Montessori

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I spent about an hour in Sammy’s Montessori classroom this morning.  It was great to see her in action in her new environment, but it was hard to tell if she was acting differently because I was there.  I was hoping that she would go off on her own and do some work without me, but she wanted to show me everything.  She showed me how to do the brown stairs (teaches height and width), the red rods (teaches length), and the moveable alphabet (pre-reading).  We also had a snack together, which was prepared by Sammy and an older classmate.

As always happens when visiting a Montessori classroom, I was struck most by the way the children interacted with each other.  The atmosphere in that classroom was one of benevolence and cooperation, which is exactly the opposite of what we are all taught to expect from children.  Children are supposed to be little “selfish” heathens who need to be tamed.  They are expected to treat others badly until we pound it into them that they must share and be polite.  The children in Sammy’s class were not perfect.  There were times when others encroached on Sammy’s work, or something was grabbed at, but these were the exceptions.  The teacher had to step in once that I noticed, to remind the children not to touch another’s work.  (“Work” is what the Montessori materials are called.) 

I also noticed that most of the children were smiling and friendly to each other, and to me.  One boy asked if I remembered his name, since we had met before.  He beamed when I did, indeed.  (The children addressed each other by name quite often.)  Other children told me how Sammy needed help carrying the biggest blocks, or how they liked to have a snack with her.  Since I did not know how to help Sammy do her work in the proper way, I was instructed by the children not to sit on the rug, but next to it, and that the rods needed to be aligned vertically on the rug, not horizontally.  These instructions were not the bossy behavior you sometimes see with children (including my own) but sincere help and assistance.  I love the Montessori combination of great freedom for the children, but with instruction and expectations for the proper way to use things.  It is not the freedom of subjectivism, but the freedom of trust and respect.

Sammy and I arrived early so I saw how the children filtered in.  The teachers greeted the newcomers, but there was no need for them to get up to tell the children what to do.  The kids just hung up their coats and went right to work.  Some worked independently; others worked in groups.  The teachers gave lessons or read books to small groups that formed organically.  I didn’t stay for “circle time” which is when the whole class does some kind of activity together.  I might want to go again in the later part of the morning to observe that.

One final thing I noted was how big and clumsy I felt in that classroom, with all of its child-sized things.  It made me realize concretely how uncomfortable and frustrated children must feel with all of the adult-sized things that surround them.  I don’t believe in turning one’s home into a full Montessori environment, but it must be such a wonderful relief for the kids to enter that world designed for them each day.

Sammy just taught me how to make a neat pile of cards.  She has some small, square pieces of cardboard that are part of a board game.  She collected seven of them and spread them out.  Then she placed each one in a neat stack.  She picked up the whole stack and tapped the edge on the table to line up the cards.  She rubbed her finger over the top edge of the stack to make sure the cards were aligned.  Then she said,

THAT’S HOW WE DO IT.  NOW IT’S YOUR TURN. 

I love Montessori!

Here are some new things that Samantha is doing, which I can only attribute to her 2 weeks in Montessori.

  • Sammy has started to write her letters.  She mostly draws individual squiggles which look like “c’s” and “u’s” and she’ll “read” them:  A, EF, GEE, EM, ESS, DEE.  THAT SPELLS JINX!  But she has written and identified a recognizable “u,” “w,” “t” and a “j.” 
  • She tried to do a headstand last night.
  • Looking at a blob of soap on her hand, she said, LOOK, MOMMY!  AN OVAL!  And she was right.
  • She rolls up or folds every towel and washcloth in sight.
  • When she is putting away her toys, she doesn’t want any help, and she doesn’t even want any words to help her:  NO, MOMMY, DON’T TALK.  I’LL DO IT MYSELF.

And my favorite:

  • MOMMY, I’M GOING TO PUT THE STRING ON THE PAPER AND USE THE CRAYON UNDER IT.  DON’T TOUCH, OK, MOMMY?  I’M GOING TO DO SOME WORK.

When Sammy attended day care, she’d sometimes come home with a new “skill” such as reciting the days of the week or naming the seasons.  After attending Montessori for 2 weeks, she has already come home with new skills such as shaking her hands over the sink after washing them to get most of the water off, folding, and going to the potty without stripping completely naked.  Practical life, indeed!

Rational Jenn wrote today about one way children learn to evade:  their parents implicitly teach it to them by Parenting by Authority.  To Parent by Authority is to expect obedience from your children.  “Because I said so,” is the leitmotif of this parenting style.  Sure, we may all do this on occasion.  Each time we do it, it is a mistake,  but the real harm comes when a child is implicitly told over and over again that what he perceives, thinks, feels, and judges, is irrelevant – that what matters is what the authority figure demands.

I’ve been thinking about the same issue, but in regard to education.  Since Sammy started Montessori, I’ve been reacquainting myself with all the good reasons I had for choosing this type of school for her.  One of those reasons is that Montessori is the only widely available educational system that does not Educate by Authority.

Everything about standard schools is geared towards obedience.  Teachers decide what the students will learn, when and by what method.  Grades are the major form of feedback, but they do not measure everything the student has learned, only what the teacher has decided is important.  There is no freedom for the student to pursue a special interest deeply.  Busywork replaces the quest for real understanding.  One of the worst features of standard school is the system of grading on a curve, which pits students against each other in unhealthy competition, where one gains at the expense of another, and actual achievement in relation to reality is irrelevant.

