Morning Montessori in Action

Ishaan making an animal parade
Advay making the bead puzzle and Jian at the toolkit

Naira at her favourite transferring

Ariv is now becoming obsessed with puzzles

Parthvi doing the spindle box counting

Ishaan at the first puzzle that he did and does everyday

Jian at the xylophone

New work- Parthvi at the nuts and bolts

This is how I find the class when I enter
Montessori Absorbent Minds

Naira finally settling down with the bead transfer

Jian trying his hand at the wet transferring

Ishaan at the shape sorter

Adhvik d0ing the colour tablets

Adhvik with his favourite animals

Parthvi at the inset drawings

Rishit at his favourite work Numbers

Adhvik at the shape sorter

Advay doing the pegging

Rishit at the numbers and Parthvi at colouring

Parthvi building castles
Ariv at pouring and Naira doing what she does best
Advay in a phase of copying bro- at pouring
Advik at yet another puzzle
Rishit at the counting beads
Rishit at the sandpaper numbers
Adhvik at the number beads- he did them 5 times in one day
Since Naira loves the phone so much- a way to teach her how to greet
Adhvik at the Pink Tower
Rishit at the spindle box
Adhvik at the sandpaper letters
Rishit at the sandpaper letters
Adhvik at the coffee pot- screwing and unscrewing

Patterns

Its been a while since I wrote a few lines about the class. While there have been some new admissions, the fact that the older children specially in the morning Montessori class for the little ones, seems to have a calming effect on the class in general.

And the kids have all grown up during the long summer break. A case in point is the fact that the children settle down with their favourite activities and start the work cycles even before I set foot in the class. This is a proof of the absorbent mind, so described by Maria Montessori. The didactic material with the exploration and observation that it yields for the children makes the directress rather redundant.

The children who use to cry before the class now come up to me with "Yamini Auntie, lets work". So much so that some of the children have started calling their toys and any new ones bought by their parents as new work! I am in Montessori heaven at the moment.

Yesterday was my birthday and as I was explaining to the children that I have gone around the Sun 37 times(can you believe it) Ariv comes back with the observation that I must have a heat stroke! Bless them.

Also now some clear patterns are emerging....like Rishit's love for numbers, Adhvik's abslute attachment to puzzles and animals, Ariv's fascination with the cylinder blocks and Advay's love for pounding (he just likes the drum like motion I think). Also, Naira's passion for the egg puzzle and the dry transferring, not to mention going barefoot and pretending she runs the class by repeating all my instructions. Parthvi's hunger for praise and reassurance and yet at the same time retention of the cultural subjects is all but a peek into what their minds can achieve if only we go beyond the textbook and rote way of learning.

Movies

As promised I am posting some of the movies that me an my children have enjoyed. The key however, is to watch not just animation but also expose our children to tasteful cinema. Unless they are used to a superior viewing there is no point in complaining that our children watch less than good movies.
When selecting a movie for your children do bear in mind the fact that this powerful medium can assist in building good morals as well as it can scar our children's minds forever. As the imagery is powerful we must first scan the movies that we want our children to watch. Good practices can be
1. Scan the movies for content as well as visual age appropriateness
2. Do not just go by the certification given by the Censors as these are commercially driven specially in India and may not be reliable. Also age appropriateness has different meaning in different countries
3. Watch the movies with your children.
a) Quality time with kids
b) You know what they are watching
c) you can help them appreciate the wit and humour in the movies
d) You have a common topic to talk to them about
4. Select movies for
a) Age appropriateness
b)genre
c)knowledge
d) visuals
e)strong moral message
5. Genre of movies to look at
a) musicals
b)adventure
c)thrillers
d)comedy
e)animation
f)sci-fi
Here is one site that has quite an extensive list of movies in english. Do check those listed under Children, Family, Classics, Sci-Fi, Comedy
http://mv.en.vicdir.com/mvmix-0-0-214-20-0-htm
hope you all enjoy the collection
Do blog back as I would love to hear your reviews

WORMS- Week 2 The Lost Mitten

Children putting up the story props

And their works

The story wall for week 2

The boy Jack, his lost mitten, winter clothing, word wall etc

Jack again

The mitten matching activity

Words

The mittens

The kids repeating the rhymes

And more

And more

Creeping like a mouse

More

The material that was given out at the end of the workshop

The week 1 story

The straw puppets and the lost mitten for week 2

Mitten matching activity

A colour and number reinforcement book

And fruits in it as well

Children reciting the rhymes at the workshop

And some more....

And more

And more

And more ....

Some action kids cannot stay still...mostly a blur of activity

Thr keenness to replicate teacher action perfectly is heart warming

The hurray at the end of the workshop

The sign off

And more goodbyes

Thank you Ritu Didi andKrishna ji

(my support staff without whom this wouldnot have been possible)

Hope you all had fun.