“The first essential for the child’s development is concentration. The child who concentrates is immensely happy.”
I haven't written much about our classroom but you've seen some photographs. My mom set up our back room as the girl's Montessori classroom. It's been a work in progress but about 6 months ago, we got very serious. Our classroom follows a "loose" organization pattern, typical to a traditional Montessori classroom. We've got a handful of the following materials:
Practical Life, Sensorial, Math, Language, and Cultural which are organized onto shelves. This is typical of an Primary Montessori classroom which includes children ages 3-6. Of course our classroom is geared to Tessa and Teagan so, in that way, it's a version of the Primary classroom. For more info on the Montessori classroom, click here:
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We paint back there, we have snack back there, we read back there. Tessa very affectionately thanks Nana for her classroom, almost everyday we are back there. "Thank you my Nana for making my classroom. I like to do my big work, thank you Nana." I try to spend some time each day with the girls in our classroom, doing something from the shelves. It's usually Tessa's idea or these days, Teagan will open the door and call for me to "Come!" It's been a wonderful gift Nana had given us.
It isn't something we "must" do but something instead that seems to just be a part of what we do. It's space in our home serves as emphasis on Maria Montessori's philosophy (the woman who created Montessori) that learning is intrinsic in children. That there is is no separation between learning and living, their development is their "big work" and their learning. “And so we discovered that education is not something which the teacher does, but that it is a natural process which develops spontaneously in the human being.”
The following videos are in the classroom. Tessa and our dear friend Libby are working on the Knobless Cylinders and Teagan and Will are using... (I forget the name).
