from a small pile of cards that would match their estimated number. They would then place the items in one of the boxes to see if they were correct - an early lesson on volume that may be preparation for work with the cubes in Elementary. I confess that I frequently think more should fit into a packing box then does.

I also want to do a mapping exercise with the United States map to illustrate Ms. Dyer's travels to Juneau. Yet, I still have so much left to do before I find myself sitting in the downstairs classroom of Juneau Montessori School.

This old post from New Year's 2010 has been returning to my thoughts - I have such a joyful, peaceful feeling about my new teaching post. Here it is again. It resonates so much of what my heart and mind have been feeling and thinking of late and always:

Whoever touches the life of the child touches the most sensitive point of a whole which has roots in the most distant past and climbs toward the infinite future. Maria Montessori

As we look back on this passing year of 2009, let us cherish our work with children. We are blessed with being given the almost daily opportunity to listen to their stories, bear witness to their artistic expression, ponder the wonder of their enormous insight and to be present when they articulate with anxious breath the joy of a discovery or the completion of a work. How blessed we are to be in attendance when songs are sung by the old and the young, to participate in the celebrations of their births and to bear the heartache and joy of teary eyed goodbyes at the end of a school year. Let this be my life for years to come.

Yes...let this be my life for years to come...

Juneau Montessori School - My New Home

2011-06-11T09:58:00.000-07:00

Read about my new home: Juneau Montessori School, Juneau AK

I am returning to the classroom - yes, yes!

2011-05-25T22:24:00.000-07:00

I have accepted a position at an AMI school in Juneau, Alaska! I am unbelievably happy that I will hear the sound of small children singing in a circle and that my life inside the classroom continues!!! Oh my goodness...I am smiling and crying at the same time!!!!

Pictures from the Vault - Hand Sewing Pillows

2011-05-01T11:11:00.001-07:00

Photos from the Vault - Metal Insets Drawn Blindfolded

2011-04-25T08:10:00.001-07:00

Easter Memories

2011-04-20T14:50:00.000-07:00

Easter will be celebrated on Sunday. I will be spending my day remembering all the Easter egg hunts at my grandparents farm in Dansville, NY and too all the Easter baskets my ex-husband Chris and I made and hid for our son Ian. As I thought about this soon to arrive holiday I remembered a story a fellow Montessori teacher told me. It is a lovely tale. Like many teachers, she had a butterfly cocoon kit that she had ordered from one site or another. The kit came with this cocoon station that resembled those hanging upside-down tomato plant containers, yet you could see through the mesh. It also came with a butterfly cocoon that she placed within the station with the stick it came attached to. It was in her class for several weeks. The children loved to stare at it in anticipation of the emerging butterfly. Unfortunately, it didn't emerge from its cocoon before Spring break. A small dish of sugar water was left inside the station before the classroom was closed up for a week in case the butterfly did emerge from its cocoon and sought some food. Unfortunately, whoever placed the water forgot to shut the small opening when they were finished doing so. When everyone returned to the classroom after break and after many of the students had engaged in religious, Easter celebrations, what was first on both the teacher's mind and the students' was the cocoon. Had there been a change? Yet when they all peered into the station there was nothing there but an empty, opened cocoon - it slightly resembled a white shroud. After a moment of silence and dropped jaws, one child finally spoke. His words were filled with Easter wisdom - "He has risen."

From the Vault - Picture of the Day

2011-01-28T09:28:00.000-08:00

A three year old's first lesson in hand washing.

A three year old's first lesson in hand washing.

Repeating Work

2011-01-22T08:19:00.000-08:00

I confess. I am not a trained Montessori infant / toddler directress. I am trained in Primary. So please take the last and the forth coming posts as simply my curiosity about the whys and ways of a toddler and my observations - post mental scrutiny.

Prior to spending the day with Julia recently, her mother told me with a wonderful smile that Julia was now frequently removing her clothing and then, later, attempting to put them back on. It was after breakfast, and we were upstairs so that I could quickly check my email (I am still the editor of Rochester Woman Magazine and need to stay in touch with my writers - Julia's parents found no issue with this as they too use the computer in their home with Julia present), when it began. Julia had all of her clothes off in a flash and then started putting them back on again. This cycle of activity continued for a good while. I silently watched and then asked myself, "Is this her work and if so is she simply repeating her work?" Each time she pulled on a sock she was so specific about making sure the fit around her toes was perfect. Here was: attention to detail, a period of concentrated effort, silent activity and the pursuit of perfection. So...Julia was repeating her work - learning to dress and undress herself - moving towards greater independence.

She was so utterly focused on each garment of clothing that she was absolutely quiet. I remained also. And then something new caught her eye. She became captivated by that small detail.

She sat right down to study it closer:

It was the plastic tag left over from holding the price ticket:

After removing her clothes for the third time and starting to put them back on - one more thing drew her eye - her own shadow.

Shadow Curiosity:

It was a wonderful 45 minutes. I could have written two dozen pages of observation notes.

And then she saw her boots:

Does a Spoon Have a Taste?

2011-01-17T10:08:00.000-08:00

These days I am spending time with a 22 month old a couple of days a week. My life as an editor and feature writing provides me with flexibility in my schedule to commit to spending a few hours a week nannying. It is a favorite part of my week.

Last week I presented spooning to Julia. I care for her in her home, so I use what I can find in the cupboards. After I gave her an initial presentation and just before she did the work herself, she did something that caused me to question the whys of her behavior. With the two bowls before her, one filled with dried kidney beans, she lifted the spoon, hesitated, looked at me with a questioning silent expression and then licked the empty spoon. When she was finished licking it, she looked at the spoon for a moment as if accessing her recently taken in data and then began her spooning work.

Is it a leap to abstraction for a toddler to understand that a spoon or other utensil is not the source of flavor? That the flavor solely comes from what is put on the spoon? So, if we accept that children are sensorial beings and that the act of tasting something is not simply to satisfy hunger but also used as a method of gathering information like temperature and texture, and if we accept that most of the time a spoon delivers data and content - food, why then dismiss or attempt to discourage a child from using their instinctual behavior which is based on prior knowledge? A child, a toddler, licks an empty spoon before using it to evaluate whether it is the spoon itself that always provides some type of taste or other sensorial data. Does a spoon have a taste? So - again my question - is it a leap for a child to understand an empty spoon has no flavor? Too, is it not also significant that a tool be used appropriately. If all of the child's prior experiences with a spoon is as its use to deliver food - is it then a leap to understand that it may also be used to transfer quantities - which is what spooning is - without first licking the spoon?

To me, this is also somewhat of a mathematical act - the coupling of a spoon with food - addition. Spoon + Food = Taste

Working with one child at a time is an enormous luxury - but I do get carried away with my ideas...my Montessori minds loves that about me!

"On Handwork"

2010-11-20T07:57:00.001-08:00

This short video is a remarkable testimony to the significance of children and adults using their hands to create something.

http://www.vimeo.com/11895908

Metal Insets...

2010-09-24T05:18:00.001-07:00

Perhaps using metal insets since age 4 might also assist in learning how to draw an ellipse...

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/23/the-frisbee-of-art/?th&emc=th

2010-09-07T08:51:00.000-07:00

"I really do not know that anything has ever been more exciting than diagramming sentences."

— Gertrude Stein (February 3, 1874 – July 27, 1946)

Next time you hesitate about presenting sentence analysis think of Ms. Stein...let her joy for it inspire you.

Color or Symbol Recognition/Pairing

2010-08-29T18:24:00.000-07:00

While recently spending time with a young friend of mine, I engaged him in a pairing exercise. As I was in his home, I didn't have any traditional Montessori materials to work with. Instead, I found a bag full of magnetic letters and numbers in his play area. The magnets were the type often found attached to the front of refrigerators. I placed a pile of them in front of me on his parent's kitchen counter and selected 8 pairs from the bunch. I paired them first to model my expectations for him. I never thought about the colors. I simply paired S with S and went about doing the same with the rest of the selected magnets.

However, when I watched him find pairs, I found myself asking myself whether or not a child might match the colors instead of the symbols; that they would have a mental preference for that. I began asking myself whether children are sensitive or more attracted to certain colors and would be visually drawn to them or, perhaps more accurately, distracted by them.

Advertising companies are very aware that the female eye is drawn, biologically, to the color red. Next time you buy Wheaties, look carefully at the color of the text on the box, as well as other brands of cereal. Advertisers, who invest millions in design, count on specific colors to attract the human eye to their products. Therefore, it doesn't seem that much of a leap to assume that a child's eye is drawn to certain colors. And too, how mature would a child have to be to resist the temptation of color.

The last sentence of the above paragraph brings to mind a wonderful lesson given by Mrs. Fernando when I took my AMI training in Minnesota. This particular lesson was part of a series of lessons of the metal insets. She informed us that a young child first doing the metal insets will draw rainbows and butterflies inside and outside the their drawn inset/frame outlines. What was fascinating was her explanation for this. She said that too often teachers/directresses/directors see this as a willful act of disobedience; that these drawings are an act of not listening to directions. Instead, she explained, it is more like the memory game.

In the memory game, children are given a card that has a number 0 - 10 on it. The children do not share with each other the number they are given at first. Each child walks throughout the classroom and then chooses something that they will bring back to the rug and they bring with them as many of those things that their card states. So a child might bring 3 spindles from the spindle boxes to the rug if they got the number 3.

At the rug, all the children sit in a circle and reveal their number and match it with the quantity of items that they returned with. However, an immature child will bring more than their number states as they can not resist the desire to bring more. Or, an immature child who gets a zero will bring a dozen items as they can not handle the notion of bringing back nothing. A mature child always picks the correct amount and when they get zero playfully pretends he has brought something back with him and then joyful announces he got nothing as he has the zero card.

This is the same, Mrs. Fernando, stated with color. An immature child, she said, can not resist the colors of the metal inset pencils or the desire to use many colors and fulfills that desire by drawing rainbows and butterflies. So, it not willful disobedience, but instead a level of maturity; something to be written about in one's observation notebook.

Therefore, pairing symbols (letters and numbers) that are also colorful is a duel challenge. The first is for the child to be mature enough to resist pairing a purple three with a purple five; for in truth he would be pairing them but not in the requested manner. Secondly, his task is to pair the symbols as directed - a 3 with a 3.

Yet, what would be truly intriguing would be to first ask the child to simply pair what he identifies as being a good coupling; to observe if he choose color pairing or symbol pairing. Then, noting his preference, give the lesson while identifying his preference. This returns me to one last note about Mrs. Fernando. This time it has to do with the phonetic object box.

I remember her giving us a lesson at the training center on the phonetic object box. She picked up a small plastic jet and placed it in front of one of my fellow Montessori classmates and asked him what it was (giving clarity of the names of the objects before beginning the 3 period lesson). He said that it was an airplane. She answered, "Yes, it might be called an airplane but, instead, let's call it a jet."

So with pairing non-Montessori materials so often found in home school settings, first give clarity in regards to what variables are being paired. So you might ask, "What is this?" and the child might answer, "Purple." You respond, "Yes it is purple. You are right. It is also a three. Do you see any other threes on the table. They don't have to be purple. They just need to be a three."

The Role of Peer Leaders in Small Group Settings

2010-02-19T07:54:00.001-08:00

If I were to list the top five questions that teachers ask me regarding their classrooms and the work being done by their students, what to do with second year, four year old children who ceaselessly wonder would be one of them. A couple of months ago, I wrote a post about assisting four year olds in their development of decision making skills via fetching and pairing work. I also recently wrote a post about helping children bring work to a conclusion and included in that post a brief description of self-regulatory skills and their development or lack of development in young children.

However, when it is not just one four year old wandering throughout the classroom, but two or more, their collective movement can be very disruptive to other children and the work they are doing. I casually refer to it as “stirring the pot.” Also, the other obvious element of this wandering is that they are not engaging specific works for a period of time. When these children go home and tell their parents what they did all day (and every day for several weeks) is nothing, they are pretty much telling it like it is.

Yet, that is not completely true, as they still observe other children's work, participate in group lessons given by the teacher and are social engaged. Additionally, they participate in the flow of the school day and maintain familiarity with the routines of the classroom and the school at large. This includes arrival and departure routines, snack and lunch routines, outdoor or indoor play, school events, fire drills and the list goes on. A four year olds participation in daily classroom routines should not be understated. They maintain their citizenship - their membership - in the classroom and school community.

I point this out because it is significant. I would much rather have wandering children in attendance than ones frequently away on holiday during the course of the school year. Children frequently absent miss lessons, are eager to reconnect socially and are out of step with the routines and patterns of the school day. I have been surprised by the response of other children when a wandering four year old that is rarely absent is. They immediately note his being out and inform me of it with a surprised tone in their voice. I may see this wandering child as doing nothing but they see him as participating in the rituals of their day, which does not exclude his constant movement throughout the classroom but instead incorporates it into what the children perceive as normal.

However, the adults in the environment would like to see wandering four year olds "working." In my classrooms, small groups are mostly occupied by second year, four year olds. They are drawn to them like moths to a flame and find both social acceptance and confirmation of acquired knowledge within them. Additionally, a peer established leader is running the group. Generally these leaders are third (or fourth) year students. Maria Montessori wrote, "a...interesting fact to be observed in the child of six is his need to associate himself with others, not merely for the sake of company, but in some sort of organized activity. He likes to mix with others in a group wherein each has a different status. A leader is chosen, and is obeyed, and a strong group is formed. This is a natural tendency, through which mankind becomes organized."

