We all agree that the year is flying by. The children have been working hard, and this week we refocused on work habits: slowing down, planning, recording, making appropriate choices, and following through. That meant less planned content area group lessons from me and more individual check-ins with each child as Paula and I worked to support this process. In an effort to help guide the children in their choices, I refined our work choice list (work plan) and then spent the rest of the week supporting the children as they learn to use it. We talked about several key things to remember:
First Things First
One Thing at a Time
Full-Circle Work with a beginning, middle, and end
We also had several in-depth discussions at circle including the idea that many holidays have both secular and religious celebrations and meanings that differ from family to family and culture to culture, as well as some of the reasons why many of the world's holidays seem to be clustered in the winter months. Your children always have so much wisdom to offer, and their insight is truly inspiring.
The kids continue to keep us well-fed with delicious bread, too.
These gentlemen worked for a couple of days on the checkerboard trying to solve some difficult double-digit multiplier multiplication problems. They finally got them all correct!
A very busy classroom indeed.
Bella helping with a sustainability poster. You'll notice she's labeled herself with a black triangle, which is the Montessori grammar symbol for a Noun. Because, well, she IS one.
Ziggy and Philipp gave Ms. Paula a lesson on the Subtraction Strip-board, after having a review lesson from me!
Homophones work in progress. Once children have become accomplished spellers, they can move on to this work that involves using the dictionary to determine the meaning, part of speech, and correct spelling of paired words that sound alike but are spelled differently and have different meanings.
Identifying and labeling triangles
Painting the completed continent map of Africa
Enjoying some time at the art table
Waiting to read their division problems (solved with "racks and tubes") to Ms. Paula
Taking a few minutes to read in the library area of the classroom
....and a beautiful shot from the playground, just because!
