Teacher Resource: The Outdoor Prepared Environment

The Outdoor Prepared Environment

Even outdoors, you are still the third point of the triangle! When we take the children outdoors, where it seems so easy for them to function, we tend to forget that the magic of the Montessori prepared environment depends as much on the teacher as it does on the materials and the child. Do children really need the same active support, parameters, and supervision in the outdoor prepared environment as they do inside the classroom? In theory, yes; in practice, we sometimes fall short.

Intellectually, we all know the prepared environment doesn’t stop at the classroom door. So, why is it so easy for us teachers to abdicate responsibility when we walk outside? I’ve heard more teachers talking lately about the disappearance of peaceful play on the yard. Some may think today’s children are shorter on tolerance, or that it’s natural for children to interact less peacefully in a more stressful world. Perhaps. And perhaps there is something else going on. Something that has less to do with the children and more to do with us.

Let’s face facts. Every teacher’s time is precious – our responsibilities can be exhausting. Labor laws aside, in the real world there is sometimes no formal space for teachers to take a mental break or check in with each other. We see the children running, jumping, digging, dancing, and singing in the outdoor environment we have prepared for them. It’s easy to persuade ourselves that it’s all right to use outside time to check in with a colleague or for a little personal rejuvenation – what teacher doesn’t need a breath in the middle of the day! We justify this notion by telling ourselves the children are just playing, after all; it’s no big deal. Is that true?

Let’s remember that for many children, free play in the outdoor environment is very big work! Here are just some of the social skills children are developing – with or without you:

• Negotiating social scenes of all kinds
• Interacting successfully with others, while creating
  their own games
• Implementing their own plans, while incorporating
  the ideas of others
• Determining the difference between reality and fantasy
• Role-playing in new situations, some that don’t
  make sense to them
• Experimenting with leadership & being a follower, team-play, etc.

The Mysterious Trinomial Cube

Today, we’re going to highlight on one of our students’ favorite works; the trinomial cube. There’s real beauty behind the intricate details of this mathematical work, details that are hard to notice at first glance.

The direct aim of this work is rather obvious; to build a puzzle in a box. The indirect aim, an introduction to algebra and preparation for the formula a+b+c³. 

The child approaches the box with curiosity. It’s elegant details can spark the interest of anyone. Children are inherently captivated by mathematical materials. The colors, the difference is sizes and heights…”Why these specific colors?”, “Why do they fit together like that?”…

While there are many hidden lessons in this puzzle, the child is actively working towards building a concrete foundation for the abstract nature of the formulation, which they will later expand upon. The puzzle helps the child grasp the concept of a+b+c³ at such a young age, rather than simply memorizing the formula.

Through the child’s discovery, they come to unlock the intricate layers of the trinomial cube.

To begin, the guide carefully opens the box, and lays out all of the pieces, organizing them in different manners. With little, to no words, she places the cubes upon the lid, pairing the colors to one another. Each layer is placed in the box upon completion. The child is then invited to do the work on their own. There are many variations of the trinomial cube that call upon the child’s creativity, imagination and critical thinking.

“These small objects fascinate a child. He must first of all group them according to their color, then arrange them in various ways, making up a kind of little story, in which the three cubes are three kings, each one having a retinue identical to that of the other two, the guards being dressed in black. Many effects can be obtained through the use of this material…when playing with this material, a child forms a visual image of the arrangement of the objects and can thus remember their quantity and order. The sense impressions received from these objects furnish material for the mind. No object is so attractive for four-year-old children. Later on, by calling the kinds a, b, c, and writing the names of the separate pieces according to their dependence upon their own king, five-year-old children, and certainly six-year-olds, can store up in their minds the algebraic formula for the cube of a trinomial without looking at the material, since they have fixed in their visual memory the disposition of the various objects. This gives some idea of the possibilities that can be attained in practice.” (Montessori, The Discovery of the Child)

To see the lesson in full, click on the link below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEZnNFxsnS8#t=13

Soft Skills

Article Credit: mariamontessori.com

I had an interesting conversation with a prospective parent recently who teaches at a local college. She shared that she and her colleagues are constantly discussing “how underprepared kids are for college in terms of ‘soft skills.’” By soft skills she meant skills other than the purely academic — the personal qualities, habits and attitudes that make someone a successful college student and, by extension, a good boss or employee later in life. She had just come from an observation in toddlers and primary and was surprised to have seen that in Montessori, “starting in toddlers students develop the self-motivation, independence, and follow-through that many college students lack!” In other words, beginning at these very young ages, Montessori children are already developing the soft skills that will benefit them so greatly later in life.

It was a pretty astute observation for a prospective parent seeing Montessori for the first time, and it got me thinking. When I talk to parents, I often describe a Montessori learning material, like the binomial cube, detective adjective game, or golden beads, that leads to the acquisition of academic or “hard skills.” Obviously, hard skills are important, but soft skills are equally so.

Montessori, Why Not?

Article Credit: http://mariovalle.name/montessori/why-not.html

 

I choose a Montessori school for my son almost as an act of faith. At that time my knowledge of the method was null, besides having heard of small chairs and colored beads. But seeing my son happy day after day encouraged me to study and deepen the Montessori’s ideas. What I had discovered astonished me as a father and as a scientist. As a father, I found how children are really respected and prepared for the future. As a scientist, I found solid scientific foundations for everything Maria Montessori proposed.