Reading her quote, one can also understand why so many six year olds attempt to participate in these groups, as they too acknowledge the leaders in the classroom and want to engage with them. Yet, the work done in these groups hinders their participation as it is generally not at a third year level and too, four year olds want their opportunity to be with their leader without the intrusion of their classroom elders. These four year olds that seem to be lacking a commitment to work will openly verbalize their commitment and status as a participant in these small groups. They become very territorial in fact. Lastly, a six year old participant who is seeking status as a leader will compete with the six year running the group in hopes of displacing them. In my classrooms, this has even led to quarreling and disruptive behavior. At times I have had to ask my assistants to ask the six year olds seeking leadership status to leave groups so that its focus returns to the materials in use.

I attended Joan Bettman's Language workshop at an AMI refresher course years ago. During the workshop, Joan spoke of the importance of maintaining the integrity of a group. She stated that to continually allow children, who were not invited, to join a group after the lesson has started lacks grace and courtesy to those children who were invited. It is like having someone come into a movie theater after the film has started and asking out loud what they missed. Also, incorporating non-invited children dislodges a seated child from one place to another. They shrink the options for all children to individually participate and they often ask that the lesson be restarted as they missed the initial steps. Joan Bettman suggested that instead, the adult or third year student state to a child attempting to join an established group, "I am sorry, you may not join. This circle is closed."

I have promoted this in my classrooms and the results have been very successful. It is a clear and precise statement. I really feel pleased when I hear a student leader say it to another student. These two sentences have become group management tools for peer leaders.

Additionally, students who are not conducting themselves properly in the group (i.e., being very social or not responding to the peer leader's requests) may be asked to leave a group. I see it as my role and my assistant's role to support this request and to aide in the child's departure from the group once the request has been made.

Peer leadership offers so much to the students that occupy that role including public speaking experience, development of group management skills, self-evaluation and evaluation and assessment of peer conduct and performance skills and, too, confirmation of their own learned/acquired knowledge. Too, this type of peer leadership activity serves the child in regards to future community service performance such as in large school settings where elementary students assist Primary and Toddler teachers within their classrooms. Children lacking group leadership experience have to develop those skills in the moment rather than recalling and drawing from prior opportunities.

The initial positioning of a student as a small group leader is generally done via a request to me by the student wishing to be thus placed. It is therefore their self-evaluation and confidence that ultimately places them as leaders in the room. Yet, I have postponed this opportunity for third year students who I have consistently observed abandoning their own work. I have also found that when I position a child, who hasn't asked, to be a small group leader that it is mostly unsuccessful. The younger students quickly recognize the student's lack of confidence and abandon the group. I have attempted to make children stay committed to groups like these only to ultimately realize that their own peer intuition was correct.

Returning to the subject regarding tribes of wandering four year olds in a Primary classroom, peer led groups are one of my classroom management keys. I confess that I rely on them. I must also say that it also aides in the development of trust between the lead teacher and the peer leaders as I do not check up on their work or try to micro-management it from a far. Simply put, I don’t compete with them. I will end with another quote by Maria Montessori, one of my favorites, "The greatest sign of success for a teacher is to be able to say, The children are now working as if I did not exist."

Raintree Montessori School - Lawrence, Kansas

2010-02-17T06:34:00.000-08:00

I had the great pleasure of visiting Raintree Montessori School in Lawrence, Kansas this past Monday. I was hired to give an in-house workshop for the teachers, something which I am doing more and more of now. I must confess that I love this work. It allows me the opportunity to engage in the Montessori community at large, to visit classrooms (I love seeing the "found objects" that teachers add to material trays making each so uniquely beautiful), and to engage in conversations with so many of my fellow teachers and heads of school.

Raintreee Montessori is a very large school with extended grounds. You may read more about it here: http://www.raintreemontessori.org/

I hope to return to the school another time in the spring or fall when I may walk around this amazing place and take in all that it is. And it is pretty amazing!

Here is a survey of photos. There are many as I wanted to share them all.

Above: "The Scented Garden." The elementary buildings are to the left.

Below: A winter scene of the grounds behind the school as viewed from one of the Primary classrooms

Below: This wonderful collection of state spoons is a polishing material.

Below: After I gave an almost three hour talk to the thirty or so teachers, I asked them to get into small groups (toddler, primary and elementary teachers worked together.) Each group selected two or three materials - each from a different area of the room - and then found overlapping/shared values in regards to design and use. It was wonderful to witness them working with the materials and finding their own aha! moments. After 30 minutes or so, each group shared their "discoveries" with me and the other teachers. It was amazing!

Below: I pulled back my hair and sat down amongst the teachers to observe their work.

Below: Heather McReynolds-Eichhorn assists in running the school as her parents founded Raintree and continue to run it. She was a generous and welcoming hostess. Below: A picture of Heather and I just before sitting down to a delicious all-staff lunch -

Just Moved

2010-02-09T07:41:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the delay in new posts. I have just moved from Boston to Upstate, New York and my life is temporarily in boxes. Have much to write about and will do so soon.

Updated: Assisting Primary Children in Recognizing When a Work is Finished

2010-01-29T21:36:00.000-08:00

(After much review, I have decide to make several changes to this piece. I, like all teachers, need to be flexible in my thoughts and ideas and have a willingness to re-evaluate them. I present this post again with some things deleted and others added.)

Like many others, I aspire to serve the child in greater and more comprehensive ways. I think this will always be a part of my on-going self work as a Montessori teacher. The union of two classic phrases of the Montessori Method has become for me what Buddhists refer to as a koan: a puzzling, often paradoxical statement or story that serves to heighten awareness. The two phrases are: “Follow the lead of the child” and “Never abandon a child.”

The very phrase "Follow the lead of the child" carries with it the notion or reality that the teacher/guide will be in an ongoing state of physical and mental motion; following implies movement. Therefore, I believe that we must remain fluid in our thoughts and our relationships with each child, while simultaneously preserving the method. This may result in others seeing a Montessori teacher as uncertain, unprepared, always in a state of transition, unable to commit to lesson plans, and the list goes on. Or, they may see them as deeply committed individuals who: daily prepare an environment, assess each child's individual academic needs, prepare lessons to meet those needs, provide the materials / opportunities for the child to master those lessons.

However, in regards to some children, we need to not only guide them and assist them in mastering work; we need to help them recognize when they are done, that a work is finished. This notion seems in opposition to so much about Montessori.

Two of the three freedoms offered all children in a Montessori classroom are the freedom to choose work and the freedom to repeat work. We love it when we observe a child who has independently chosen to wash a table and does so for most of a morning. We are “following the lead of the child” in acknowledging that he has chosen his work and is repeating it, again and again.

But there is an intrinsic moment, noticeable as a decline in detailed work or when work becomes play, that we might or should step forward and help the child become aware that his work is done. This is where the phrase, “Never abandon a child” comes into play.

Is it not abandoning a child if we observe that they seem unable to conclude a work and yet we do not assist them in doing so? And too, if the work slowly declines and turns into a mess which results in the child having a melt down, how can we hold them completely accountable if we observed that they seemed stuck.

Language serves as a key in my ability to assist children in recognizing that a work is finished. I imagine a dialogue between myself and a student. Time permitting; I rehearse it out loud with one of my assistants before talking with the child. I have two examples of instances that required this type of guidance:

1.) My assistant told me that she had watched a new student do color mixing after having a recent lesson on the work. She noted that the child was very engaged and focused on the work for about twenty minutes. After that long period of concentrated work, the child started to lose focus and began making a mess. This continued for another fifteen or so minutes. She observed that even his facial features spoke of his loss of concentration. She asked me what she should have done differently, as after the work was put away (with her assistance) she thought maybe she should have intervened, but she did not want to "disturb" his work.

I suggested that next time she observes this decline in or loss of focus that she might say, "I have been observing your work. You have been working for a long time. Do you think your work is done now? Would you like to clean up and put the materials away for another child to use?. Do you remember how I showed you to put the work away? If not, I can show you again now." I explained that sometimes young children feel trapped by work and are looking for permission or consent to put it away.

2.) Two older students created their own boats from recycled materials and then tested their boats' anchors to see if they would sink or float in a large bin of water. It was a very successful project. However, after they tested their anchors I noted that they were laughing a lot and that they had begun splashing each other with the water. I walked over to them and asked, "Did both of you find the answer to your question regarding whether or not your anchors would sink or float?" They answered that they had tested two types and now knew which materials would serve better as anchors and which would not.

I listened to their reply and then very calmly said, "Well, what interesting findings. So, do you think this work is completed? Yes. After you both put everything away, the two you should consider writing about your work and maybe making some illustrations. Engineers always document their work." After carefully cleaning and putting away their work, they had snack together. When they finished, they spent the remainder of the work period writing about the work and included several illustrations.

What I also find rewarding about these brief dialogues between myself and my students, is that I often hear them repeated, later, between themselves and other students. They add the vocabulary I use into their file of self-regulatory terms. These terms generally arise from self-speech. They aid children in self-control, in a sense of the passing of time, in knowing how long to commit to one project when working on many. They are fundamental to a child’s success in reading and mathematics. The Montessori directress is a living material. All speech spoken by the adults in the room is internalized by the children. The words we use are re-articulated by our students. I can not count the number of times I have heard an older children use language I spoke during a lesson verbatim to a younger student that they were mentoring.

Lastly, to be able to complete work within a given time period a child must have an awareness of the passing of time. Have you ever noticed that some children seem totally surprised every day when the bell rings signaling the end of the work period? They shrug, let out a moan and act like somehow time slipped by them. Their materials are still out and they plead to have a little more time to finish their work and/or clean-up. Yet the question that needs to be asked is how can these children finish work if they do not have an inner time keeper? And too, how can we assist those that don’t in developing one and provide tools, such as sand timers, to aide them until they have. Perhaps that should be added to conference reports. Just under “Student has spatial awareness of the room” could be listed, “Student has a keen sense of the passing of time.”

My Montessori koan, “Follow the lead of the child. Never abandon a child” remains with me. I find that there is a thin line between following the child and abandoning child. It is this small line that pokes and prods the philosopher in me. Add that to the list of what constitutes a Montessori directress; philosopher.

Creative Writing in the Primary Classroom

2010-01-26T15:43:00.001-08:00

I have a particular fondness for the creative writing lessons that I learned during my AMI training. A favorite uses cut out magazine images. During my initial presentation to a 4 - 4 ½ year old child (after he has done much work with the chalk board, metal insets, sound boxes, etc.,) I use pictures of simple, phonetically spelled words. I glue a selected, single picture onto a small piece of writing paper. After sounding out the word together, the child writes it below the image.

When the child has done this work for a period of time and has been given lessons on several of the grammar materials including the phonetic object box, the phonogram box, the article and the verb, I introduce them to pictures that have similarly spelled subjects, like cat or dog, in the midst of an action. Examples: a picture of a dog barking or a cat jumping. As the grammar lessons continue, the images grow in complexity. This is the path outlined in my AMI Language Album.

Some children, however, simply start writing sentences during their first initial lesson. This was the case with an older four year old in my class that had done a lot of writing with the Moveable Alphabet. During my first presentation with her using cut out pictures, she spontaneously began writing short sentences. The first one eloquently read, "A leaf falls down." When I presented a second image to her, she looked at me and said, "No, not yet. I have more to write." This young four year old was waiting for this moment and it was hers to hold on to for as long as she wanted.

For older children, I use pictures from magazines such as the Smithsonian. The images that I choose go through my mental sorting and questioning: What story does the picture tell? Where is it? What kind of animal is that? Also, I select ones with wonderful color and details; like something else happening in the background, other than the main image. These I display on a table in the language area for viewing and selecting.

When a student selects a picture, I ask them to answer the same questions about it that I asked myself when I cut it out. Then, if the child comes up to me later and shows me a paper with only one line of writing on it (ex. Boy with a bike), I ask them, “Where do you think he is riding his bike to? What color are the boy’s eyes? Do you think the boy has any brothers or sisters? How old is the boy? What is the boy’s name?"

Next, I say to the child "If your photograph fell off of your paper I wouldn't know these things. The author has to tell me these things in their writing so that I can see the picture in my mind without the photo." I then send them back to their desk to continue writing their story. Eventually, students elect not to use a cut out picture choosing instead to illustrate their stories with their own drawings.

"Focus on the details," is something I often say when teaching creative writing to my older students. Such a simple statement, consistently said, invites children to expand their vocabulary and their awareness of the world around them. In my classroom, stories written by older students have multiple characters and the narrative tells a good, often funny, story. These students are no longer content with a single page of writing; they now write stories that require page numbers. One such student wrote a small chapbook that included three chapters.

I hear this attention to details even in the way these older students describe a scene or relay information. I will never forget the description a third year student gave me after she felt another student’s forehead to see if it felt warm; they had complained of not feeling well. She said, “She’s warm like when your hot cocoa finally cools down." This was the young voice of a creative writer.

