Inspiration for outdoor environment

“Must we always teach our children with books? Let them look at the mountains and the stars up above. Let them look at the beauty of the waters and the trees and flowers on earth. They will then begin to think, and to think is the beginning of a real education.” - David Polis

Back from time alone, with family, and just lots of being outside, I'm eager to invest some time developing our outdoor environment at school. These are some of the projects that inspired me:



Creating areas with different surface textures. In Aruba having a lawn or even a patch of soft grass is out of the question, so creating areas with sand, rocks, and weeds is as good as it gets for us. This little island of rocks seems very inviting and fun for climbing, or just contemplation. The use of rocks to create an impression of water is something that appeals to me as well.




Mulch is another surface area that's available for us. I'm going to section off a small area under a tree to be a building area with our very large home-made (construction salvaged wood) blocks. I love this little tunnel and the feel of this small play area.



Small spaces to crawl into and hide are great. We have a small wooden playhouse that three children fit in comfortably, but this recycled tire tepee seems like a winner. In our incredibly windy environment the sheet around the bamboo might not be possible, but I will try with a porous garden fabric.



This idea seems pretty great for partitioning off areas of our space. We can plant low maintenance wild flowers in the recycled tires after painting them.



This morning we put up two large plywood sheets along the fence, and tomorrow I will paint them with dark green side walk chalk. I am very excited to have such large and inviting chalkboards outside! I love the idea of the dangling bucket for holding the chalk.



I'd love to have a set of uniform brick-like blocks like this, but am happy with our construction grade salvaged wood blocks that I made earlier this year. I will add some sanded boards as well so that perhaps improvised see-saws or other inventions can be built.



Places to ponder and just observe are as fundamental as places for movement. We've made driftwood furniture for our home, but I never considered making something for school. This bench is totally inspiring.

All day, All year, Indoor Outdoor Montessori

*This is a "water slide" that one of the five year olds built while he was outside today.


As the year progresses and begins it's (vertiginous) wrap up, I am feeling very interested in the idea of moving our school towards an all year, all day, indoor/outdoor free flow program. I'm attracted to that idea like a moth to a light bulb, not yet sure if it's a wise choice for us...

Our current school day ends at 1:30, so we have a three hour work period in the morning, and an hour and a half work period after lunch. The day often slips through my fingers and I cannot believe it when I look up and see that it's time to clean up.

There are MAJOR reasons why I think year round, day long, free flow is the way for us to go. The truth is that in most families in our school both parents are working (at least until 4pm). Children are regularly picked up after school and taken to other places before going home. I can imagine that for a child of 3-6, having all this environment switching and rules and routine switching must be tiring. It would be more consistent and clear for them if they just have a longer day at school.

The summer is just a magnification of this issue. I'm all for families and children taking vacations together, but in most cases, the vacation in company of parents is just a few weeks, and the rest of the time the children are at an alternate care environment once again. Upon returning to school there is a re-acclimating process.

From a teacher's point of view, if the day is longer, and the year is longer, then there is PLENTY of time to give all those lessons that I am so eager to give and sometimes am disappointed when there is no time for.

With a year long, day long structure, an successful indoor/outdoor flow in the classroom seems much more realistically achievable. There is enough time to get to everything, both indoors and outdoors.

There are some mental hurdles to overcome when contemplating these changes:

1) Staffing and finances: We have a humble staff of 3 adults at our school. An all day, year long school would require more humans and more money.

2) My fear of napping areas. An all day program would require the creation of a napping set up which we don't have. I have visited several schools with napping policies that just didn't seem that awesome for the four year olds who had to lie in their cots for two hours.

3) Will the children ever choose to come indoors? At our school, one child at a time may be outside as long as he/she likes (it's like choosing a material). And we have a time before lunch when everyone may (or not) be outside (they mostly all choose to). I admit I have a fear that some children, when given the choice to be outdoors the whole day, WOULD (I know I would have as a child).

4) Supervision of the outdoor environment. In a free flow environment, I suspect one adult would have to be outdoors the whole time (if there were say, more than 2-3 children outside). That takes me back to number one.

5) The organization of this would require some letting go of some control of environment which is hard for some people. (Ok, it's me. I have a hard time with it.)

6) My own love of summer vacation. Which takes me back to number one.