Observing in the Classroom, by Margot Garfield-Anderson

  Great article taken from the November 2014 Issue of Tomorrow’s Child, providing advice and tips on how to properly observe a Montessori classroom. This resource can be used whether you’re touring a new school as a parent, or observing …

Learning Through Sensory Discovery

Our HBMH friends have been enjoying this week’s Summer Camp theme, “Learning through Sensory Discovery”. With so many options to choose from, they are invited each day to pick and choose which sensorial materials they would like to work with, then given the opportunity to create and manipulate a masterpiece of their own. It is truly amazing to see their creativity unfold as they put their minds (and hands) to work.

Our camp themes were designed to feature creative hands-on activities that build skills, bodies, and excitement. We offer an environment that fits the needs and interests of all our children, incorporating Montessori principles that foster independence and freedom with responsibility. I’m hoping to update our blog all summer long to show the children as they progress through the different themes.

Children use their senses to learn. At a very young age, they have a natural desire to discriminate objects by their similarities and differences, using their visual, auditory, tasting, olfactory (smelling) and tactile abilities. Each sensorial material in the Montessori classroom was designed to better define these abilities, not to mention all of the abstract lessons the child is learning from the same work such as introduction to language, reading, writing, math, and so forth. Children are given the opportunity to exercise their senses through working with different textures, colors, shapes, dimensions, masses, tastes, smells, temperatures, pitches and intensity of sounds. Not only do these works advocate creative expression, but they also promote abstract thinking.

I chose to work with the knobless cylinders. Using a guide, I created a beautiful design, displaying each group of cylinders by their relationships in height and diameter.

By diminishing my vision, I’m able to utilize my tactile senses to feel the lengths and heights of each cube as I build my tower in decreasing size.

The bright colors of the yellow cylinders and pink tower stimulate my visual senses. Each cube and cylinder is graded by decreasing size and diameter, and placed in order to create a tower taller than my body! This work is also indirectly preparing me for counting, geometry, and other mathematical lessons by giving me an in depth understanding of varying dimensions.

I’ve chosen to work with the Color Box III, which allows me to grade the tablets by intensity of color (darkest to lightest).

Our Apple friends participated in a group activity to test their auditory senses. Using different musical instruments and a blindfold, Ms. Patti tests our ability to identify and distinguish between each sound.

Resources: The Namta Journal, Volume 37, Number 1, Winter 2012

The world’s best teacher lives in rural Maine and doesn’t care about test scores

Pictured above: Nancie Atwell opened the Center for Teaching and Learning 25 years ago to make the classroom a place for ‘wisdom and happiness’. Last month her emphasis on student choice and self-expression earned her the Global Teaching Prize, dubbed the Nobel Prize of teaching.

“I fell in love with teaching. It felt like I was home. I love literature and I really loved adolescents, I found out. And to have relationships with kids around books and to talk to kids about books seemed like the best gig in the world.”

Read the article in full by clicking on the link below, posted by Lauren Gambino of the Guardian

http://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/mar/23/worlds-best-teacher-nancie-atwell-maine-center-for-teaching-and-learning?CMP=share_btn_link

7 Things Every Kid Should Master

It’s been said time and time again; we need to reevaluate the way standardized tests are being conducted in schools, as well as the content within the tests. Are the tests actually measuring the child’s ability to succeed in life …

Parent Resource, Practical Life Skills, AKA “Executive Functions”

It’s always inspirational to hear and witness the beauty of a Montessori student at work. Simple practical life works, such as washing a chalk board, can provide an immense amount of skills that the child will be able to use much later in their lives and in their academic career.

“It is often in the exercises of practical life that the child’s attention is captured, and in which the ability to focus, ‘concentrate’ and ‘repeat’ is first developed.”

“practical life activities…contribute marvelously to a child’s sense of responsibility and accomplishment, thus building self-confidence and self-esteem.”

The evidence of just how precious these exercises in practical life are, lies in the child’s appreciation for such purposeful work.

To read the article in full, provided by mariamontessori.com, click on the following link:

From humble beginnings, come great things….

About the Author: Peter Davidson was the founding Head at the Montessori School of Beaverton, an AMI school in Portland and currently serves as consultant for Montessori in Redlands, an AMI school in Southern California.

Happy Reading!

Teacher Resource: “Caring for the Dream” by Seth D. Webb

So many times, we misinterpret the philosophy, manipulating it to be what’s most convenient for our school community. We might even change the way the pedagogy is practiced to better correlate with current policies, compromising the very integrity of our precious philosophy. Rarely do schools come together for a common goal, to help maintain the very components that make the philosophy so strong; our families, the way we practice the pedagogy, and our policies with which we implement. We cannot move forward unless we do so by using a whole-school approach, including all aspects that help keep our Montessori community strong.

I came across a new blog post from MAA, reiterating the importance of working collaboratively with the four P’s: practice, pedagogy, people, and policies. You’ll notice the words “community”, “collective”, and “family” are mentioned several times.

A few of my favorite passages taken from the article…
“As local leaders in education we must be able to articulate and stand by the people, pedagogy, practices and policies of the schools we create. We need to be able to speak to each like they are parts of our family, parts of our bodies – each piece necessarily influencing and informing the whole. These are the interwoven fundamentals that, when realized authentically and kept healthy, speak to the very essence of our schools’ existence…Once articulated, our conception of the people, pedagogy, practices and polices of our schools informs every aspect of our work – from the classroom to the boardroom. If any of these four fundamentals becomes fragmented or diluted we must stop, reassess and reconsider the way ahead. We cannot continue to move forward until we can do so with authenticity and truth. Belief is a powerful thing, but only as powerful as the quality of its manifestation.”

To see the blog in full, click on the link below:
http://montessoriadmins.org/2014/12/caring-for-the-dream