Lastly, creative writers love an audience. I generally ask at each gathering time if anyone has a story to read. Young children will read a single word as if they are reading a well crafted haiku. Older children may read an entire page or more. When the student is done reading, the listening students are either asked questions about the story by the writer or ask the writer questions themselves. This also promotes a more complete written story as peers can be harsh critics.

I remember a child asked a fellow student who had just read a story that he had written earlier that morning, "But where is he?" "You forgot to write that!" The writer said, "Oh, I forgot." The next day he wrote half a page about where he thought the person in the photo was.

I study these documents carefully looking for clues as to which lessons are needed to be presented, or re-presented, to individual authors. My most common finding is the spelling wnz for once. I generally don't point out the misspelled word to the child. Instead, I give them a follow-up lesson with the puzzle (sight) words.

Creative writing is the inner voice of a child made known to the world. It solves that long standing quandary so often articulated, “I don’t have anything to write about.” When a child moves from one small image of a leaf falling to a forest full of children identifying the names of trees, they will never be without something to write about. Yet, if you do hear that old adage spoken, remind them of the stories they were telling at the coat racks when they arrived that morning. If they answer, “Those aren’t really stories,” tell them, “Great writers make the small details of life interesting.”

The Blindfold

2010-01-22T07:34:00.000-08:00

Here are two photos that stood out to me today as I was going through my photo album.

In the first photo, the young girl is doing the Binomial Cube blindfolded.

When she finished this work, she did the Trinomial Cube blindfolded. It was mesmerizing to watch. It drew silence from the entire room.

In the second photo, the same child is do the Money (coins) Mystery Bag work blindfolded.

These two images should remind all of us to present the blindfold more in our classrooms and to see the possibility of its use with so many materials.

School Desks

2010-01-19T07:15:00.000-08:00

I encourage each of you to go and visit Biehus for a wonderful, short post which quotes Maria Montessori's position on the school desk. Biehus stirs great thoughts, with few words, in this insightful post.

“hope is the only bee that makes honey without flowers” – r.g. ingersoll

Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Dream"

2010-01-19T03:13:00.000-08:00

Enjoy this repeat post:

My assistant and I have been talking about Martin Luther King Jr. during circle time. Last week we read a few books, put out some hand outs to illustrate, made peace necklaces and explained Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream for peace. I overheard several children casually discussing these facts as they worked on the various handouts. As these discussions continued over several days, I began to get a gut feeling that maybe the children were not correctly comprehending the history of this great man's life and his celebrated vision for the rights of all people. They were talking a lot more about his "dream."

Then I remembered a class discussion I had initiated the day we returned to school after the holiday vacation. I asked the children how their days began. "Is it a kiss and a nudge from a parent that awakens you?" I inquired. Many children agreed that this was indeed how their day began. But one child said, "Well, first I have a dream while I am sleeping. When my dream ends, I wake up."

After reflecting for a bit on this child's comment, I began planning on how to bring my concerns up during circle time. When we had finished singing a couple of songs, I started to talk about Martin Luther King Jr. and his dream for peace. I next asked the children, "What was Martin Luther King Jr. doing when he had this dream?" A flurry of hands went up. I selected an eager child to answer. "He was sleeping," she enthusiastically blurted out. Several other children chimed in with the same answer. "He was dreaming, Ms. Dyer. You dream when you are asleep," another child clearly stated.

Well, I had my answer. I then proceeded to ask if any of the children knew what they wanted to be when they grew up. "I want to be the best artist in the world," was one response. I used this hope to be something in the future as a springboard for discussing a vision, a goal, an aspiration, a dream. After the day ended, I felt confident that my four, five and 6 year olds had moved towards understanding the difficult concept "to dream."

Fetching and Pairing in the Primary Environment: Exercises in Decision Making

2010-01-10T14:20:00.000-08:00

Every time I have the opportunity to observe in a Primary classroom, generally via the role as consultant, I notice several children who appear to be wandering aimlessly. These children are classic examples of the second year student who is usually 4+ years old. As they stroll through the classroom, they glide their hands along the edges of shelves occasionally stopping to briefly manipulate a decorative object and then continue on with a casual demeanor.

Every now and again they land at another student's work rug and after a brief conversation are asked either by the student doing the work or the classroom assistant to find their own work. They answer, “I don't know what work to choose.” If snack isn't open, they return to wandering throughout the classroom re-touching all that they touched earlier. This visually reminds me of a t-shirt I recently saw that read, “All who wander are not lost.” It brings a positive insight to the small tribes of nomadic four year olds that populate almost every Primary environment.

Accepting that movement is age-appropriate for young children and is one of the three freedoms given to children in a Montessori classroom, work that includes movement is ideal for them. I am referring to fetching and pairing work, a favorite activity of the second year student.

Fetching and pairing is initially presented as a two person work: the lead teacher and a student. Later, two students do the work independent of adult participation. The work is generally done using sensorial materials but language, math and botanical materials may also be used. Actually, any material that can be separated into two matching parts is suitable for fetching and pairing. One of my favorites is the sandpaper letters and the moveable alphabet. I find this work serves as a bridge between the materials and reaffirms to the child that, while the materials are physically different, they are the same in regards to the letters they represent.

When initially presenting the work, invite a child to bring color box II to a working rug which you have laid out in anticipation of the lesson. Also, make sure that you bring a tray and a pointer. I generally use a fancy chopstick.

Ask the child to place one tablet of each color on the rug. Then ask the child to take the remaining tablets in their box to an empty table across the room from the rug. Have the child place the tablets in the box on the table top and bring the empty container back to the work rug. Next, hand the child a small tray. Tell them that you are going to point to one of the color tablets on the rug, name it and ask that they fetch its pair from the table across the room.

The child carries the empty tray across the room and stands in front of the table. Imagine for a moment the mental activity of the child looking at all of the options on the table top and making a judgement regarding which one correctly pairs with the other. When he decides on his choice, he places it on the tray and returns it to the work rug. You check to make sure that the two match. If they do not match you tell the child, “I am sorry, but these do not match. Please take this one back to the table and bring the one that does.”

The child then returns to the table and replaces the incorrect color tablet with the correct one. When he returns with his new choice, the correct choice, his decision making abilities are again validated. The activity continues until all of the tablets are paired. Then the roles are switched. The child uses the pointer and the teacher fetches and pairs.

I was fortunate to attend the 24th International Montessori Congress in Paris several years ago. I recently re-read my notes on the various lectures. Those on Lynne Lawrence's talk (current Director of AMI) regarding the sensorial materials highlight the significance of the work I outlined in the above paragraphs. She states, “in the simple act of pairing...the child questions whether two sensory impressions are the same or different, makes a decision, acts upon this decision and bears the consequences of this judgement. At the same time the child may revise this decision when faced, later, with a final pair that do not match.” She concludes, “The activity...strengthen(s) their ability to make choices and act upon their own judgements and decisions.”

This is of course the maturation of a child. They are organizing their world, and this new found sense of external order is internalized within the child. As their confidence in their decision making grows so too does their ability to work independently. How can a child choose work if they lack confidence in their ability to decide which work to select? Therefore, instructing a wandering 4 year old who has not had much experience in making decisions and bearing the consequences of those decisions to find their own work will ultimately result in the utterance of the phrase I quoted earlier, “I don't know which work to choose.” This, then, is a very honest statement.

Beyond the social enjoyment of two students working together, multiple other factors come into play. Commitment is one of those. Two children have commited to do a work together. That means that one student can't simply jump up when they see the snack chair open and say that they are hungry and longer want to do the work. They have made a commitment to do the work with another child and may not abandon that commitment. This develops trust amongst the children.

Additionally, the children agree to do the work, not to play. If a child is attempting to find the correct match to say a purple color tablet and returns with that matching tablet only to be told by the child sitting at the rug that they brought the wrong one due to the fact that they have changed their mind regarding which color tablet that needs to be paired, a dispute may occur. The selected object to be paired can not be changed once the child with the tray has left the rug seeking its match. It is pychologically frustrating to make a correct decision and to have that decision be received as incorrect. Again, working together should build trust. In this case, trust that the work will be done correctly and honestly.

The number of materials that can be used for fetching and pairing seems to grow every time I try to create a list. This is actually a plus as it allows opportunity for the child to engage with so many different materials. One of the hardest materials to pair in this way is the sound boxes. Yet, I have seen it done successfully several times. How often have you wished that the geometry cabinet was used more often? And what about the frequently neglected botany cabinet? Both of these can be used in fetching and pairing activities. The pairing can be done with the insets and the frames or the insets and their matching cards.

The number rods can be paired with their corresponding wooden cards. An important step is to scatter the objects that are to be match. This means that the numbers rods would be laid out randomly on the rug rather than in an order that may allow the child to simply predict the next number. Scattering the rods requires the child to count each of the blue and red spaces to find the correct quantity and length to match its card.

In the language area, another pairing work that I recommend is with objects from the sound box and the sandpaper letters. This might require some initial assistance from an adult to assure that there are objects in the box that match several different letters. The sandpaper letters are scattered on a work rug and the objects are positioned on top of a table across the room. The child sitting at the rug points to a letter and says its phonetic sound and asks the child with the tray to fetch an object from the table that matches the sound. This work advances both children's phonetic awareness. A child may approach you and ask to be reminded what sound an object makes and that is fine. Simply answer them and let them continue with the game.

Finally, this work serves as a preliminary exercise to command work such as asking a child to bring you a horse from the farm or, when working with the golden bead material, bring you a quantity such as 3,654. It develops in the child an ability to hold information in their mind and to maintain that information as they move through a socially charged environment, the classroom.

I remember a wonderful moment when a child walking across the room to find the pair to a botany card spontaneously walked the line. Controlled movement is a natural outcome of this work, as is a new sense of wonder for many of the materials simply by re-engaging them. And not to be understated, this work allows the child to practice carrying objects on a tray from one area of the room to another without spilling them.

The next time you see a couple of four years olds wandering suggest that they work together fetching and pairing. It has been my experience that they are initially suspect that you are actually inviting them to work together let alone move back and forth across the room. Soon, this work will be done daily and it will become part of the natural flow of the classroom. Yet, 4 year olds wander and perhaps this provides the mental rest their minds need to absorb and process knowledge. I am remembering again the t-shirt that read, “All who wander are not lost.” I need to get one of those.

2010-01-03T15:02:00.001-08:00

The births of all things are weak and tender, therefore we should have our eyes intent on beginnings. Montaigne

Happy Almost New Year 2010

2009-12-30T21:46:00.000-08:00

Whoever touches the life of the child touches the most sensitive point of a whole which has roots in the most distant past and climbs toward the infinite future. Maria Montessori

As we look back on this passing year of 2009, let us cherish our work with children. We are blessed with being given the almost daily opportunity to listen to their stories, bear witness to their artistic expression, ponder the wonder of their enormous insight and to be present when they articulate with anxious breath the joy of a discovery or the completion of a work. How blessed we are to be in attendance when songs are sung by the old and the young, to participate in the celebrations of their births and to bear the heartache and joy of teary eyed goodbyes at the end of a school year. Let this be my life for years to come.

I wish each of you a joyful New Year and thank you for the fellowship which has grown up around this blog. Peace to all.

A Welcomed Cup of Tea

2009-12-27T08:17:00.000-08:00

I had the wonderful pleasure of visiting The Center School in Plainfield, Vermont last week. The small farm house serves as a single Primary classroom. It was so beautiful to look at that I had to take a couple of photographs to share with the blogging community.

After sitting and observing the children work for a short time, a five year old student approached me and asked if I would like a cup of tea. Stating that I would, she left and returned with a small basket that held a variety of tea bags. I picked the one I wanted and she went on her way to prepare it. The assistant teacher helped by pouring the hot water into a small tea pot that was part of a well assembled tray.

Another item on the tray was a timer. The child set the timer for three minutes and watched the time tick away. When the timer went off, she poured a cup of tea for me and one for herself. She placed my cup on a saucer and put this on a smaller tray.

When she served me my tea she looked at me and said, "May I tell you something?" I said yes and then she continued. "After you finish your first cup of tea, if you want more leave your empty cup up on the saucer. If you do not want more tea, turn your cup upside down on your saucer." She then smiled and walked away.

While I enjoyed my tea, I watched as the assistant helped a child make gingerbread cookies.

I turned my head looking here and there and then I found it. I found the pink tower.

This is what makes the Montessori classroom so wonderful - the consistency of the Montessori materials in all the environments. This provides new children (who may have left another Montessori school due to their parents deciding to move) comfort. They see work that they are familiar with. The adults change and how a room is decorated changes, but the materials remain consistent.

Thank you to The Center School for allowing me to both visit their school and to photograph the work being done there.

Flow Theory: Seeing the Relationships Between Materials

2009-12-11T04:23:00.001-08:00

I have been thinking about the relationships between the Montessori materials a lot over the past year or so. I have returned to the notion of an indirect aim as a grounding place for my own abstract thoughts which sometimes take me too far from what is at hand. So, I began mentally pairing materials that seemed to me had physically similarities or required a shared hand movement. These two variables became my mini-criteria for inclusion in a longer paper on this same subject.