I am curious if there are any blog readers who can allay my fears of taking this leap by sharing some of their experience in any of the following: ALL DAY/ YEAR LONG/ INDOOR OUTDOOR FREE FLOW

or at least kindly point me in the direction of some excellent resources... :)

SUCH AS: http://www.montessori.org/imc/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=272:reflections-on-all-day-montessori&catid=84:casa&Itemid=73

(This article in itself holds the vision of what I want to move towards)

School lunch.

When I first envisioned our school, one of the aspects that gave me feelings of most happy anticipation was the idea of school made lunches. Our first year, when we had 12 children, I would make lunch every day with 3 different children. Now that our school has grown, we have an assistant who works specifically in the kitchen and in the garden with the children.

We rotate our three lunch chefs every week, and at 10:15 every morning, they wash their hands and head into the kitchen. We've arranged it so that every week one five year old, a four year old, and a three year old work together. This way, the oldest child has the most opportunity to help the others.

They first set the tables with tablecloths, plates, forks and spoons, cups, and then set up the dish washing station. Then they put on their aprons and help make lunch. Their tasks are given depending on their level of skill- cutting, peeling, grating, washing, tearing, spreading, measuring, taking out refuse to the compost bins, sticking fruit cores on the tree for the lizards and birds. What I love about the kitchen work is that it is real life practical life work.




My dream would be to have a community supported agriculture system to get our produce from, but living on a dry and windy island makes that kind of implausible. Our menu incorporates lots of fresh vegetables and fruit for dessert every day, and we try to vary it from week to week and include input from our parent community which includes a lot of international families.

Year #4, I can't believe it.

Because we finished our third year of school, our first complete cycle, I decided this vacation to invest a good chunk of money and time into our building. To give it a breath of fresh life for the next 3 years. We spent some weeks this summer repainting the entire inside of the school, had the outside of the school painted, and renovated our porch by closing it in and making it part of our classroom. The changes have really made it feel like a new place.






I was nervous that closing off the porch was a big mistake and would rouine the flow of the classroom, but instead has given us a fourth more of beautiful classroom space to work with. Plus, it has made our lunch room 100% independent of our classroom.




It's amazing what a coat of fresh paint will do to a room. We repainted our kitchen a much lighter shade of green and it has made it feel much more spacious and cooler. I'm in love with our kitchen.




Because of our structural changes, we moved the snack table to the middle of the classroom. In it's more central location, it gets noticed so often and all the practical life hovers around it. It's awesome. Children sweep spontaneously, wash the table, mop around it and generally keep it much neater than when it was in a far corner of our room.

Passing the torch.

Today was our last day of school and our "moving on" ceremony. The plan for it evolved over some weeks of going back and forth on ideas and it ended up being simple, significant, and beautiful. I am so pleased with how it went, and was able to enjoy ever minute of it.

Our ceremony began with the oldest children sitting on one side of the line, and the second years sitting on the other side. Parents and first years sat in the space remaining, and anywhere else they could fit on our school porch. (I've been reading about tea ceremonies, and liked the idea of humility- the honored children sitting in chairs, and everyone else on the floor). I explained how the line is an exercise for mastering gross motor control, and that the oldest children would demonstrate their mastery by walking around it with a lit candle (Aruban trade winds permitting).

One at a time, each child walked on the line with a candle and then presented the candle to a second year child. This represented a passing of the torch. The second years, in turn, had made "garden necklaces" (a material in our class for choosing to be out in the garden) and gave one to each of the oldest children. This represented how the old children will now be "outside".

It was lovely to see the children walking solemnly with their little candle flames flickering. The sharing of the candle and necklace gifts was very sweet.

After reading them a short letter with advice for the future (1)be kind 2)take care of plants and animals...) , we all went to our lunch room to watch the graduation video (see posts below).

All this ended with a picnic in our yard. It was a perfect morning. Complete. I think this will be our standard ceremony for future years.

Our graduation slide show

I used open source "Open Shot" to make this slide show. It was really easy to learn how to use, and very fun to make. And free.

Parent Participation

Every year, we schedule 3 parent conferences (30 minutes during the pickup time in the afternoon in Nov., Feb., May) and 3 observations (30 minutes during the morning after dropping the children off). All sessions are made optional, but last year I noticed a waning in the number of parents who signed up for observation in the middle session.

Since parents often, perhaps I imagined this, ask me if and when they can come in to work or interact with the children, I decided to change the second session of observation/conference into a participation/conference. For the last 30 minutes of the day for a month, any parent who wants to come in and give a lesson, read a book, teach a song, cook, demonstrate something is invited to.

