Modeling a lesson:
Boy, this post will not come easy for me. We are trained to want perfection and elude that. Especially on social media. We want our children to be successful and for it to shine through, no mistake. I made a promise to share our journey, and in my IG bio it clearly states “...small, simple, and raw.” So I am here, doing just that... Today I eagerly set up my new “shadows” activity for S. In recent months she has discovered her shadow so I figured I would create an activity with her block animals featuring their shadows. She would have to match the shadow to the animal based on its shape, which most have a similar shape posing a greater challenge for her. I sat down with her, camera in tow to share with you all, and this is how it went {Click the first image}... This is the reality of a first introduction to a material. I praised when I rarely do. She was focused on the camera, not the activity. She matched the wrong pair, but if you watch you’ll notice she caught her mistake as she went on. Finally, she lost interest... cue the adorable smirk into the camera at the end. Was I disappointed? A little. Did I want her to keep trying? Yes. Did I make her come back and finish? No. I have learned that I need to follow her lead. Perhaps later today or tomorrow she will pick up this activity off the shelf and complete it. Perhaps she won’t. But when she is ready, I’ll be there to try again because that’s the raw, honest truth. Sometimes our efforts go unfulfilled or unnoticed, but to impose something upon our children that they don’t want (unless necessary, of course) is not respecting them. This is the promise I want to keep to my children...I promise that it will always be ok to not want or do something in the moment, to pretend with me. I promise to love you as you are. ❤️ In the end, S chose to work with a math material she found in our materials closet.
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Practical Life: Bike Washing 🚲
I saw this activity on one of the Vlogs I follow on YouTube and knew right away that it would be a hit with S. She had a blast washing her bike! As I observed S detailing every inch of her bike, making sure it had been diligently scrubbed, something occurred to me. Even the most menial tasks that I complete each day are teaching her something. By picking up piece of paper that falls on the ground, or cleaning the kitchen counter, down to painting my nails is setting an example. In that moment I realized how crucial modeling care of the environment and myself was, even to a 2 year old. If I am being honest, S has probably never seen me wash my car {which will be changing soon}. I realized how I may be failing her in that aspect of life. It may not seem important now, but one day she will own a car of her own and I want her to take pride in her items, whatever they are, and to respect them. It's funny how Montessori pressed the importance of observing the child as a means to learn about them, but that same observation can cause you to turn the mirror in and look at yourself, as well. With all that said, S had a sparkling clean bike at the end of this activity. She even washed her infant jungle gym structure that we are saving for O! Just when I thought we were ready to go in, something amazing happened! This little nugget taught herself to ride her bike-independently. Look at the joy on her face when she realized what she accomplished on her own. ❤️ 💧If you happen to take a walk into a primary Montessori classroom, one of the works you will observe is children practicing transferring objects from one container to another. This may vary in many ways from the type of material being transferred, the tool being used to transfer, and size of the materials and/or containers themselves.
💧Water (wet) transfer is not something new for S, but she generally pours larger amounts into larger containers. For example, S uses a standard measuring cup to pour 1/2 a cup of milk into a breakfast bowl when making her {almost daily} oatmeal. This is a task she has mastered and does with ease. 💧So now we are working on fine tuning the skill by using small containers with controlled amounts of water. The decanter from the online shop, For Small Hands, is perfect for her little hands. She is able to properly grip the glass giving her control. She loved being able to pour back and forth between between the two containers. 💧When setting up transfer work, you want to prepare the activity in way that anticipates any messes so that the child can clean up on their own and not be distracted from their work. In this case, I provided S with a small sponge so that any mess could be cleaned up and the water returned to the container. From my observations, I could see that she appreciated this small addition to her tray because it gave her control and she felt success being able to handle her own work- without my input or feeling shame for “making a mess.” 💧On a side note: she cracks me up with her little tongue. I’ve come to notice just how much she does it when she’s concentrating now that I’m capturing moments like these for the blog or social media. She’s just like her mama 🤪 Sensorial exploration is one of the 5 key areas of study in Montessori classrooms. Maria Montessori believed that children learned best when allowed to explore the world through the use of their senses.
Sound jars are one of those traditional #montessori materials that can be easily recreated at home. Simply walk into your kitchen and you have the perfect recipe {ah, see what I did there (0=} for sound jars! Typically discarded materials like old spice jars, baby food jars, or medicine bottles make great DIY sound jars. Search your cupboards or pantry for beans, rice, popcorn kernels, salt, jelly beans, etc and you are ready to make Matching Sound jars! There are many benefits to doing sound jars with your child. The element of "masking" the material in each jar enables your child to isolate the sounds of each material and find its match within a set of jars. This fine-tuning hearing activity strengthens your child's abilities to isolate a sense when it is needed. It also teaches them characteristics of sound such as pitch, tone, and density. As with any Montessori activity, you want to provide a control of error (a self-correcting tool) which is why you see I used colored dot stickers to help S determine if her pairs matched once she finished the activity. I will mention, with a 2.5 year old, and lets be honest probably any age, the desire to match the stickers instead of shaking the jars to listen to the sounds will present itself. This will take several demonstrations by you and encouragement to try on their own and not use the stickers until they are done matching. Also, depending on your child's age and development, you will want to limit the amount of materials your present. For S, I only provided 3 matching pairs as to not overwhelm her. Later, I will introduce another 3 sound jars, apart from the first 3, to further sharpen her skills. Once she masters the activities, then I can combine all of the jars to offer a challenge. As for our first attempt at Matching Sound Jars, S was able to successfully match the sounds after a demonstration and a few tries of her own. I am looking forward to making more of these for her, including a similar version called Smelling Jars! She is always smelling the spices while I’m cooking. Are you wanting to try this activity with your child? Follow along with the steps below to make your own DIY Sound jars! DIY Sound Jars: Materials:
Instructions:
🔅As a traditional classroom teacher, I supported phonemic awareness by teaching children the name of uppercase letters, typically alongside or as a precursor to lowercase letters. This was the norm. It’s what I was taught in college courses and was reinforced by the district scope and sequence. We sang the ABC song. We were proud if they knew it. We showed letters on the board and drilled its name and then introduced its sound. Oftentimes when shown the letter and asked the sound it makes, children would tell me the name. I’d ask again “what SOUND does it make?” Again, I would get the name. It was frustrating and difficult to feel we had spent so much time isolating each letter and they still didn’t remember.