Defining the pairs in regards to these two criteria meant having to mentally visualize their use and to remove the labels that so often isolate materials: Practical Life, Sensorial, Language, Math and Cultural Studies. These labels, found on our albums, isolate materials from each other and therefore isolate and separate them in regards to their use by the children.

Once I simply thought about each work, and their individual design, similarities between the materials emerged. In fact, I would refer to this as a harmony which creates a flow in the classroom ultimately serving in normalizing a child. That is a lot to say but I whole heartedly believe that isolating materials fragments the environment and works in opposition to sensorial exploration and the freedom of movement - in the most broad understanding of the phrase. In regards to the term "Flow," I am referring to the writings of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.

Here are my initial pairs and some of my reasons for coupling them:

Spooning and the Multiplication board. Spooning is the transference of quantity from one place to another. Working with the Multiplication board, a child transference quantities from a small bowl and distributes them as required.

Similarly, Sorting and the Division board.

Here again sorting is a transference of quantities from one place to another. Sorting also requires that the items be divided into smaller portions and placed in individual containers. This is division. Look at the green beads in the small wooden bowl and think Practical Life instead of division. You should then be able to easily recall which work(s) the child initially did in order to have the eye hand coordination needed to carefully place all of those small beads in their circular placeholders.

Folding cloths and the Constructive Triangles.

The next time you see both of these materials in use by two separate students, look at the triangles and the rectangles made by the fold lines in the cloths and look at the various shapes made when the constructive triangles are placed together on a rug. See the black lines that designate which sides of the constructive triangles are to be matched and imagine each line as a fold. Do this and you will see these two materials have surprising similarities.

Perhaps the two materials most isolated from each other are the Botany Cabinet and the Geometry Cabinet.

When I was trying to think of materials to couple, I simply thought of the word Cabinet which instantly was followed by the question, "As these two materials are so physically familiar, what else do they share that I have not paid attention to?" Immediately I had an answer in my mind: the line. I then began thinking about polygons and non-Euclidean geometry. This was the key to unlocking the mystery of their relationship, of their overlapping values.

And what of that briefly mentioned statement regarding the line. When very young children do scissor work in the Montessori classroom they cut along a simple, straight line drawn on a small piece of paper. Soon, that paper is replaced by others which bear the image of a wavy line or a zig zag line. Eventual these are replaced by ones that resemble a shape, a recognizable shape. This is the same for the progression of sewing activities. The significance, other than learning to use scissors or needle, is the introduction of a line, of a basic element in grasping geometry. To pair this work I looked to the materials in Lower Elementary. Here, I found the geometry sticks.

Instantly I coupled cutting a line/sewing a line to this material.

I think children more readily see the relationships between materials than the adults in the environment. My suggestion for myself and for others is to go back to the albums and pick out a few lessons that have listed for their indirect preparation very specific materials. Get these out and work with them until you see their overlapping variables. And when you get an Ah ha! moment, set out to find other relationships between the materials. This will aid you enormously when you write your lesson plans for individual children.

I read recently that Maria Montessori took time off from her work to "meditate" on the writings of Itard and Sequin. She spent months hand writing the Italian translations of their work so that it would be available to her. She said she then meditated on the intentions of their methodology. That is what we need to do. We need to meditate on the intentions of Maria Montessori's work. It has become my passion.

How Do Montessori Toddler Programs Affect a Child's First Year in Primary

2009-12-03T14:10:00.000-08:00

I have been here and there substitute teaching. Last week, I spent five days subbing in an AMI Toddler classroom. I was amazed at the work these young children were doing. So much of their work looked familiar, as it was. They did leaf washing, plant watering, cloth washing, mystery bag 1 and the list goes on. It was great to see them so occupied and so accomplished. But, I was left wondering how this work that they are now doing would later affect their work in the Primary classroom. I wondered about those first preliminary lessons that are so much of the work done in the first few weeks of the year. Would they be as captivated?

Looking at the Practical Life shelves in the Toddler room, I noticed several of the dressing frames. There was the button frame, the Velcro frame, the snap frame and the zipper frame - although the flaps and buttons were slightly larger than the Primary versions of these same works. Having already had lessons on these, could they simply use the ones in the Primary environment without another lesson or would I re-present the slightly modified frames in hopes that some small detail would catch their eye and their interest.

I am hoping all of you would provide answers to some of my questions - as naive as they may sound. I see more and more Montessori schools offering Toddler programs. I think they are amazing. I just want to dialog about how to create a bridge between the Toddler environment and the Primary environment, just as with the elementary program. If I have all these questions and thoughts, I am sure others do also.

I Haven't Had a Lesson on That Work Yet...

2009-12-01T12:56:00.000-08:00

I heard a wonderful story at lunch today. A couple of the AMS Primary Teachers at the school I was subbing at are taking their AMI Primary training. Today and tomorrow, an internationally recognized AMI consultant is visiting this school. She will spend time in each of the Primary classrooms (4) taking observation notes. Later, she will sit down with each of the teachers and discuss her observations with them individually.

During the time when the consultant was in one of the Primary classrooms, a child walked up to the lead teacher and asked for a lesson on the division circles. The teacher hesitated for a moment and then turned to the consultant and quietly said, without the student hearing, "I have not had a lesson on that work yet." She was referring to her AMI training which she completes next summer.

When the consultant heard the teacher's remark regarding not having had a lesson on the materials, she suggested that she give the lesson to the child instead and did. The lead teacher watched and witnessed the initial presentation of simply taking a few of the fraction circles to a working rug and sensorially manipulating them without giving any of the language.

Listening to this teacher tell her story, I couldn't help but think of how many times I have heard a child tell me that same thing when I substitute teach in a classroom or tell another child. To hear an adult say it out loud resonated within me as when something small stirs in you thoughts that result in new insights. I heard in her voice vulnerability, honesty and a humble self. She positioned herself as the student and the consultant as mentor, teacher of teachers. It was an ego-less act. The gift she received was to be able to see the work presented and to reap from that presentation the knowledge being offered her via the willing consultant.

It also made me think about the the 3-6 aged children in the classroom and the commitment that a multi-age environment has towards mentoring. I love the idea of a child observing their teacher learning from another teacher. It's all good.

Cards and Counters - Which One Would You Want To Work With?

2009-11-19T13:39:00.000-08:00

At the Centennial Celebration and refresher course in San Fransisco, we were encouraged not to only use the catalog version of the cards and counters that are found in so many primary classrooms but to also make our own. The speaker said that Mario Montessori asked that beautiful things be used for the counters such as beads, shells and semi-precious stones.

I take an extra look at this material when I substitute in various classrooms so as to see if the teacher has put together one herself or purchased one. Today I photographed a child using a cards and counters material that I was drawn to myself. I wanted to sit down and do the work after him just so that I could touch it and experience its beauty.

Besides the aesthetic quality of the material, I really liked that the object for the one was larger than several of the objects used for greater quantities like 6 or 9. I have found that a child making a short bead stair will be thrown off if the bead bar for 4 is longer in length than the one for 7. This happens when a bead bar is lost and is replaced with one from another set.

On many occasions, I have told children to count the bead bars and note their quantity, rather than visually assessing one to be larger and therefore judging it to have more value. But, again and again, I have seen children become upset as their sense of order tells them its incorrect.

In today's set of cards and counters, the objects are the same if they collectively represent a specific quantity. Their common attribute is that they have something to do with the ocean or beach - shells and sea glass.

Look at each picture below and ask yourself which one you would want to work with. Let me know via your comments.

Catalog cards and counters:

and

Or

The cards and counters in today's classroom:

Close-up:

(I just noticed he has three shells under the 3 and the 4. I am substituting in the same class tomorrow. I will check to see if there is a shell missing...)

On Being An Assistant

2009-11-14T19:57:00.000-08:00

I recently took a four day assistant workshop. It wasn't a Montessori training. It was with the Baron Baptiste Yoga Institute. The workshop was an amazing, informative and exhausting four days. Assistants work in a yoga studio environment populated by adult students and led by a master teacher.

Each of the 109 attendants learned anatomy, asanas (poses), pranayama (breathing) techniques and techniques on assisting a yoga student. This work of assisting students generally requires touching the yoga practitioner. Talking is at a minimum, if at all. Eye contact is brief. The touching is referred to as adjusting. These adjustments assist the student in coming into a "deeper pose."

Coming into a "deeper pose" constitutes the physical act of being in the pose and the mental act of concentration and focus. All movement is purposeful movement. Knowing when to assist by physically adjusting and supporting a student or by providing tools such as blocks or straps is made by quiet observations off the mat. When the class is finished, the assistants clean and prepare the environment, along with arranged volunteers, for the next class. This might also include sanitizing and re-rolling the studio's yoga mats.

The other day, when I was taking a yoga class, the master teacher attempted to assist me. I quietly stated that I did not need assistance as I was about to make the adjustment myself. He persisted and I again asked not to be helped. About a half an hour into the class, he stopped by my mat and attempted to assist me again by adjusting my wrist. I have a fused wrist and forearm. I stood up and heard myself say the classic line, "I can do it myself. Thank you but I do not need help."

It was a significant moment having just taken my own assistant training. I thought to myself, "This is how all my three and four years feel in my classroom when I try to assist them even after they have stated their desire to do it themselves." It brought me into a deeper understanding of their position and posturing, while simultaneously informing me that assisting in either setting requires not only visually assessing a situation but actively listening to the student.

Yoga and Montessori have so many overlapping variables. I worked as a specialist while my son Ian was in his final high school years instead of working full time as a lead teacher. This provided me with more flexibility in my schedule so as to be available to him as he needed me.

As a specialist I taught yoga in various Montessori schools in the Boston area. I had a great web page called "Yoga with Susan: Where Montessori and Yoga Meet." During my class, we often played the bell game and did other Montessori activities. One time, while playing a brief game of concentration with materials from the classroom, a student said to me, "Concentration leads to meditation." He closed his eyes and became absolutely still. Soon, other children followed. I have so many wonderful memories of working as a specialist. I continue to teach yoga to children and do it as my full time job in the summer.

I am not working as a lead teacher this year. Instead, I have been substitute teaching while I prepare to move to Vermont where I will again take on the role of directress. Most of the time when I sub, I am asked to work as an assistant. It has been a deeply rewarding experience. I spend much more time writing observation notes and preparing the environment than I did as a lead. I also assist children at the teacher's request.

Besides my years of experience as a Primary Directress, I bring to this work new insights having recently taken my yoga teacher assistant training. At the end of the four days, each of us described what we found the most captivating about the work. One of the trainees said, "To be in service to another." Her words continue to resonate with me. If I could describe the role of an assistant in the Montessori classroom those would be the words. They sing a humble tune that speaks of both knowledge about and personal commitment to the work at hand.

Have had the flu...new post coming today or tomorrow

2009-11-14T09:24:00.000-08:00

Sorry for not having a new post out of lately. I have had the flu and such a very bad cold. I was thinking I might have pneumonia. I have gathered my notes and will have a new post out by today or tomorrow - I apologize to my readers at large...Ooops, I feel a sneeze coming...

Sometimes Solutions Are So Simple

2009-11-03T15:31:00.000-08:00

I use to have my assistant check all the plants in the class after children watered them excessively and repeatedly so as to wipe up all the water drainage from the tops of shelves. Recently, I was in a classroom and observed a lesson on watering plants. I was fascinated by a small container of twisted bamboo sticks. I listened as the teacher instructed the student to place one of the bamboo sticks in the soil of a plant after they watered it.

This worked as a visual cue to other students that the plant had been already watered and that they should not water it again. During morning prep, the assistants of the class remove all of the sticks that were placed in plant soil the day before, clean them and return them to the little jar on the plant washing tray.

I don't have any of these twisted bamboo sticks, but I do have many, small bags of fancy toothpicks. They are the kind that you use with party appetizers. They have fancy foil decorations at the top. These will work fine. Ahhh, no more water stains on the top of my wooden shelves.

The second simple solution I observed involved the chains. I can't count the number of times I have told students, especially younger students, not to touch the chains. They seem to love holding a length of chains between their hands and sliding their hands up and down.

The solution that I observed involved a practical life activity - dusting.

I watched a young student dust each of the long and short chains, the bead cubes and the bead squares. The child used the regular duster for the larger bead cubes and the smaller, paint brush-like dusters for doing the chains and the bead squares. It was careful and concentrated work. It made me think of how caring for an object nourishes respect for the object.

Although, the child was too young to do math work with the material, she was not too young to learn the details of its design by touching it and perhaps sensorially discover relationships between the individual pieces.

Sometimes solutions are simple, but take forever to think of or stumble upon. In this case, I stumbled upon two in one classroom. I was very grateful.

Teaching Children To Look and To Study: A Lesson On How To Use A Slide Viewer

2009-10-27T13:28:00.000-07:00

I will never forget watching slide shows in my Aunt Gale's living room when I was a child and a young adult. Nor will I forget visiting my grandparent's farm in Upstate, New York. My grandparents bought the farmhouse, which had been a general store in the late 1880's, after they retired. I spent hours looking through their stereoscope at the vast number of slides that were amongst the hundreds of Victorian objects acquired with the property.

Perhaps it was this early experience in looking, at studying a single image, that lead me to love photography, not as an act, but as a study. Living in Rochester, New York until I was in my thirties, I often visited the Eastman Kodak Museum. Looking at one image and studying that image lead me to two of my favorite writers: Susan Sontag and John Berger. When I wrote as an art critic, I often referred to their books and to the theoretical discussions around the gaze and the problematic act of looking.

