Flying a Harris Hawk

Today Little-N has had the amazing experience of flying a harris hawk. At first he was a bit scared and alarmed by the weight of the bird. The trainers were very encouraging and by the end of his session he was confident holding the bird. His love for birds of prey has lead him to learn the English and Latin names of many species. I'm thinking of registering him on a junior falconry course next month but  I'm not sure if it's too early for him to start serious bird training!

Vertical and Horizontal Lines

Little-N has been working with line activities in the geometry curriculum. He has learnt about vertical and horizontal lines. 

A bowl of water with a floating stick  is used to demonstrate a horizontal line. A plumbers line was supposed to be used to demonstrate a vertical line. I didn't have a plumbers line, instead I used a padlock on the end of string [not clear in the picture but he got the idea].

Once Little-N was clear on the differences between vertical and horizontal lines, I gave him a load of his pictures to sort into vertical and horizontal pictures.

Little-N turned 8

Today Little-N turned eight and of course we had to celebrate with a bird themed cake. 

My New Elementary Classroom 2012

When we first opened our Montessori school in September we had one big classroom catering for children aged 3-6 years. I presented new activities to the 5/6 year old children and another teacher presented to the 4/5 year old children. This was a big change for me as I have been working in a Montessori elementary classroom for three years and preferred working with some of the 9+ children I taught. Going back to the younger classroom has been very interesting and allowed me to view the Montessori continuum through different eyes. I have also been warmed by the loving relationships and bonding that happens with the littlest of the children who joined us.

At the start of the year I hoped that Little-N [aged seven] would have settled in the 3-6yrs classroom and found his place. I set  up his own work area towards the back of the classroom. However he ended up staying out of the classroom, sitting at the back by himself for the majority of the time. He was a bit of a loner usually spending the whole day doing his own thing hidden from the classroom. As the second term progressed it was clear that most of the six year olds were ready to move into a separate environment. We were not ready to formally separate the ages till the end of the year. I wanted the younger children to have full benefit from observing the older children working and I also wanted the older children to benefit for the responsibilities and help that they provided for the younger children. This worked for a good 6 months, however the six year olds reached a point where they needed separation, they needed their own space to focus and do more intensive activities.

One Friday evening I decided that it was the right time to separate the classes. Using tall free-standing shelves I managed to create a separate area, which is joined yet separate in many ways. I set this new area up as an elementary classroom and was excited to see the children's reaction. At that time I presented [taught] to six children aged 6+ and four children aged 5.75years but not yet 6. We had a bit of a dilemma since the children who have not turned six yet were really supposed to stay in the younger class until they turn six and begin to show signs of readiness to move. The problem was that I presented to the five year olds too and if I was to move to the elementary classroom there would be no one who could present their advanced activities in the other class. We planned that the six year olds would move straight into the elementary classroom and the children who were five could spend time in both classrooms. This way they could stay in the 3-6 classroom and also have me present to them. However we found that these children who were five, almost six, wanted to spend the whole day in the elementary classroom. It was difficult for me to be between both classrooms and maintain quality in both.I expected that the youngest of the five year olds would spend the majority of her day in the younger classroom, however she amazed all of us with her maturity in the elementary classroom. A week or two later it was very clear that all of these children wanted and needed to be in the elementary classroom and although the five year olds should really stay in the younger class it was not possible due to circumstances.

Today I have 10 children in my elementary classroom, Little-N who is eight next week, a boy who is turning seven in a few weeks, 4 six year old children and 4 children who will be turning six in the next month or two.
All the children are part-time except one child. Most children attend between 3-4 days a week and many are homeschooled on the other days. I present new activities to the children and work with them individually and in groups. I also have an assistant who oversees the classroom making sure everything is running smoothly and guides the children when needed. I teach in the elementary classroom Monday - Thursday and only have two children on Friday so that I can spend the day focused on managerial work and mentoring teachers in the younger classroom.


The elementary classroom is set up with minimal materials but has a lot more space and resources than I had in the previous Montessori school I worked in. New materials and activities are added to the classroom daily and it has been amazing to see how my classrooms have changed over the last three years. In my previous I felt like I had so much and was adding more here and there. Today with all the materials I have I still feel like I have so much more to add. Every child I have taught has inspired new activities and allowed me to improve and change some of the previous activities. Little-N studies the material at depth and this has made me look deeply at each elementary activity and ensure that everything he needs for his deep studies is available. My classroom is functional but no where near finished so I will not be posting pictures yet.

Pentagons

I love geometry and love to share my love of it with the children I work with. Below are a few photographs of group activities about pentagons. Some of these activities were inspired by work I saw on The Moveable Alphabet.

 Looking at photographs of pentagons found in nature.

Each child used a few pentagons to make patterns.

The children took turns to place pentagons on this pattern.

After the group I set this activity up on the shelf so that the children can take the pentagons out themselves and create their own patterns.

I have a few more pentagon activities that I will be doing with the children after Easter.

My News and updates

For those of you who would like an update on my work, this is some of what I have been doing for the last 9 months:

• The new Montessori pre-school that we set up in September is taking up most of my time right now. Most week days I work 10+ hours a day and there is still more that needs doing so I usually go home and work for another hour or two.

• Pre-schools in the UK are inspected by Ofsted. A couple of months ago we had our first inspection. It went very well. Schools often get caught up in pleasing Ofsted by adding non-Montessori things to the classroom like a role play area and messy play activities. I really don't see the need for that, Montessori provides everything a child would need and more. We decided to keep pure to the Montessori method and we did well without any non-Montessori influence.

• The pre-school is in the process of registering as a primary school [as in 6 -12 years] . At the moment we have a small number of part-time older students. Most are homeschooled and come to us for a few days a week. There is a great need for a Montessori Primary school in this area and we are hoping to take on some more older students once we are registered. 

• I have spent a lot of time lately writing curriculum for the Montessori 6-12 classroom. I am not satisfied with putting together a basic list from my manuals and training. I haven't found a suitable curriculum online yet. So instead I find myself reading Dr. Montessori's books and researching each curriculum area in detail, going from manual to manual. This is taking me a very long time and I hope at the end I will have a solid curriculum.

• We have been given the amazing opportunity of hosting an Accredited Montessori Diploma course at the pre-school. The tutors from the college that I did my 6-9 training at, will be running the course in our classroom. This has meant that some of our non-Montessori trained staff can take the training without having to travel for hours to get to the college.

• I have been offered the opportunity to get trained as a Montessori trainer. This means that in a couple of years I'll be an accredited  Montessori trainer and will be able to run my own course. I'm excited and scared. I'm not sure how I'll fit in all the extra work but  there is no way I can give this opportunity a miss.

• Over the last few months I have made many Montessori materials. Unfortunately I haven't yet found time to blog about the materials or add them to my shop. 

• Little-N has been going through a rough patch so I have spent a lot of time looking at positive discipline and how Montessori commented about children who display difficult behavior. I teamed up with a teacher at school who has lots of  experience with difficult children and together, we designed flow charts for managing challenging behavior. We ran training seminars for our staff which went through the flow charts and gave clear guidelines as how to handle difficult situations in a positive way which will not only help the child at that moment, but also in their future. 

Little-Ns Own Origami Creations

Little-N loves origami. He has worked on some basic models and folds over the years. This year he has taken origami to another level and is now creating his own models. Below is a swan model that he made up.

 Little-Ns origami swans.

A row of Little-Ns swans in his room.

Little-N showing some of his friends how to make his origami swan.