Happy New Year to all our families! We are looking forward to 2021 and all that it will bring. After a wonderful holiday break, the children are very happy to be back in their classroom.
Maria Montessori quotes, “The environment must be rich in motives which lend interest to activity and invite the child to conduct his own experiences.” This holds true every day in the classroom. The children explore and discover endlessly.
The Learning Environment
Here’s a look at our classroom environment and what the children are doing as they grow and learn.
Books offer children so much. The children enjoy sharing a quiet moment to themselves engrossed in books. Sometimes the children will sit together and read or the teachers will read to them.
There are a number of different ways the reading corner can be utilized by the children.
Here one of the children is placing pegs into the peg board. Not only does this activate their fine motor skills, but it also helps them to identify colors.
The children are free to place them any way they would like on the board allowing creative freedom.
The children really enjoy washing clothes. There are a number of different steps that they go through that engage them in a number of different ways.
They take pride in each step and have such a feeling of accomplishment when they have cleaned the dirty clothes. The up and down big movements on the washboard are great for the children’s gross motor skills as well.
When doing laundry, there may be a bit of water on the floor. The children also enjoy recognizing which tool to use to clean up. In this case, the mop.
Puzzles are always a hit. Not a day goes by that the puzzles are not taken out. We rotate the puzzles regularly, but keep a few out at all times as the children really love them.
There is always the option of different levels of puzzles for them to choose from. Once they complete a puzzle, they have such a sense of accomplishment and pride. It is always wonderful to hear, “I did it!”