Problematic in that making eye contact with another of the opposite sex or above your social status has historically had a range of consequences including the ultimate punishment, death. Even studying an image for more than a minute or two is called "staring," which is socially labeled as misconduct or rude. To look and to examine is something small children often do and, when considering Maria Montessori's writings regarding "the absorbent mind," must.

At the movie theater, both adults and children are free to look directly at something which they are otherwise restricted to view in both public and private places.

I remember taking my own son to see a particular foreign film when he was around ten. I was captivated by his face as he stared at the screen. The main character of the film was a blind child. My son told me later he never looked at anyone blind before because he didn't want to embarrass them and he, himself, did not want to feel uncomfortable. The dark theater allowed him to look without social punishment.

In my classroom, I keep a slide viewer and slides (4 or 5 at a time) available for children to look at and study.

The viewer is kept by itself in a lidded box (to the right of the mirror on the shelf: image below). The slides are kept in a small, handwoven envelope (in front of the leather-looking box).

When I present the lesson, I remind the children how to hold a color tablet. The color tablet is held at its white edge.

(image above from montessorischoolofdunwoody.com/primary.htm)

I then show the child how to hold a slide at its frame and tell them to never touch the slide itself as it could damage the slide. Some slides have arrows that show which side is to be placed first in the viewer so that the image is correctly positioned for viewing. Others require looking at the label on the slide to determine which side is to placed in the viewer. Arrows can be drawn on the slides, and this is perhaps the best solution. Also, I have at times included a single, child sized, white glove as one might find in a toy magician kit. Children place the glove on the hand that will touch the slide. It is very curator-like and adds a step to the work that reinforces the care needed in using the slides.

I was given some free white gloves from CVS photo department but they were too big. So, it remains absent from the tray until I find another magician's glove (thrift store genie are you listening?).

The child places a slide in the viewer and holds down a touch sensitive button. This button turns on the back light. The child sees the slide by holding the viewer close to his eyes. When finished, the child removes the first slide, places it carefully on a small tray and then inserts the next slide for viewing.

The children are captivated by this work. I am captivated by their faces as they study the single image.

Slides have become difficult to find. Years ago, you could buy slides at museums. No longer. They have been replaced by CDs. I rely on thrift store finds for mine. I am very particular in what I want so my collection grows slowly.

The slides I prefer compliment the continent folders.

Also, I try to find slides of children from different time periods. Believe me when I tell you that children are just as amazed at "how strange" children dressed in the seventies as in 1920's or earlier. These slides are history lessons captured in a single image. When you ask them about what they are looking at. They will tell you about hair and clothing styles, about types of eyeglasses and cars. They will tell you if the people in the slide look happy or sad, young or old. They are learning to look and to examine.

Later, when they are painting a copy of an art card, this ability to see details and to capture them in both their memory and on the page comes into play.

There is no shortage of splashy, fast paced images flashed across huge commercial billboards and television\computer screens. Television screens fold down from the interior ceilings of mini-vans replacing simply looking out the window and viewing the world around you.

This constant exposure to non-stop images has been linked to hyper-activity in children. The question arises "What are children really seeing and how much of it can they take in?" Acknowledging all of this, it makes sense then that in a Montessori setting a single, color image of a woman making tortillas in Guatemala would capture a young child's attention.

For an interesting extension of this post go to http://deweydecimalca.blogspot.com/2009/10/stereographs-view-masters-and-slides-oh.html#comment-form and read about another blogger and her information on making your own stereoscope.

Pumpkin Patch...The Puzzle of Language

2009-10-15T06:46:00.000-07:00

This is the time of year that many schools have their first field trip. I remember years ago sending home permission slips to take my class to a local farm to pluck apples right from the branch and to pick a pumpkin out of the patch. I talked to my class about the trip for two weeks. Each day I reminded them of the upcoming event by reading stories about such adventures, or with art projects that included fall-leaf rubbings and apple printing. All of the children seemed so excited. All of the children but one, that is.

Each time I brought up our field trip to the pumpkin patch, Jollene's head dropped and she sighed. I remember encouraging her to engage in the project of the day. She would raise her head, look at me for a moment with the saddest face and then settle into the activity. I was really puzzled by her mood.

The day before the field trip, after reminding the children of how we were going to get to the farm (parents had volunteered to take several children in their mini-vans) and how to behave after we arrived, Jollene asked to speak with me. She looked me in the eye and said, "Miss Dyer, you and I are not going to be able to get a pumpkin patch." As she said this a tear ran down her cheek. She slowly raised her left hand. Next she cupped her left hand over the left lens of her eyeglasses and continued, "We can't get a patch because we wear glasses."

Her shoulders shook as she wept with anticipated disappointment.

I took her to the library and showed her a photograph of a pumpkin patch. She was so relieved. My heart went out to this little girl who was so upset over a misunderstanding. But, when did I ever describe a "patch" of land? It isn't one of the land forms on the geography shelf. So how would she know what it was without previous knowledge or experience?

I recently told this story to some of my fellow teachers while sitting around the staff lunch table. "That sounds just like something from an Amelia Bedelia book," one of the other teachers said. "Amelia takes everything literally," she explained. "Like when she was told to 'draw the drapes,' and she drew a picture of the drapes."

I thought about this conversation when I drove home. How much do we assume children understand, have knowledge about and can determine implied meaning? What language activities do we have in our classrooms to assist them and how can we, as their guides, choose words and give directions without assuming knowledge?

My mental conversation reminded me of a writing project I worked on a decade or so ago. My chapter in the communication textbook was focused on women's grassroots communication patterns ( My name at the time was Susan Dyer-Bennem). I wrote several pages on quilting.

After my editor reviewed my first draft, she wrote me a note stating that I needed to re-write several paragraphs as I assumed knowledge. I took for granted that individuals all over the world knew what a quilt was and how it was made. I did several sketches of quilts and then thought through each step in the construction of one. I re-wrote the paragraphs. My editor found my second draft to be much more clear and informative. I broke down the steps so that the reader could piece together the information as a quilter pieces together a coverlet.

These two moments in my life return to me again and again. They remind me to do all of the orientation games with my new students, to rotate the objects in my sound box, to present again and again classification cards, to include practical life labeling in my label the environment cards, to present the sight/puzzle words and to include more specific information in my definitions of words and descriptions of places.

Now when I talk about a pumpkin patch, I include a description of a patch of land, of a farmer, a hay wagon, types of pumpkins and apples, corn stalks that may be used in the making of scarecrows, a description of scarecrows and so much more. It slows things down a bit, but perhaps that is also the point.

The Montessori Memory Game/Activity and Concept of Zero Lesson

2009-10-07T08:28:00.000-07:00

"Look at zero and you see nothing, but look through it and you will see the world," Robert Kaplan "The Nothing That Is: A Natural History of Zero."

Zero is a poets puzzle. It is the single stroke of a Zen artist.

It is the circumference of a circle recalling the rim of a favorite bowl or the thin band of gold or silver that we wear on our ring finger. It is the celebrated symbol of mathematicians, young and old. As the wonderful title of Robert Kaplan book states, it is "the nothing that is."

The Memory Game:

The Montessori math exercise titled the Memory Game is a celebration of nothingness. It confirms for the teacher that the child understands zero as without quantity. It also reveals to the teacher whether or not the child is mature enough to move forward with the math materials.

Maturity in a child is not always that easy to recognize in regards to the stability of the maturity. One of my trainers, Mrs. Fernando, stated that a child who continues to use metal inset work to make rainbow pictures and to use as many colors as possible drawing hearts inside their ellipsoid outline is an immature child. She said that it did not mater how many times we asked a child not to draw butterflies and flowers all over their metal inset work if the child was too immature to resist the wonderful display of colors before them at the metal inset shelf. "Too immature to resist the colors," is a statement that still speaks to me. Instead of observing the behavior as not listening and a misuse of the materials, note that the child remains too immature to not include colorful drawings in their metal inset work.

This is the same in regards to the Memory Game. It is this game/activity that assists the teacher in determining a child's maturity while simultaneously demonstrating whether the child has or has not grasped that zero is nothing.

I have seen some very lovely Memory Games with the wooden numbers placed in hand sewn envelopes. I have also seen store bought numbers placed in small store bought envelopes. I made some for a younger class where I just used glitter paint on the underside of precut pieces of felt to write the numbers. The children flipped over the felt piece, saw the number and then flipped it back over. See below:

Both worked well. What is important is that the game be done.

In eleven small (ex. 2" x 2") envelopes place one of the numbers 0-10. Place these in a lovely box or basket. Ask several(no more than eleven) children to come to the rug and make a circle. If six children are in a circle, remove five of the envelopes from the basket but make sure that the envelope with the zero is included.

Next, hand an envelope to each child. Ask them to carefully look at their number but not to show the other children. Then instruct them to either put their number back in its envelope and leave it at their spot in the circle or carry it with them as they go and gather a number of items equal to the number in their envelope. A child who gets two might go and get two flowers from a vase or if they get ten bring ten pairs of scissors to the circle.

Even if a child has not had a lesson on the hierarchical materials or chains, they may select 8 golden beads or 4 short chains (example) for this activity.

(Note: children will hide their items under their shirt (as in the first photo above), behind their backs, etc in an attempt not to let the other children see what they have chosen before their turn)

This provides them with a rare opportunity to touch materials that they have wanted lessons on but maybe aren't ready for. Too, if a child repeatedly picks the same materials that they haven't had a lesson on for this game, it reveals the child's interest in that work. This is also an excellent game to help the children become more familiar where materials are kept and to actively look at the shelves in all areas of the classroom.

The child that gets zero is to go into the environment and act like they are looking around for a specific material that they want a quantity of. They can be very clever about this. I have seen children cup their hands and then close them as if they were holding something. The mature child loves to get zero and acts like they got ten. They come to the rug with their hands cupped together. When it is their turn to show their quantity, and to see if they correctly matched it to the card in their envelope, they look each of their peers in the eye and then dramatically and happily announce, "I have zero! I have nothing!" They open their hands slowly and reveal the empty space between their palms. It can be quite a performance.

The immature child generally does not like to get zero. When the do they (a) throw it down, cross their arms and declare that they want to pick another envelope (b) cry (C) get up and go to a shelf where they get as many of a single item they can, like 15 crayons. Then when they come to the rug with their 15 crayons and reveal that they had actually got the zero, the other children then call out, "Zero is nothing." The immature is not often pleased at the declaration of their peers.

It is an important step that the child counts out the quantity of their objects in front of the other children in the circle. They then re-remove their number from their envelope and check to see if the quantity and symbol match (or in the case below, turn the number over.)

This is Cards and Counters as a movement and group activity. If the quantity does not match the number, the child immediately returns to the environment to get more or to return the extra of the specific items that they chose.

Children love this game and I am always fascinated by what some children chose. I have seen children bring flags, cotton balls, scissors, spindles and so many other objects. All of the objects in the first photo below are used in flower arranging:

Again, reinforcing where things are in the environment, the children return all of their items to the correct places on the shelves before playing again. I often play the game 5 or 6 times.

Concept of Zero:

Have several or all of the children gather in a circle. Tell them that you are going to ask each of them to do something a certain amount of times such as touch your toes four times. As the game continues and you have asked individual children to do a variety of things like jumping like a frog, spinning like a ballerina and hopping like a kangaroo, ask the next child to (ex.) do zero somersaults. When they look at you and say, "I can't. Zero is nothing," use all of your inner acting abilities and respond, "I am your teacher and I have asked that you do zero somersaults, so please do them."

(above image - jenniferwigmore.com)

The child and perhaps others will again repeat, "Zero is nothing." Then maybe cover your eyes with your hands and act like your crying and repeat the request, "Please do zero somersaults, please for me." By now the children are rolling with laughter and they will again deny your request. Then move on to the next student and ask something that can be done ex. Blow 5 kisses.

As with the first Memory game/activity, have the child count as they do the action. So they would say out loud, "One, two, three, four, five kisses." This is very important as often a child will not count out the correct amount and will have to repeat their counting and the action. (Or not, if the child is very young...its an individual call.) All the children, 2.8 through 6 love this game. Love it!!!!

Exercises in Zero - Nothing and Placeholding - Part 1

2009-09-14T01:00:00.000-07:00

Long time readers of this blog may remember my earlier post on the empty tray as a placeholder. In my training, we were told to have the child take the work tray from the shelf, remove all of the items onto an oil cloth or place mat and then return the tray to the shelf. The empty tray served as a placeholder preventing children from misplacing another tray in the spot.

This misplacement of trays is common in environments where the child keeps the tray at the table with them while doing the work. The empty place on the shelf seems so in need of something that a child places a different tray there and walks away. When the first child finishes his work and attempts to return it to the spot where he found it on the shelf, he sees that there is now another tray sitting there. So this first child stands there with a tray looking for somewhere to put it and yes there is a place. It is where the second child's tray should have gone and so the first child puts his tray there instead. Soon, either the lead teacher or the assistant comes by and notices that once again trays have been misplaced. This generally continues for most of the first several months of school.