We had a huge turnout for the participation and it's been really interesting seeing the types of lessons parents have come up with. We've had fly fishing demonstrations, group painting, craft works, book reading, a presentation about Togo... It's nice as well to give the children an opportunity to get to know the parents a bit better and they are enjoying it!

I'm thinking this will be a permanent change in our calendar because it's a great way to improve community spirit, a learning opportunity for both children and adults, and it's actually been great fun.

Observation and Record Keeping

(Jessica with observation clipboard, after helping the child will write down what the child had difficulty with.)

I am very pleased so far this year with the observation format and record keeping that Jessica and I have been using. Part of it was passed along at the AMI Refresher Course last year by Molly O'Shaughnessy and modified somewhat for our classroom. I have needed quite a bit of help in the organizational department to keep a solid record of daily/weekly observations and after many years in the classroom, feel more confident than I ever have with our record keeping system.

My trainer Ginni said different things work for different people, and then described in a little detail her method of using index cards and recipe boxes to keep track of what was happening in her room. I've tried different approaches during the year, but feel most comfortable with what we're using now.

For daily observations, we have form that we put on a clip board that we keep with us in the classroom during the day. On it I write the works I see used with deep concentration, general works chosen, issues, moments of distraction, lessons given and possible lessons for the future. This is what it looks like.



Once a week or so, we also chart the work flow of the group during the 3 hours of uninterrupted work. This gives us a general idea of how the days are developing, and at what time we should be ready to give small or whole group lessons. The work flow chart is can also be found in the book The Absorbent Mind.

On the clipboard also goes a sheet of possible individual and group lessons, taken from a master work plan that I keep in a bound book. I refresh this sheet about every two weeks adding to it as the weeks progress. I use it as a reminder of what possible lessons to give children who are free or need help making choices during the day. (this is what it looks like: weekly lessons form) At the end of the week, I track the lessons given to each child in the book, and this serves as my master individual work record.

At the end of the week, I meet with Jessica and go over our observations sheets of that week. I used to file these observation sheets, but more recently I admitted to myself that I NEVER refer to them again and that I needed a more structured weekly summary to help me with lesson planning and general history of the work going on. So I made up a weekly summary sheet where we are filling in the most useful bits of information filed in a binder that I feel will be useful also for future reference. This is what it looks like.

In the end, what I keep as permanent record are the master individual and group lessons book, the weekly summaries, and the work flow charts. It sounds like a lot of bureaucracy but in the end, I do feel like I have a grip on what's happened, and a useful tool for preparing for the future.

I'd love one day to find and learn to use a digital record keeping device that could magically spit out a paper that details the work each child has done that week, and the lessons they've received and mastered with exact dates, and even suggest the lessons for the next weeks but until that magical Montessori app is developed and made free (heck, I'd even pay for it!) I will settle on my old fashioned whole bunch of semi organized papers.

Jamming- Child made holiday gifts for parents

This year, we made placemats and orange jam for holiday gifts from the children to the parents. It took several days to make them, but they were well worth the effort.

For the placemat, the children drew a picture of their family and colored it on one side, and on the other side, the children's handprints in paint. Then I ran the cardstock through the cold laminator and rounded the edges with scissors.




The orange jam is marmalade, technically. We had orange grating available as a work in the classroom for several days and I showed it to four and five year olds.




Then eventually we peeled the grated oranges as a group, sectioned them, and removed seeds.



And then the cooking part was made with mostly teacher assistance. Children could do all the measuring though.

We collected jars for putting the jam in and the children decorated their own labels.



I super recommend this easy and yummy gift for the holidays. In the future, I think we'll give a small loaf of child made bread to go with the jam.


Recipe (tripled for 22 jars):

2lb Oranges/Rind
4lb Sugar
2 pints water/collected orange juice
2 lemons

Wash the oranges thoroughly.

Grate the peel off of as many as you can.

Peel off the remaining white parts, remove seeds, section by hand (keep all the juice).

Squeeze two lemons worth of juice.

In a very large pot, cook the oranges, juice, and water for about 40 minutes- rolling boil (we cooked it for about 1 hour because it was 3x the recipe).

Add the sugar and boil again for about 30 minutes. (If you don't trust the setting or the jam, add a few boxes of gelatin- I did.).