🔅Then I discovered Montessori and studied its approach to language development. Wow... we were doing our best in the classroom, but it seemed to go against logic and the development of language acquisition. Unfortunately, I have found this to be true of many teaching methods in the traditional classroom. This is no fault of the teachers or administrators, rather the system. 🔅Lowercase sandpaper letters are one of the first materials introduced to children in Montessori classrooms to help develop sound association to letters. The tactile tool offers them the sensory experience to recall the sound of each letter. Note: I did not say the NAME, I said the SOUND of each letter. Also, re-read the title... I mentioned LOWERCASE. This is an important distinction between the Montessori method and traditional schooling. 🔅If you think about it, when we read print, what do we see more often? Lowercase letters or uppercase? Lowercase, right? So why do we begin by introducing uppercase letters to children? Secondly, when we read words and decode them (sound them out), do we say the name of the letter, or it’s sound? Sounds, right? Traditional instruction goes against the logical and phonetic sense of reading. This discovery was so enlightening, but made me feel foolish for not recognizing it before... 🔅Now with a 2.5 year old who is in the sensitive period for language, I am changing the norm. S has shown so much interest in letters so I am following her lead. I recently introduced the sandpaper letters. Letters are introduced in what is called the 3-Period lesson, which is explained in this post. My letters are not store bought; they were created using sheets of sandpaper on plastic dividers sheets. They may not be beautiful or perfectly symmetrical, but they serve their purpose. There are many DIY options for sandpaper letters just a Google search away. 🔅I wrote this blog post because I want to share the knowledge I have learned about language acquisition in children. There is so much more that goes into the development of language and application in Montessori philosophy, but this is where we are now in our journey. I will share more as S builds her letter knowledge. 🔅In this post I have shared a video of S practicing her letters. Note that she does not yet have the dexterity to trace the letters properly, but she has observed me and “copies” my movements. Despite that, she can recall the sound of these letters. She is very aware of these letters now in everyday print and shares her findings with us. As her letter sound knowledge builds, she will eventually be able to use that knowledge to begin building {more on this later} basic 3-4 letter words (typically CVC words) by using the letter sounds. If you want to know more, please feel free to send me a message and I will be happy to help you along this journey! The Montessori 3-Period Lesson is widely used when introducing new concepts through the use of classification cards, sandpaper letters, or sandpaper numbers.
Below you will find the explanation of how to introduce sandpaper letters. Please note that all 3 periods are not completed in one day. As with any concept, you move through each period when mastery has been achieved. It is important to not force the child. Follow their lead. If they are not interested, leave the lesson for another day. We want to provide a a calm, loving environment that builds and fosters success. Materials:
Instructions:
This process is repeated with subsequent groups of letters, until all lowercase letter sounds have been mastered. In a future post, I will share other activities that can be done with groups of letters to help reinforce the letter sound and build mastery. IF YOUR CHILD MAKES A MISTAKE IN ANY PERIOD LESSON: If at anytime your child makes a mistake when asked to show the letter or produce the sound, simply acknowledge the letter/sound they produced, then ask them to show the original letter you asked about, again. EX: I am showing the following cards: e b s Me: "Can you show me the "ssss" Child: Points to "b" Me: "You showed me "buh." Can you show me "sss?"" Child: Points to "s" Me: "Great, you showed me "sss"" We want to avoid saying things like "No, that is wrong" or "That is not "sss" that is "b."" because it discourages the child's efforts and does not foster an environment where it is ok to make mistakes. We want children to feel safe when learning, which is why we just acknowledge their effort and provide an opportunity to try again. Part of Montessori Curriculum is the element of Practical Life . Children are taught everyday life skills from a very young age in order to foster a sense of independence, develop motor skills, and involve them as important, valuable members of the home or classroom. Part of practical life is transfer work, moving items (liquids or solids) from one container to another using a variety of different instruments. Students typically begin with isolated activities that progressively become more difficult. These skills are then applied to real life works. Today, S practiced transferring banana muffin batter from the bowl to muffin tins using a ladle. She loves cooking so I always find a way to get her involved. Something to remember is that children's work will never look like ours. You cannot expect perfection {or even complete cleanliness} when children are completing their work. They are building the skills to develop that fine motor ability by doing activities like these. Just remember to practice patience and understanding. One of the ways of doing this is being sure the environment (yourself included) are prepared. That means anticipating accidents or messes and having the resources readily available to clean those up. (I.E.- wipes, towels, wet towel, etc) P.S.- You can also expect them to eat the batter any chance they get! If you are new to Montessori, please do not feel that you need to buy all of the small pitchers, bowls, wooden spoons, or whatever materials you may have seen in order to practice Montessori philosophy. You have everything you need to encourage Practical Life in your home. So go on, take the leap, get your babes involved, They will be better for it! Click here to get the Cinnamon-Banana Recipe we made!
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September 2020
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