Returning the empty tray to the shelf is an easy solution that indirectly presents placeholding. Later, when the child receives their first lesson on zero as a placeholder in the math area, they will recall this experience with the empty tray.

(Note: I am aware that many AMI environments limit the use of materials other than the Montessori materials. I, living on the East Coast, have most often worked in AMI/AMS environments. It is somewhat like that cuisine referred to as East/West Fusion. In AMI/AMS schools a collaborative relationship is maintained between teachers of both trainings. The classroom reflects this collaboration. Adding additional math materials to the shelf is up to the individual lead teacher and perhaps the head of the school)

My first placeholding exercise is for the younger students in the environment. This work is presented to a child who has had a lesson on using a hole puncher, has done that work many times (found on the shelf along side cutting work) and has had a lesson on how to use a glue stick. Also, the child has worked with both the spindle boxes and the cards and counters. Therefore, the child can recognize the symbols 0 - 5 and their quantities. Lastly, they may have played the zero game reinforcing that zero is nothing.

(See my post on musical chairs and zero: http://themoveablealphabet.blogspot.com/search/label/Zero) )

Setting up the tray:

In a beautiful box I placed a small bowl to collect punched circles, a glue stick and a few small pieces of colored paper to be used for hole punching. This box was placed on a slightly larger tray that held several half sheets of paper. Each sheet had six large boxes marked off and inside of and at the top center of each box was a single number from 0-5.

The work itself:

The child punches out several, construction paper circles and collects them in the small bowl. Next, they glue the correct amount of circles under the specific number in an individual box. They do not glue any circles in zero marked boxes. See the series of photos below of a child doing the work:

When she repeated the work, the second sheet did not have a zero included.

I have found that young children really enjoy this work and that the careful manipulation of the small, construction paper circles adds to their ability to later build a bead tower with the colored beads - also circles but three dimensional. Too, they are similar in size in regards to their circumference - the construction paper dot and the colored bead.

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Comment:

I have tried using small sticker dots but they stick on the children's clothing and they eliminate the hand strengthening and manipulation work that the hole punching provides.

Exercises in Placeholding and Place Value - Part 2

2009-09-12T09:06:00.000-07:00

This second placeholding / place value work is for a slightly older and even the oldest child in the class. This math activity is also an arts and crafts project. It has been a favorite amongst my students and their parents. I have had more than one parent say that they loved writing out a figure and having the child place the correct beans in their Placeholder Dragon. That's right, a Placeholder Dragon. I found this lesson in an old math magazine I picked up at a garage sale. Each year, they turn out different as each year I have different supplies left over from various art projects done the year before.

This past year, I made a really fancy one for myself. I gave a workshop on placeholding for the annual Montessori Schools Of Massachusetts Conference. Yet, I have seen some pretty amazing ones made by my students. It is a fairly simple project. Have parents bring empty cardboard eggs cartons to school. Be sure to send out a note saying you have all you need when you do or they will keep coming. Prepare the egg cartons for use by removing their lids and cutting them in half the long way so that there are six egg cups on each.

(photo credit: home.howstuffworks.com)

For the head, cut one of the egg cups from the rest leaving five cups connected.

This single egg cup is glued at an angle in the first of the remaining connected egg cups. It should be positioned so that the top, open part of the cup looks like an opened mouth. This is the head of the Dragon.

For a tail, I cut long, thin pieces of construction paper and curled them with a pair of scissors. These I stapled to the inside of the last egg cup.

I used more curled strips of paper to make a fiery tongue.

After the head and the tail were assembled, I labeled the remaining four cups - Thousands, Hundreds, Tens, Ones. The thousands cup is directly behind the head/mouth of the Dragon. The ones cup is directly in front of the tail of the Dragon. In the photo below I used a permanent marker, but I have also used pre-cut, small rectangular labels that had the words thousands, hundreds, tens and ones written on them. The students were given one of each and then they glued them in the appropriate spot.

Now all that remains is to decorate the dragon. I give the children artistic freedom here as long as they don't cover the quantity labels. Suggested materials include feathers, beads, colored markers, gold markers, poms poms and any other decorative items you might have on hand.

My only caution is that if they are heavy items, even pom poms, they may need stronger glue. Last year, my assistant used a hot gun glue to help secure some of the items in place.

Here is a photo of the one I made for my workshop:

If you think this may be a project that looks great but you aren't sure that your students will be able to put all of these pieces together in a time frame that suits your classroom needs, then do what I did once. I cut and glued the head/mouth in place, I labeled all of the quantities and I put the tail on for each of my students so that before the project was presented I had a completed Placeholder Dragon for demonstration and I had partially assembled dragons for all of my students. What they did was decorate them and use them for math. Do what works best for you. If dragons just aren't your thing, have your students make a caterpillar or an inch worm place holder.

How to use the Placeholding Dragons -

On strips of paper write a single four digit number. Make sure to include several numbers that have at least one zero. Place these strips in a basket. Fill another basket with beans. Now, select one of the pieces of paper with a number on it. Ex. 9,520. Next, place 0 beans in the ones egg cup, 2 beans in the tens egg cup, 5 beans in the hundred cup and 9 beans in the thousand cup. Empty the cup and choose another number. This work can be done with two students. One places the beans and the other checks the work and then they switch.

I have the children take their dragons home with them along with a baggie that has several beans and 6 or so slips of paper with a four digit number written on each.

Art and Math, its a good thing....

Metal Inset and Fraction Work - Don't Forget the Frames

2009-09-10T10:59:00.000-07:00

I have observed children in many different classrooms doing metal inset work using only the insets having left the metal frames on the shelf. In my training, we never left the metal frame at the shelf. Both the inset and the frame were meant to be brought to the table together.

The child is suppose to first trace the inside rim of the frame without the inset.

The child then removes the frame, positions the inset over the initial outline and then draws the outside rim of the inset. When the inset is lifted there are two outlines - not one.

Regarding the empty space of the frame, this space is a visual reference for the child when they are drawing around the rim of the inset. If the child looks up for a moment from their work, they see before them the image of the shape they are tracing. Often a child's hands cover the majority of the inset's shape. I have heard many children say out loud to themselves something like, "Ellipsoid. Okay, now I remember," when they are doing metal inset work and forget for a second what shape they are tracing. They stop in the middle of the work, hold their hands still, visually check the frame's empty space (which echoes the shape they are tracing) and then complete their work.

A second work that I have observed children leave half of on the shelf is the fraction circles, specifically the metal, Montessori fraction circles. This material is both a sensorial and a math material. Four year olds should be using this work to simply manipulate the material and position/reposition the fractions into the formation of a whole or 1.

In regards to its use as a math material, the frames need to come to the table or floor with the fraction insets or a major element of the work is missing. Maria Montessori built into these materials zero. When the child lifts the whole circle representing 1 from its frame what remains is an empty circle or more specifically zero. Don't leave the zero on the shelf. Also, each time one of the fractions is removed from its frame the negative or empty space represents the absent quantity.

If the metal insets didn't need the frames to be brought to the table then why have them and their space occupying shelf? The same could be asked of the fraction materials. If the frames have no significance than why purchase them? The answer is of course that they do have a significance. They are part of the presentation/lesson.

Final Comment:

In the photo above you can see that both the inset and the frame where brought to the table by the child. But, (and I have talked to both AMS and AMI trainers about this and they agree) look at how the child's wrist is lifted up onto the rim of the tray. This lift in the wrist is maintained while the child (not seen in photo) bends their wrist down so as to lower the pencil to meet the paper. This is not a proper positioning for a child to write or draw. The metal inset work is a preliminary writing material. This lift in the wrist is actually a similar positioning to that made by adults that work at older computer keyboards. Many of these adults suffer from a wrist injury commonly known as carpal tunnel syndrome. I never write on a tray. Do you?

Also, the materials in the photograph are too crowded and the child does not have ample room to use them. Metal inset work should not be done on a tray. And yes, I too have seen the lovely metal inset work trays sold by various Montessori material companies.

But, at the AMI Centennial Conference in San Francisco, the trainers warned teachers not to be seduced by unnecessary and, at times, inappropriate materials. Believe me, I have purchased my fair share of similar materials at various conferences. Some of these materials are wonderful extensions to the Montessori work, but others do not serve the child and their development.

Next winter when the AMS National Conference is in Boston, I am sure I will be right up there at one table or another eyeballing all of the Montessori candy. If you see me there remind me of this post...

The Sensorial Materials Are Scientific Materials: A Testimony (Revised)

2009-09-05T06:46:00.000-07:00

I was in my first year of teaching. I had graduated from my training only a few months earlier. I had also just moved from Minneapolis to Boston. It was a period of enormous change in my life. Still, I was very excited about becoming a lead teacher and having my first classroom.

Unfortunately, I wasn't greeted as warmly as I had hoped by the parents of my new school. Even though I was a published author, had spent ten years as a non-violence educator in a domestic violence program serving men who had been arrested for the crime and was starting the fourth decade of my life, the parents were openly concerned about having a "new" teacher lead the classroom. I cried a lot at night and on weekends during the first several months at the school.

As I had moved far from my training center and my trainers, I had no on-going mentoring. The head of my school was also working as a lead teacher in the second class. She was very busy juggling her administrative work and her classroom work. We really did not talk much.

But because I had just graduated, the lessons resonated within me. It was almost like I could hear the words of my trainer speaking to me in the moment as I presented work for the first time. It was an enormous comfort. Too, phrases like, "Never underestimate a child's creative intelligence" repeated themselves over and over again in my mind like Montessori mantras. This too was comforting. Finally, I had my albums which I carried with me like corporate employees carry their briefcases. They were my life line.

During my training, the Sensorial materials were presented as scientific materials designed for a scientific classroom. The color tablet boxes could be used to determine if a child was color blind. The thermic bottles could determine numbness or hyper-sensitivity in a child's hands and fingers. The sound cylinders/boxes could assist in determining issues regarding a child's hearing.

Each material has a built in abstraction and a built in scientific mode of measurement. These are two of the reasons that they are only to be used (initially) for individual presentations as each child responds uniquely to them. It is with these materials that so much knowledge about an individual child is gained.

It was work with the Sensorial materials that changed my relationship with the parent community at the school. I was re-presenting the sound cylinders/boxes to a young four year old. I had first presented the work to him a few weeks earlier. At that time he was able to matched all of the cylinders/boxes correctly. What I was seeing during this follow up presentation was quite different. He matched the loudest and the softest quickly but mismatched all the others. I smiled and invited him to put the work away. While he sat having snack, I wrote two pages of notes based on my observations.

The very next morning I spoke with his mother when she dropped him off. I mentioned that I was concerned about his hearing and that I had noticed a recent change. As she was still not warmed up to the "new" teacher, she did not seem to think it was a big deal. Since he didn't have a fever, she felt confident he didn't have an ear infection. She suggested that I might have made a mistake as I might be more exhausted then I realized, having started a new job after a big move. Her final suggestion was that I do the work with him again in a couple of days to make sure my observations were correct. I respectfully agreed that repeating the work in a few days was a good idea.

After observing the same response again from the child using the sound cylinders/boxes (not being able to match most), I approached the parent a second time. She told me that he was going to the doctor's that afternoon for a routine check-up and that she would ask the doctor to check his hearing. She also stated, "Maybe he isn't really interested in that work. He likes math. You could do more math with him instead." I remember the head of my school watching me from down the hallway as this parent spoke. I knew that my observations were correct so I thanked the mother for agreeing to have his ears check.

The boy's father brought him to school the next day. He was in a hurry and didn't say anything about the doctor's visit. However, at the end of the day, his mother stood outside my door with a bouquet of flowers. When I looked at her, a tear ran down her face.

"You saved my son's hearing. The doctor said he could have gone partially deaf or even worse. I am so sorry I doubted you," she said as more tears ran down her face.

She explained to me that she had taken him to visit her grandmother two weeks ago. She said that her grandmother used a hearing aid and that her son had seen her place the hearing aid in her right ear many times.

During their last visit, he watched her change the battery in her hearing aid and then put the aid back in her ear. Apparently, the grandmother left the old battery on the table within the child's reach.

What the doctor found when he looked in his ear was the old battery. It was wedged deep inside of the little boy's ear and took several minutes to remove. After examining the battery, the doctor noticed that it was corroded and leaking. He explained to the boy's mother that it could have caused brain damage if it had remained in the ear and had continued to leak.

After she explained all of this to me and thanked me four or five more times, I told her it was the Montessori materials that revealed the change in her son's hearing abilities and that I would not have been able to recognize this loss without them. After this conversation, the entire parent population grew much warmer towards their "new" teacher.

For me, it was an amazing confirmation that the Montessori classroom is a scientific environment. After the child's mother left, I sat alone in my classroom and wept. My heart wasn't sad. It felt instead overwhelmed by the emotions of joy. I was so glad I had taken my training and become a Montessori teacher.