Let it stand for about 15 minutes and the ladle into very clean jars.

Parent Conferences

At our school we have parent conferences three times a year. It is not obligatory for all parents to sign up, so we send out a sign up schedule for observation times in the morning, and conference times right after school and parents pick whether or not to come for one or both. Usually I have about 75% of parents sign up for conferences, and 50% sign up for observations. If I have any child that is really struggling with something, I usually make sure that parent finds a time for conference.

As much as conferences represent extra effort and time in my part both during school hours and after work, they are well worth it in terms of the impact they have on the smooth running of the school. A thirty minute session (or more if necessary) to address any concerns, to give suggestions for the home, to ask for suggestions for school, and to highlight the child's strengths works wonders on both the parent/school relationship and ultimately influences the child in the classroom. The way I see it, conferences are an investment that can make my work in the classroom a lot easier (by helping the parent work WITH me).

The way that I structure conferences in general is the following:

1) Invite the parents to talk about their impressions of their observation. Clear up any questions or concerns. I usually offer a clip board with written observation guidelines and suggestions that really helps direct the parents attention while they observe. This keeps their hands off of their cel phones (believe it or not), and usually helps translate what they are seeing.

2) Ask parents if there is any subject in particular, or aspect that they'd like to focus on during the conference. Address it if they have one.

3) Go over the conference notes. These are usually a two page written "report" that highlights the child's development as follows:

• General development comments (this is where I talk about sensitive periods, transition times in development, etc.)
• Motor development (both gross and fine)
• Practical life (including bathroom, nutrition, clothing issues)
  
• Sensory development
• Language development (spoken, reading, writing)
• Math work
• Social Development
• Independence

As I go over each topic, I try to suggest ways in which they can parallel what we do at school in the home. If the child is having difficulty in any area, I ask a lot of questions about if they see the same thing at home and if so what their response is to it.

My goal is to make the conference feel as much as possible like a conversation instead of it feeling like an evaluation in any way. I like to notice the all the areas of progress that I see, especially if there has been prior difficulties with the child. I like to think that when parents leave the conference, they feel proud and inspired about their child (at best) and that they have new ideas to work with at home (at the least).

Multiplication

Grace and Courtesy at the Beginning

(With week 1 under the belt and feeling like the anxiety has turned into enthusiasm.)

It was a good thing that I've saved the lesson plans for first days of school of the last couple of years. These help me to compare and plan and remember about first weeks and what I'm supposed to be focusing on, which is (in my case), mainly practical life and grace and courtesy.

Since we have so many newcomers this year (11 new children and most of them just 3 years old), at this point it's all about laying the foundation for future work.

Someone out there asked me for it, so here is the general grace and courtesy list that I'm using (and of course modifying according to the need I see in the classroom):

• How to enter the classroom
• How to wash hands at the sink
• How to have snack
• How to use the bathroom
• How to work on a table
• How to work on a rug
• How to observe someone working at a table
• How to observe someone working at a rug
• How to come to group lessons
• How to sit for group lessons
• How to stand in line to wash hands, wash dishes, use the bathroom
• How to walk around a rug
• How to get the teacher's attention (hand on the shoulder)

This is most of what we worked on last week. I enlist the help of the returning children when giving these lessons #1 to remind them of the lessons #2 acknowledging a bit of seniority to the older children (I put a word in about the responsibility of being role models for the new children)

Now our second week is coming up, so after observing the results of these lessons I refine these basic grace and courtesies and add what we saw problems with. So this week, for example, I'll be showing how to get up and sit down gracefully from the floor, how to tuck in your chair soundlessly, and try to fix the glitches like "how to turn the bathroom sign back to "GO" after you use the bathroom."

And from here on it's all refinement and continuing to strengthen the foundation all while trying to keep things fun... adding movement games here and there certainly helps me keep the youngest ones with me.

Every day I'm adding a few more materials onto the shelves now that I see that the new children are understanding the rule of not taking something they don't have a lesson with. I pick carefully what to add each day because it is like resurrecting a material... things like the shoe lace frame which in my classroom was gathering dust for weeks at the end of the year is being used with love when there are no other dressing frames available. (Insert evil laughter here)

Practical Beginning Stuff

(tasting lesson with some of the new children- food is a great indirect motivator for learning how to join and leave a small group lesson)



I inevitably get anxious at the beginning of new school years. I struggle with the uncertainty and feel a bit like a rusty teacher after the long vacation. The comfortable (if I am not romanticizing it) atmosphere that we ended our school year with undergoes a makeover- the new group of oldest children and the new children change the society every year.

