Montessori Ps & Qs: Work, work, work!

You may have noticed that if you ask your child what he played with at school today, he may look at you with a puzzled look. That is because in the Montessori classroom, we refer to our "play" as the children's work. We want to honor their learning & experiences by refering to it with a word that connotes importance. These children are working. All day long they are working to make sense of the world around them, to learn new skills & to make connections to previous knowledge. They are learning to both become a productive, contributing member of a community as well as to become a strong, independent individual. Refering to the work they do all day as anything less would be a disservice to our students. So, the next time you pick up your child, ask them, "What WORK did you do today?" You just may get a very different response!

And speaking of work...here are some photos of the fabulous work taking place in the classroom lately:

Composing stories with the Movable AlphabetSorting obects by initial soundsLessons with the Golden Bead MaterialMore Golden Bead work Working with our class photo two-part cards (matching each child's photo with their name)Working on the Hundred Board Making an apple collageDoing Dot-to-Dot Apple workSpelling words with the Movable AlphabetWorking with shaving cream at the easel Exploring early algebra with the Binomial Cube Skip counting the beads on the Hundred Chain