(*Revision note: I received an email from a reader informing me that my previous copy of this post had a few spelling and tense errors. My apologies. I was writing on the run. I was trying to get a post in before driving my son Ian back to college. He was asking "How much longer?" and "Why can't you write that later?" I just felt such a strong urge to post the story about the hearing aid, the battery and the little boy, a pivotal moment in my first year of teaching, that I wrote quickly and checked spelling later. Again, my apologies. The above copy is hopefully 99% error free - I am sure there is one more that I didn't catch...Susan Dyer)

Happy Birthday Maria Montessori Born this Day in 1870

2009-09-01T07:57:00.000-07:00

How to Teach A Child To Paint Continued: How to Clean a Paintbrush

2009-08-29T17:41:00.000-07:00

Note: I give the lesson on "How to Clean a Paintbrush" after I give the one on "Parts of a Paintbrush."

The above photo is of the tray I put together for cleaning a paintbrush. The two glass containers are for the following 1.) soapy water to initially loosen paint from the brush 2.) clear water to rinse the brush. The dish with three sections is used for the following: one section holds cut pieces of paper towel, the second has small rectangles of yellow felt for drying and shaping the head of the paintbrush and the third is for thin pieces of sponge also used to dry the hairs of the brush.

The smaller, second tray to the right of the Cleaning a Paintbrush tray is a refill tray for the first tray. This second tray is only out for the photo and is not taken to the table unless the child needs to re-supply the Cleaning a Paintbrush Tray. The white, square ceramic plate is to place soiled pieces of paper towel and felt on. The child carries this tray to the garbage and empties it at the end of the work.

The Cleaning a Paintbrush tray is brought to the table by the child after they have cleaned the paint tray and all other items on the tray leaving only the brushes to be cared for. They also bring an oil cloth or a place mat to the table. They take each item from the tray and place it on the oil cloth. They then return the empty, wooden tray to the shelf so as to serve as a place holder

The child, although finished painting, does not take off their art aprons until they have finished this work. Next, they remove the brush(es) from their various paint pots or resting trays and wipe any remaining paint off with a small piece of paper towel found on the Paintbrush Cleaning Tray.

They continue by taking the partially cleaned brush and placing it on the ceramic rest, also found on the tray. The child then fills the small pitcher with water. They put a few drops of dish soap (I keep a small bottle of dish soap in the Practical Life area for floor washing.) into one of the glass containers and pour the water from the pitcher into it. A funnel is kept on the tray to assist in pouring the water into the container.

Using the partially cleaned brush, they stir the soapy water to wash away more paint. They then lift the brush from the water and carefully check the hairs for paint. If needed they return the brush to the soapy water until the hairs are clean.

Now they refill the pitcher with clean water and pour the water into the second glass container in which they place the paintbrush rinsing it clean. The child removes the wet paintbrush and rolls it across the piece of sponge on the tray so as to partially dry the brush and to do some preliminary shaping of the brush hairs.

Now they "dress" the brush by wiping it between the folded drying-cloth (small, piece of rectangular felt) also found on the tray. The child carefully shapes the hairs of the brush back to a point or a flat edge.

They return the brush to the container holding a variety of paintbrushes in the art area positioning the brush so that the hairs are pointing up. Having the brush hairs down in a jar or any other container will damage the head.

The final steps include putting the dirty drying-cloth in the laundry basket, putting the used paper towel pieces in the garbage, emptying the containers of water and drying the containers, refilling the paper towel pieces and drying-cloths on the tray if needed. The child then retrieves the larger, wooden tray from the shelf and places each of the items carefully on it. The child returns the wooden tray to the shelf. Lastly, the child removes their art apron.

I keep a laminated sheet with each step listed in the art area along with the one titled, "Parts of a Paintbrush" and another titled, "How To Clean an Art Tray."

How to Teach A Child To Paint Continued: How to Return a Tray To The Shelf

2009-08-28T18:57:00.001-07:00

(Note: A better name for the post would be "Tray Management...")

Lessons on cleaning the art materials need to be broken down into smaller, more specific steps for each individual tray and those specific tools associated to that tray's use. Cleaning a paintbrush is one act in regards to caring for an entire tray such as a watercolor tray. Other requirements of caring for a watercolor tray include: cleaning the paint tray, rinsing and squeezing out the small sponge, rinsing and drying the small pitcher used for water, washing and drying the tray itself, setting each of the objects back on the tray as when the tray was on the shelf before being engaged.

However, returning a tray to the shelf as it was before use does not always happen. It is my experience that trays that have several items on them are frequently returned to the shelf disorganized. It may not always be that the child has not tried to put it back correctly, but that half way through they simply wanted to escape the task as they really couldn't remember where everything went. So they did what they thought was most important - returning it to its correct place on the shelf. This is often what is done by both the youngest and the oldest students in the class.

Photo Below: Imagine your a four year old who has just painted a personal masterpiece. You are engaging the material with passion and then the bell rings announcing that it is time to clean up as the day is coming to an end. Do you paint those final strokes and then place your name tag on your work in an attempt to convey your desire to clean-up tomorrow, please? Or do you hang your masterpiece up to dry, gather all that you see and pile it on a tray, place the tray on the shelf and hope that while you wash your hands no one will notice?

Photo Below: Or maybe, if you were given earlier notice, you spend the time carefully cleaning the tray. You even take the time to wipe away the excess paint from the rim of the paint pots with a cotton ball exactly like the lesson you were recently given.

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In my training, there was a wonderful lesson presented on helping a child remember the order of objects placed on a tray. Many trays have several items on them and it can be challenging for a young child to recall were it is all supposed to be placed.

The lesson is for a child who has repeated a work many times but has been observed returning the tray to the shelf somewhat messy. You invite the child to get the work out with you. But, you intervene before he starts to remove the items from the tray and place them on his/her table. You say to the child, "Today, we are going to do something different with this tray. Are you ready?"

You ask the child to carefully study the tray and the placement of the items on it. Then you ask the child, "Would you carefully remove each of the items and place them on the table to the left of the tray." Once this is done you continue, "Now, I have a wonderful challenge for you. I want you to put all of the items back on the tray. But you need to put them back just as they were before you took them off." The child will most likely look at you and say, "Oh, that is easy."

They might be able to do it or not. If they have difficulty you may intervene and assist. Once they are able to place all of the items back on the tray successfully you invite them for a new challenge. "You did that very well. It looks like you know where everything goes. I would like you to try doing it again, only this time with a blindfold on. Ask the child to go and get a blindfold from the Sensorial area or you might bring one with you and not reveal you have it until this moment. (Always remember to place a folded tissue between the blindfold and a child's eyes so that you prevent the spread of infection).

When the child returns with the blindfold ask them to take everything back off the tray and place the items to the left again. Look at them for a moment, smile and say, "Now put on your blindfold. Don't forget the tissue. Are you ready? Okay, start putting the items back on the tray." (Hint: If there are any fragile pieces, such as a glass pitcher, make sure that you are working with the child at a large enough table as to limit the possibility of the pieces falling and breaking while the child tries to reach for them blindfolded. Or suggest as they take the items off the tray to place fragile pieces closest to the tray and farthest from the edge of the table.)

This is a wonderful activity to watch. Trust me when I say that you will not be the only person watching. When the child says he/she is finished, have them take off the blindfold and see how they have done. Some children set everything back perfect. Other children place things on top of one another and ask to try again.

Before you move on to another child's needs, invite the child to do this work without you using other trays that they are familiar with. It is really lovely to see a child take a tray from the shelf, get a blindfold and simply practice placing the items on the tray.

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Years ago, when I watched on the big screen the movie "Girl With A Pearl Earring" about the painter Vermeer and his personal housekeeper (played by Scarlet Johansson), I thought about the above work. In an amazing scene, she trains her hand how to lift, dust and return each item exactly to their original spot in the artist's studio. This purposeful and focused movement was amazing to watch. There is a stillness that envelops an individual engaged in such careful and controlled movement. It is the same for the observer. I remember becoming ever so still in my velour covered movie seat as I watched her hands move. I have had that same feeling watching students completely captivated by their work.

Yes, I know, Montessorians see the method or the lack of the method everywhere...

How to Teach A Child To Paint Continued: Parts of a Paintbrush

2009-08-28T18:19:00.000-07:00

Labeling the parts of a paintbrush seems as natural to the Montessori classroom as labeling the environment. Hearing a child tell another child not to soak their brush in water to long as it will cause the ferrule to break sounds almost out of the Victorian age rather than the age of technology. "Ferrule" is a wonderful word and as I type this I am thinking it would be great to use in a good game of Scrabble. Now, all I need to do is remember the word the next time I play. Hmmm...

I introduce the parts of a paintbrush as a preliminary lesson to "How to Clean a Paintbrush." It makes sense that a child should be able to verbally identify what in fact they are attempting to clean.

I print out a sheet with the three parts of a paintbrush listed along with their descriptions. I include an illustration of a paintbrush with its parts labeled ( I use the one at the top of this post). I laminate this sheet and place it in the art area for students to refer to after the initial lesson is given.

The three parts of a paintbrush are:

1. Head - The head is what the hairs on a brush are called. Hairs are made from natural or man-made fibers or both. Some natural hairs used in making brushes include ox, pony, goat or hog bristle.

2. Ferrule - The metal tube connecting the brush to the handle. The ferrule shapes the head of the brush and determines its size. Swelling of the brush handle (due to soaking in water) or a buildup of paint can break the ferrule.

3. Handle - The long, stick like form connected to the ferrule that is made from either wood or man-made products.

An extension of this lesson is to place a variety of paintbrushes on a small tray and ask students to carefully examine the ferrule on each and to describe or sketch the differences in its size and shape. And too, to note how these variances in the ferrule's shape determine the thickness and shape of the head. Recognizing these details will assist the student later when determining which type of brush they want to use to paint or illustrate with.

Introduction to Pattern Making for the Third Year Student

2009-08-24T10:03:00.000-07:00

If you have never been in a Primary classroom for a three year span than it is difficult to completely imagine or view how practical life skills truly become the cultivated skills of the students in no less a way than a potter or woodworker, an architect or an engineer rely on their foundation skills to forge their own aesthetic. I once heard a child say after I gave an art lesson, "Oh, painting a single stroke like that is like carrot work. When you do carrot work you make one long peel with the peeler and then another. When you make a stroke like that you make one long sweep with the paintbrush."

This third year child was a living file cabinet of muscular memory regarding the Montessori materials.

What I find most inspiring and affirming is looking out at a classroom of children engaged in work at various stages of the three-four year cycle. It is a visual echo of the placement of work on the shelves. We can see the work laid out in such a way as to see the evolution of lessons. When a student filled classroom is actively engaged in a variety of work, that single moment encapsulates the entire three year cycle. They are a collective representation of the entire Montessori method for the primary casa.

Last year, I had several six year olds in my classroom. Their commitment to work and their ability to work independently was impressive. During the final few days of our school year, two of these students (one in her fourth year and the other her third) began work which relied on their muscular and mental memory of many prior lessons given to each of them using a wide range of the Montessori materials.

One of these lessons was using tracing paper to record an image or shape. My four year olds love this work. Once they began tracing images found on the cover of and inside books, they do it again and again. It is an extension of tracing the outline of a metal inset or its frame. I keep a large stack of tracing paper out on the shelf available for children to use as needed. It is often needed.

This tracing over and over again of book covers and various drawings creates a sort of muscular memory sketchbook. I have seen children do this work and then leap to drawing a frog or a bird freehand (without tracing an image) and the work is much more mature in its construction than work done by children the same age who did not do any tracing. I have also seen older children trace an entire page of a poetry book including the poem and then carefully illustrate the piece with colored pencils. Finally, I have observed third year students trace a few images onto a piece of paper and then embellish these with their own art work. This work takes days to complete. The quiet focus of a child doing such work draws to one's mind images of early scribes.

Another of the significant lessons in regards to the work of the above mentioned six year olds was sewing. Once a child has been shown how to sew they acquire a love for the needle and its thread.

An older three year old can sew a button. I had a five year old bring a pair of torn pants to school one day and mend them during the three hour work period. She put them back in her backpack at the end of the day and returned the next day wearing them.

Sewing projects such as pillow making are favorite holiday gifts from the children to their parents.

There must be a correlation between sewing a line and walking a line in a child's mind. The practice of staying steady, not leaving the path, small steps and small stitches are poetic acts in the canon of movement.

After much work tracing the outlines of images, students are then given a lesson on how to trace the individual pieces of a puzzle onto a corresponding color of construction paper. They then cut these pieces out and reassemble them onto a background sheet of paper.

Often, children add other elements to the construction such as a nest or a tree limb.

In a wonderful fusion of writing (the creation of lines with specific forms), practical life (sewing), math (the calculation of size and the spatial placement of objects within a bordered space) and art, third and fourth year students are given a lesson on using tracing paper to create sewing patterns. When I present this work, I talk about all of the other work that came before it. Then I lean forward and tell those students the most amazing thing,

"There are large books in fabric stores that have many, many patterns for making clothes, dolls, purses, Halloween costumes and so much more," I say as if revealing a sacred secret of the cosmic universe.

It is this work that the two students began this past Spring. When I told Zoe and Meaghan about the pattern books, Zoe's mouth dropped open. "Miss Dyer, is that true?" she asked with wide-eyed curiosity.

"It is absolutely true. You should ask your Mom or Dad to take you to a fabric store one day so that you may see for yourself," I answered. "The patterns are drawn on paper like tracing paper only it is slightly different. This paper is called tissue paper. It is much thinner and almost always a tan color," I explained.