To prepare, there are "rituals" that help me feel more ready for the change: Writing a letter to both new and returning children about how I am excited sharing the coming year with them, visiting the new children in their home, reading the chapter in my album about the first days in the classroom, and of course, setting up the environment.

At our school, only the new children come for the first 2 days of school. This gives me the opportunity to focus on them exclusively and make sure they get all of the introductory grace and courtesy lessons. I strip the classroom of materials and leave out plenty of transitional materials and just a few of the very basic and indestructible Montessori materials.

In those two days we try to prepare the new children enough to be able to function somewhat independently. We shorten the work period considerably and give lots of group lessons. On the second day of only new children, we focus on grace and courtesy such as not taking a material if you haven't had a lesson with it (in preparation for lots of other materials that "appear" on the shelf the following day, when the returning children arrive.)

Everything shifts once again with the return of the "old" children. A really nice thing is that since the old ones are used to a 3 hour work period, and are eager to be back at school, they really INJECT a surge of work force in the environment. I could feel this yesterday (it's our 4th day today) how the new children were able to work a little longer, and a little more carefully because of, I guess, the "energy" in the room.

Tomorrow will be the end of our first week of school. And by next week I will add a considerable amount of materials on the shelves for the "old" children to get back in gear from where they left off last school year.

It is great being in an environment that is so dynamic and changing, and to work in a field where things are in constant flux. Just when you think you've got the formula right, something or someone comes along and you have to modify it again. Observation, observation, observation. Flexibility. Enthusiasm. Love.

Beginning

Some excerpts from Pema Chodron's book "When things fall apart" which has been uncannily appropriate literature for beginning this new school year:


"The main point is that we all need to be reminded and encouraged to relax with whatever arises and bring whatever we encounter to the path."

"Chaos should be regarded as extremely good news." (This may be out of context but it makes me smile a lot to associate it to classroom life.)

"Sticking with uncertainty, getting the knack of relaxing in the midst of chaos, learning not to panic- this is the spiritual path."

"Just be with your experience, whatever it is."

"This is the liberation that naturally arises when we are completely here, without anxiety about imperfection."

"Beyond all that fuss and bother is a big sky."

Shelves Setup

This summer, because I decided to stay on the Island, I got a chance to do something I had been wanting to do for a couple of years now: a deep review of each area with it's corresponding theory and purposes.

I set EVERYTHING out on the shelves to make sure there is still a space for everything. In our classroom, I don't think we've ever had ALL the materials out at once so it was a good opportunity to take a picture of the complete classroom so that I can remember later on in the year where I had planned on putting everything.

I thought this might be useful for someone so I'm posting the pictures of my work in progress. Mind you, cultural objects are missing as well as all of our plants which are outside under intensive care from my week off at sailing school. The shelves are not in their "final form" but it was a good moment to take the pictures.

Like my trainer taught us, materials are arranged on the shelf in order from simple to complex, and grouped sometimes by purpose or by activity. Not everything is exactly where I will put it eventually, but in general the shelves are organized as they will be.







Practical Life 1: This is one side of my main practical life island.

From top left: objects for waking on the line, and then some random stuff that I didn't put away before taking the picture.

Second tier: opening and closing containers, opening and closing matroshka dolls, opening and closing locks and keys, opening and closing nuts and bolts, stringing large beads, stringing medium beads, stringing seed beads, spooning with a spoon.

Third tier: transferring seeds with tongs, transferring water with a sponge, transferring water with a dropper, dry pouring, pouring a glass of water (with various pitchers behind it that I have to store together).

Fourth tier: wood works. Opening and closing wing nuts, using an Allen key, using a flathead screw driver, using a Phillips screw driver, (sanding: missing), (hammering: missing).




Practical Life 2: "wet" works on the other side of the island.

Top of the shelf from left to right: Folding cloths, folding socks, folding clothes, folding laundry cloths. (all of these available for washing, hanging up to dry, and ironing.)

Tier 1: dusting a table, dusting a material, brushing a rug, washing windows, washing an underlay, washing the paint easel.

Tier 2: table washing, washing the floor, washing dishes, drying dishes.





Practical Life 3: mostly plants and polishing works.

