Walkin’ N Rockin’ A beginning-of-the-year lesson plan by Claudia Mann If my Facebook “teacher” groups are any indication, this is a pretty exciting time of year for most of you who are called to this profession. Photo posts of prepared classrooms almost shout the anticipation of teachers who are ready to get those little ones […]
Beginning of School
Care of Self for Montessori Teachers
If you have Montessori training for the 0-6 year old levels, then you are familiar with the section in your Practical Life Album called “Care of Self”. This section covers all kinds of exercises to help young children learn to take care of themselves such as dressing, blowing their nose, preparing a snack for themselves, […]
A Year of Early Language Shelves
I love the early language development area of my classroom! There is a lot of foundational work that comes before children are introduced to letters. Today’s post is about the kinds of activities we have on our pre-literacy or early language Montessori shelves. This is a photo of the Language area of our class […]
Introduction to the Life Sciences
Living and Non Living A few years ago we introduced the concept of living and non-living by introducing the students to our brand new class pet. The big reveal! Observing the fish. They named him Violet. (RIP Violet. You served us well for 3 years. We loved you.) Comparing the living fish to a […]
A Year of Montessori Fine Motor Shelves
“Practical Life” is a huge area of the Montessori Curriculum. It’s about giving children opportunities to engage in real everyday activities such as taking care of themselves and their surroundings, preparing food, cleaning up etc. Real. Life. Stuff. Many Montessori teachers call their fine motor activities Practical Life activities. I think of them more as […]
Preliminary Practical Life Exercises
The Practical Life activities in a Montessori classroom are designed to be purposeful work that lead the child to an understanding of his environment and how it works. These activities are appealing to the young child as they resemble everyday activities the child has seen adults complete. The Practical Life Area of the classroom encompasses: […]
Introduction to Geography
So many ways to sort things found in the air, land, and water! Filling our land and water jars Making a land and water globe with a styrofoam ball and playdoh. The children also enjoy using the Earth playdoh mat and trying to fill in the landmasses with playdoh. We used a blue […]
How to Start a New Class
How to Start A New Class Today’s post is about what we do during the first few days in our classroom. This post ended up being a lot longer than I had originally planned. It’s also coming a few weeks late since all of you are back to school already. But, I hope it helps […]