Then I asked, "Would you and Meaghan like to learn how to make your own patterns and use them to design a pillow?"

"Yes," the duo replied.

First, I asked them to think about a subject that they were interested in. Next, I instructed them to go and find objects in the classroom that represented that interest and bring them back to their work tables.

Meaghan was interested in the beach so she brought several sea shells to her table. Zoe was interested in the solar system so she selected a few books on the various planets and returned with those.

Soon they were using sewing pins to position their traced and cut out patterns on small pieces of colored felt. After cutting these shapes out, they spent several minutes carefully deciding where they wanted each piece to be placed on the tops of their later completed pillows.

Above: Zoe is tracing and cutting solar system shapes for her pillow, including a rocket ship. Below: Meaghan works on her ocean scene.

Below: This was what they had completed on the first day after working most of the morning.

Once they had all of the pieces placed and pinned, they started sewing:

Every now and again, I stopped and watched them work. I imagined the pair of pants that Zoe might make for herself over the summer or the Halloween costume Meaghan might design and sew one day. I listened to their conversations, now much briefer than when they were younger. On a few occasions I heard one of them say to the other, "Let's not talk so much. Let's concentrate on our sewing." This beautiful work was the concluding work for these two girls in the Primary environment.

(Note: Due to the early closing of my school because of possible Swine Flu, Zoe and Meaghan finished their pillows at home. I am confident that they are being used daily - put no photos - yet)

A Return To Posting

2009-08-24T06:28:00.000-07:00

I can hardly believe I am typing a post. Each time I attempted to return to my blog and continue writing, I became overwhelmed with emotion. I would look at the pictures of my former students and simply weep. I have been grieving. My heart has been aching.

Over the summer, I received packages from fellow Montessorians that remained on my desk unopened until today. The paintings Kathy sent me, watercolors she did herself, are so stunningly beautiful that I can only encourage you to check them out yourself at her blog: http://kathysmontessorilife.blogspot.com/search/label/watercolours

She was enormously generous and I can only apologize for not acknowledging her gift earlier. Her work would look wonderful in the entryway of any Montessori school, classroom or home. Kathy is extremely talented.

Although I have been on-leave from my Montessori blog, I have been piecing together the upcoming year. I have been accepted as a substitute teacher for both Primary and Elementary classrooms in two large (toddler - to 6th grade) schools in the Boston area. They have promised to keep me busy for most of the school year. I have also been accepted into an adult yoga teacher training (200 hrs.) which starts the first week of September and runs for ten weeks - classes are on Friday evenings and all day Saturday and Sunday. I have taught yoga to children for more than a decade and just concluded an eight week summer program. I have decided to take the adult training as a means of making a deeper commitment to my yoga practice.

For several years, I have wanted to learn French. I just had my sixth lesson from a wonderful young woman who is a graduate student studying film. She is a native speaker and has added some delightful phrases ("Susan, this is how my grandmother would say it...") to our weekly lessons.

Finally, the Montessori Foundation has asked that I consider writing for both their Tomorrow's Child and Montessori Leadership Magazines. I was recently surprised by the invitation when I opened an email titled "Blog and Pictures." The foundation's South Africa editor said she came across my blog while doing research for an art curriculum. I am incredibly flattered and look forward to working with them.

Now that I have set aside the tissues, I have many, many posts to write. Thank you for hanging in there. I see the upcoming school year as one filled with new opportunities. I am sure I will keep all of you posted.

From NAMTA to Lena Woods to The Moveable Alphabet

2009-06-23T15:13:00.000-07:00

The passing on of knowledge, of experiences and of insights is as significant as the passing of the Olympic torch, it just happens much more often. I have been reading Lena Wood's blog lately and love all that she offers - from Montessori insights (she is taking her AMI Elementary training), to poetry, to music and so much more. She is so good at hunting and gathering tidbits of knowledge and then sharing them with the greater community at large.

What I want to pass on today is a partial quote she noted when she was recently in Seattle at the NAMTA (North America Montessori Teacher's Association) conference. The lecture from which she quotes was given by Jim Webster, a former upper-elementary, Montessori teacher, and now adolescent teacher at the Hershey Montessori Farm School. His presentation was on the relationship between the teacher and the child in the elementary classroom:

"We love the universe and everything in it with a fierceness and tenderness and passion and it becomes so alive in us that we cannot help but share it with the children with whom we work.

She [Montessori] writes: “It does not suffice for the teacher to limit herself to loving and understanding the child. She must first love and understand the universe. She must therefore prepare herself and work at it.”

It was not until I learned to feel the earth turning beneath me that I could teach the seasons. It is not only our stories that guide their imaginations outward. There is more to teaching than the placing of words and pictures before them. They search the field of your being. It is when you are full in heart and mind with wonder and gratitude, when you yourself have traveled far to find your own place in the Great Becoming, that they are best able to see along the boundaries of shadowed time, or into the center of the atom, or to follow the footprints which mark the sand and soil from the edge of the primordial sea to the classroom door, and to know the deeper truth and worth of the stories you tell.

We are asked to make conscious and dear all that is small and infinite, linear and turning, music and the dance, and the silence…the grand and the mysterious, the unfolding destiny whose very surface is the minds of the children who sit at our feet."

I felt my heart beating through the thin knit of my summer sweater when I read it. I knew I had to share it with others. Thank you Lena for being so good at taking notes.

"Real Bubbles Pop" : New Insights On A Familiar Work

2009-06-20T08:21:00.000-07:00

I occassionally find time to sit and simply listen to a child articulate their scientific findings to me. That happened during the last week of school.

This particular child has a rather soft voice when she speaks in the classroom so listening to her sometimes sounds as if your are simply listening to her speak softly to herself. This is especially true when she is captivated by a work. Thinking back on it now, I remember asking myself whether I was eavesdropping on a private conversation. Yet, I know what my role was then and now. I am the chronicler of her discoveries. I am her scribe.

The first time I saw the look of astonishment on her face was months ago. She was doing work with magnets. As the lesson had instructed, she taped a string tied to a paper clip to her table. Then she took a large magnet and drew the paper clip up high with it. The moment of astonishment came when the paper clip hovered just below the magnet. The magnet held the clip up off the table but was not touching it.

Perhaps I wasn't the only one in the room that saw the beauty of this young girl's face when she had performed magnetic magic. Another student requested to paint her portrait not long after. I saw these two girls from across the room and snapped a picture for my own keeping.

And then, months later, this same young girl, who was mesmerized by the power of a magnet, took out the "Oil and Water Don't Mix" tray. Upon her request, I added some food coloring to the water to highlight the oil on the surface.

"See the bubbles, Miss Dyer. Some of them are so small," she said as she leaned forward to look at them.

"Are they really bubbles or more like circles of oil?" I asked.

The young girl lifted a q-tip and touched one of the bubbles.

"Real bubbles pop when you touch them. This bubble didn't so its just a circle. Its not a bubble," she decided.

I acknowledge her statement and then just sat quietly and waited and watched. It wasn't long before she was telling me more about her observations.

"Do you see, Miss Dyer, how the water is at the bottom and the oil is at the top. That is because the water sinks and the oil floats. That is like our "Sink and Float" work," she said, making another declaration of discovery.

"What would happen if you put a crab in the water. Would it get covered with oil? And would it sink or float if it was?" I asked.

"I put the crab in, but the bottom is so dark that it is hard to see anything. How can I know if it sinks or floats if I can't find it? If something falls to the bottom of the ocean you can't see it," she said as she attempted to scoop up the crab.

"Here it is. Look, it has oil all over it. I don't think crabs like having oil on their bodies," she stated.

"When people spill oil in the ocean from their boats the oil covers the fish and all of the other living things. They are trying to come up with ways to clean the oil off of them without hurting them. Some people volunteer to do work like that," I said in an equally soft voice.

"You have to be very gentle. You shouldn't hurt animals," she said as she carefully wiped the crab clean and then placed it on a small cloth, one of many I have made for the classroom.

"There is one more thing, Miss Dyer. Let me show you," she said as she began touching the small circles of oil with the spoon. "When one of the circles of oil touches another they join and make one big circle. That is like math. Two small things make one big thing. That is what I really like about this work. It makes me think of math."

The longer she stayed with the work the more "discoveries" she made and the more focused on the work she became. I wish I could sit with all my students, one on one, for longer and longer periods of time. Its just not possible. Yet, I treasure the times I able to.

Hexagon Happenings

2009-06-17T17:23:00.000-07:00

This year's final hexagon activity was also an optical illusion. Cristina prepared the materials for this activity months ago. I had given a lesson on hexagon tessellations and happened to spin the hexagon shape from the geometry cabinet. I spun it again and then many more times. Each time that I did, I focused on the image of a circle that appeared as the hexagon spun. I taped some colored triangles on to three sections of the hexagon and spun it again. The triangles made a shape that reminded me of the nuclear warning image. Now, when I spun the hexagon shape the circle was even more obvious.

I handed the blue, construction-paper hexagons, each with a crayon nib at its center, to my students. I also gave each of them three small triangles to glue in place.

Soon, they were spinning their hexagons on the table tops. It wasn't long before I heard, "Cool, I see a circle."

I didn't get into a long discussion on why the circle was formed. I wanted to let them enjoy the eye candy of this small optical illusion. It's okay to let a child walk away without all of his or her "Whys?" answered. It gives them something to think about when they are being driven home or when they lay in bed at night thinking back on the day. Contemplative, reflective thinking is a good thing. One of my favorite things to hear from a student who has just arrived in the morning is, "I thought about that work we did yesterday and I figured it out. It makes a circle because..."

There is something so magnificent about the look of a young child's face when they have spent time figuring out something in their own mind and then drawn a conclusion from those thoughts. It is the witnessing of a child maturing. This renewed sense of self-assuredness grows within them a desire for quiet solitude. "I am comfortable alone. I have the companionship of my own thoughts."

Marshmallow Sculptures

2009-06-15T15:36:00.000-07:00

The head of my school entered my classroom concerned that something may be wrong. "It was so quiet down here that I had to come and check that everything was alright, Miss Dyer. But, I can see now that the children are simply busy."

I had placed two pieces of black construction paper, a bowl of miniature marshmallows and a bowl of toothpicks on every table while the children were outside on the playground. When they came in several children immediately said, "Oh, we did this last year. I love this work!"

I asked them to be patient and let me give an all class lesson for first year students. I had a captivated audience. Everyone watched me construct a simple structure and then they went to work.

I informed them that they were to raise their hands if they needed their bowls refilled with marshmallows and toothpicks. It was amazing how quiet and patiently they did this. More amazing were the sculptures and structures that they carefully constructed. Some of the pieces were abstract. Others were specific things like a house or a temple.

One of my young five year olds, who is very detail oriented in all of her work, made (with absolutely no adult help) an amazing butterfly and a spider (with eight legs) hanging from its web.

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Not all children complete work or complete work at the same time as their peers:

Two children couldn't finish their projects because they were overwhelmed by what they had decided they wanted to make and unable to abandon that first idea. Their work collapsed. First I suggested that they stop building and get paper to sketch out their ideas but that didn't appeal to them and was quickly rejected. Next, I tried to redirect one of the students with suggestions for alternative constructions. (ex. a bird house, a jewelry box) The child looked at me and said, "I want to make the Great Wall of China. Don't worry Miss Dyer, I can do it."

The second child who was having difficulty making anything said, "I just don't know what I want to make." She stuck toothpicks into marshmallows and then pulled them out, over and over again.

An older student used a process that I have seen her use to start and finish work before. Before she started constructing something, although most of the children had begun, she got up from her table and walked around the room. I politely inquired what she was doing and she answered, "I have a lot of ideas so before I pick one I want to walk around the classroom and just see what the others are making. I get ideas by looking at other people's work."

A few minutes later she was back at her table committed to a structure. When I stopped by she told me, "I wanted to build a temple like the one I go to, but at first I couldn't figure out how to do it. But I saw Jack put squares and triangles together to make his house and so now I know how." Some children need to visualize the process before they can began.

The two girls who were struggling to complete their structures are the youngest in their kindergarten class. This exercise, at the end of the year, reveals that they are in a place writers often find themselves. They have many ideas but do not have all the tools that they need to bring those ideas to fruition.

Writers often have great story lines running through their heads but get caught in developing the plot and not the characters or the opposite. They spend months writing short drafts that often get deleted or thrown in the trash. A successful writer sees their work as a craft that requires both imagination and structure. Writing a story outline or sketching a story board are two of my most effective means of writing and finishing a story.

Also, letting go of an idea (trying to make the Great Wall of China) can be an enormous challenge for some people. Years ago, I read an article in one of my yoga magazines about how all ideas are not great ideas. My favorite line in the article was, "Don't be a slave to an idea."

When the day was over the unfinished work by these two girls remained on their tables. The following morning the girl who wanted to make the Great Wall of China was out sick. But, the student who didn't know what she wanted to make sat down and spent the entire morning making a structure which she said was her house. "Yesterday, I forgot what I wanted to make," she explained.

This student works best alone. When all of the other students had moved on to other work and it was only her working on the marshmallow project she excelled. She is not a think tank or group project kinda of student. The truth is some children simply need their own time frame in which to be successful. That student worked all morning on her house. It was a great house!