Top of shelf from left to right: wood objects to polish, watering plants.

Tier 1: dusting a plant, cleaning a plant, misting a plant, flower arranging.

Tier 2: polishing a mirror, polishing a table.

Tier 3: polishing brass, brushing shoes, polishing shoes.


Not pictured because they're not on a shelf: handwashing stand, dressing frames stand.






Sensorial 1: early sensorial works.

Top of shelf : Cylinder blocks and markers.

Tier 1: Brown Stair, Pink Tower. (I'm trying to find a setup where my pink tower can be vertical, but haven't been successful yet).

Tier 2: Red rods.



Sensorial 2: sense of touch.

Top of shelf: geometric solids, bases, geometry cabinet cards, geometry cabinet, and on it are the blindfolds.

Tier 1: touch board 1, touch board 2, sorting 1, sorting 2, baric tablets.

Tier 2: Fabrics box, thermic bottles, thermic tablets, touch tablets, pressure cylinders.


Sensorial 3: visual sense, and other senses that fit on the shelf. :)

Top of shelf: puzzles of animals, animal labels and cards, botany puzzles, botany cards and labels.

Tier 1: color box 1, color box 2, color box 3, smelling jars, sound cylinders.

Tier 2: knobless cylinders, tasting bottles.

Tier 3: constructive triangles.


And that's it for sensorial. I have a geography setup that's apart (we made a new shelf this summer for it). And a science shelf for botany that's apart as well.




Language 1: pre reading and beginning of writing.

Top of shelf: sandpaper letters, phonograms.

Tier 1: sand tray, small chalkboard, brush and water, sounds bingo.

Tier 2: classified objects (I use them for the sound game), classification picture cards, sounds box (matching sounds to objects), sounds cards(matching sounds to cards).

Tier 3: word tray (phonetic objects and letters cut out to make the words), moveable alphabet objects, moveable alphabet cards, moveable alphabet.



Language 2: reading.

Top of shelf: phonetic objects box, pink reading cards, blue reading cards, phonetic sentence and picture cards (matching), phonetic books.

Tier 1: phonogram bingo, phonogram box, phonogram booklets, phonogram cards, phonogram sentences and picture cards (matching), books with phonograms.

Tier 2: alternate spellings booklets, most common reading words lists, labels for the environment and sensorial area, puzzle words.

Tier 3: (missing on the trays) reading classification cards, definition booklets, definition in stages, word study. (I am making a lot of these materials, so all of it is in a jumble in my office.)



Language 3: writing, grammar and sentence analysis.

Top of shelf: writing materials.

Tier 1: farm setup, noun, article, adjective, logical adjective.

Tier 2: preposition, conjunction, verb labels, verb with object, double commands, adverb, logical adverb, grammar symbols box, grammar pencils box.

Tier 3: This is where sentence analysis goes. (I don't have trays that I like for this work yet.), message game, project box.


A lot of my material making this summer is in the language area- the work never ends.







Math 1: numbers 1-10, and fractions.

Top of shelf: small number rods, cards, sandpaper numbers, wooden numbers 1-10 puzzle 1, and numbers 1-10 puzzle 2.

Tier 1: spindles box, animals/dots and number cards game, cards and counters, memory game of numbers.

Tier 2 and 3: Fractions, fractions labels, fractions equations.





Math 2: Continuation of Counting and Decimal System

Top of shelf: bead stair, teen beads, teens beads hanger, tens beads, square chains bingo.

Tier 1: 100 board, dot game, stamp game.

Tier 2: introduction to the decimal system, large number cards, tray of 9, small number cards.

Tier 3: thousands, hundreds, tens, units, trays.


And right next to that shelf we have a small wall shelf with the teens boards and tens boards.

And on the other side of that we have the square chains and then the bead cabinet. (That Yair built.)



Math 3: Memorization work.

Tier 1: addition snake game, addition strips boards, flash cards.

Tier 2: addition charts.

Tier 3: subtraction snake game, subtraction strips boards.

Tier 4: subtraction charts.




Math 4: memorization work and passage to abstraction.

Top of shelf: multiplication bead bars, multiplication bead board, and the two bead frames. (I wish I had a different space to put these but math is so HUGE.)

Tier 1: multiplication charts.

Tier 2: division bead board, division chart.

Tier 3: division chart.


There are a few other shelves for other things in the classroom and I might post those some other day.

