Parents,
It was so great to be able to sit down and talk with you during parent teacher conferences. Thank you for your efforts to support your child’s education!! I hope all of you enjoyed fall break, I know I did.
This week we will finish our study of arachnids by looking at scorpions. We will also be catching up on some grace and courtesy lessons that we missed or that need to be repeated like walking (not running) in the classroom, how to observe someone who is working (observing is watching only – no talking and no touching their work. You also have to ask permission to observe). We will have a chance to do a group art project like Jackson Pollock. We will have paint shirts for everyone who participates 😉
At conferences many of you asked what their child does while they are in class. This brings up one of Montessori’s core principles. The concept of choice. In a Montessori classroom children are free to choose what they would like to work on – within limits. There are two basic ground rules: you have to have had a lesson and the material has to be available. Maria Montessori said “These children have free choice all day long. Life is based on choice, so they learn to make their own decisions. They must decide and choose for themselves all the time . . . they cannot learn through obedience to the commands of another”. In Angeline Stoll Lillard’s book Montessori: the science behind the genius she talks about the many studies that have been done that support the idea that having choice is a great benefit to education. Let me share just one with you. A study was done where children were asked to play a computer math game. Half of the children were able to choose the name of their space ship that took them through the game and half were not. The children who were able to choose the name of their space ship liked the game better and played it more than the children who did not name their space ship. They also choose more challenging games and asked for fewer hints. They showed greater improvement from pre-test to post-test. “Having a sense of control over one’s environment is associated with better learning and better performance in children. A wide range of positive outcomes stemmed from a very simple choice manipulation” (Lillard, p. 84).
Many parents often confuse “choice” with “no limits”. These two could not be more different. The choices we offer to children need to be appropriate, direct and simple. One example might be “Sally which shoes do you want to wear today? Your tennis shoes or your sandals?” Note that not wearing shoes was not one of the options given. We empower our children when we offer them appropriate choices.
We would also like to have parents begin to come into the classroom to help with reading. If you are interested in volunteering please sign up on the following link https://www.wejoinin.com/sheets/faavq I will post a new link each week. Thank you so much for all of your support!!
We hope you have a great week!
Ms. Jen & Ms. Martha