Let's Get Together and Sing

Last week we had our yearly Sing Along at school. It is really my favorite school event of the year.

In preparation for the Sing Along I chose the songs we'd sing this year early on and we have been organically incorporating them into our daily singing since August. By the time the Sing Along neared, we just had to decide who wanted to sing what because the children all knew the songs well. Children naturally identified with a specific song and you could tell by the enthusiasm in their voice when they sang.

So that families would know the songs as well, I burned CD's for them with the main songs and added it to the invitation for the evening two weeks prior to the event. It was touching to see the parents drop off their children at school in the morning and hear the songs blasting from their cars!

There were 13 songs in total, and for some songs, one child would solo the song first, then the group of children would sing with the child, and finally all the parents and friends would sing the song together. Some songs were sung only once by one child, or by a small group of children.


This year we invited friends to join the families for the evening. Our tiny school was packed!

Jessica's father is a professional musician and we were lucky to have him join us on his electric guitar. This really added depth to the music, since my guitar playing is fairly simple.



I have added our song list and chords HERE. Commentary from parents was very positive about how the songs chosen were very uplifting and really made us feel a sense of togetherness.

There are few things that bind people's hearts together like singing!


We lined up our school walkway with lanterns, and decorated the entrance of our school:



Inside, the chairs with children's nametags were lined up and ready. The parents and friends were aranged in a circle around them.



After the program, we celebrated the school's second year with a beautiful cake(donated by a parent- never seen anything like it- with the children's picture lasered onto the icing!) and sang Happy Birthday.

" Look around and you will see a family, community, we are brothers sisters all"

This week we had our second parent evening of the year and instead of what I'm absolutely more comfortable with (a lecture, bullet points, powerpoint- yes, I know it can be boring, but)we had a "Community Building Night".

I think the activities of the evening were perfectly fitting for a first parent night of the year, but better late than never.

There were three parts to the evening, that was scheduled from 7:30-9:30 on a Friday night.

Post it wall: Upon arriving, parents were given a post it note where they were asked to write something that perhaps not everyone would know about them. The wall we used was in the middle of our room where everyone would kind of saunter by and read and comment on what others had written. It was interesting to find out that some of the parents in our community are or used to be very proficient at certain sports, speak all varieties of languages, have special talents and skills. This worked well for conversation starters.

Introductions: I've never done this before because I always dread it when I'm at a function somewhere and they ask each person to stand and say something about themselves. But finally I caved in. The introductions are done for a reason! With that brief bit of information you do get to know the person a little better. Interestingly enough, since we did this six months into the school year, parents decided to speak about what their experience at the school has been. This was a wonderfully bonding experience. Parents compared their prior school experiences to what their children are going through now (thankfully everyone spoke very positively).

Trivia: And to end the night, I had written up a set of trivia questions. Parents had a number on their name tag which is how the teams were made up. There were two topics: Montessori Theory and Practice, and Classroom Life. The first set of questions was based on information that I thought would be valuable for the parents to know (ex: According to Dr. Montessori at which age are children the most capable of absorbing information?) plus some popular culture questions related to Montessori (ex: who was Not a graduate of Montessori school: Bill Gates, The founders of Google, Anne Frank, Hugo Chavez). The second set of questions was specifically about the children in the class, the teachers, and school policies (ex: What is the latest time at which you are supposed to pick up your child from school every day?) There were prizes (visors that light up, just in time for Carnival!) and it was loads of fun.


Parents had brought appetizers and drinks which made it much easier for us. They also took home fresh baked bread that the children had made earlier that day.

It was the most successful and happily attended parent night I've ever hosted and truly felt like a room full of friends by the evening's end.

Community gift

This year, with the idea of community in mind, as the gift for the parents for the holidays we made family portrait refrigerator magnets. We traced 2 inch circles on cardstock, and each child got one circle for each member in their family. For a couple of days, we set a table with a pencil and color pencils for drawing a portrait of each family member in the circles.

I cut out the circles and laminated them, and then glued a small magnet behind each one.

We had our Holiday Picnic on Tuesday morning, and instead of wrapping the little portrait magnets, on our big whiteboard we outlined all of the family trees of the children in our class. It looked so full and pretty!

Each child has such a unique drawing style and the magnets were a success.

Last years gift was a silhouette of each child, and they were beautiful as well. But entirely teacher made. It's nice to give a gift that the children have really made themselves.