Everything about Montessori is geared toward independence.  Students interact primarily with their environment, not with the teacher.  The students enter a prepared environment of materials that are appropriate for their age.  They are free to choose whatever “work” interests them at the moment, focusing on it for as long as it interests them.  The teachers are guides, serving only to demonstrate the use of the materials when necessary, or to gently point a floundering child in the direction of purposeful activity.  For preschoolers, almost all work is hands-on.  At this age, the students do not have the capacity to connect abstract lecture to concrete reality, at least not when learning something brand new.  They need to learn with the hand as well as with the mind.

The Montessori method recognizes that external reward systems such as grades are not necessary, and even harmful.  Children naturally want to learn.  Anyone who has observed small children can see this.  The reward for good work is in the work itself, and in the accomplishment.  Montessori materials are self-correcting – the children know whether they have done the work correctly without relying on a teacher’s stamp of approval.  The blocks of diminishing size must be stacked up from biggest to smallest or the tower will not stand.  The cylinders of diminishing size must be placed in the proper holes, or they will not all fit in the puzzle. 

Discipline in a Montessori school is almost a non-issue.  There is no need for children to sit quietly and listen to a teacher.  They are free to roam about the classroom and to interact with each other as they see fit.  Because the work holds their interest, they are generally focused on a task, and not seeking attention or looking for an outlet for their energies.  The rules that are in place are natural, for the purpose of working in a group setting: children must never interrupt others’ work, must put their materials away when finished, and generally follow the rules of social decorum that adults do.  But within those limits, they have a great deal of freedom.

One important freedom Montessori children have is the freedom to make mistakes.  Instead of a big red “X” on their paper, children who make mistakes get feedback from reality:  from the materials they are using.  If a child tries to stack the blocks and fails, he is not judged by any other person.  The tower just falls.  That is enough.  His own, internal motivation is what will drive him to try again, and his primary guide is his own mind.  He must make the connection that the smaller blocks go on top before he can build the tower.  He may observe the other students and possibly the teacher building the tower, but nobody is telling him what to do.  He is free to try again immediately or to wait.  There is no external pressure motivating him.

This trust in children’s innate (or, I would prefer to say, natural) desire to learn, to achieve, and to grow – in short, to be good – is analogous to the Positive Discipline principle of Assuming Positive Intent.  You should assume, barring any evidence to the contrary, that your child is trying to solve a problem but just doesn’t have the skills yet, or has forgotten how.  For example, if your toddler is banging his fork on the table, he’s probably not trying to irritate you.  He might be hungry and not know how else to tell you, or he might be exploring the sound or the feel of the vibration of the fork.  Your job is not to discipline him, but to try to read his signals with the assumption of positive intent, and to guide him towards the actions that will accomplish what he wants.  A teacher’s job should not be to force learning upon the child.  The child already wants to learn.  What he needs is freedom within limits, and guidance.

Why are Parenting by Authority and Educating by Authority so prevalent?  What in the world makes anybody think that children need to be disciplined and forced to learn?  There is so much evidence against this, that I can only guess that a deeply rooted premise is at work, and I suspect that it is the idea of Original Sin.  I’d like to explore this idea more.  I think it has enormous implications for parenting and education.  I know that I have unconsciously accepted this premise.  I fight it consciously, but it will take a lot more work to fully root it out.  But I already see myself thinking about ways I might homeschool differently that I envision it now.  Instead of telling Sammy what subject we will study for a semester, I may purchase all the materials I think are appropriate and set them up in a way that she can begin to explore them on her own, and see where it leads.  I might break up the day into two, 3-hour study blocks, as they do in Montessori.  I might let Sammy go a whole week studying only one subject, or I might require only that math be studied every day.  I’m not sure yet.  But I see two principles that can guide me:  Let Reality be the Judge, and Trust Internal Motivation.

A Little Thing

My husband, Adam, who is a law professor, was talking to one of his students the other day and the subject of Montessori came up.  The student told Adam, “Yes, I’m very interested in sending my future children to Montessori.  I learned about it from reading Ayn Rand.”  When Adam told her that he was an Objectivist, she was thrilled and said, “I’m going to have to tell [another student].  He loves Ayn Rand, too!”

Objectivism is no longer a fringe movement, but a force in our culture.  And admirers of Ayn Rand are everywhere.  I see it in anecdotes like this all the time, but the Ayn Rand Institute’s statistics on book sales, successes in academia, and media exposure are the real evidence.  This is an exciting time!

Sammy is officially a Montessori student! 

She just finished her first week of school.  This week, the new students only attended for 2 hours a day to give them a chance to settle in with a bit less pressure, and to give the older kids some time without all the chaos of the little ones.  Sammy is probably the youngest in her class, I imagine, having just turned 3 a couple of weeks ago, but, for once, I don’t feel like she is way too small or out of place. 

I won’t get to visit the class for at least 6 weeks so I can’t report much about what Sammy is doing as her work.  I might get some kind of report in her Friday folder which comes home each week, but I’m not sure about that – the only thing in this week’s folder was information on a fundraising event.

What I have seen is drop-off and pick-up.  Sammy has been fine overall with leaving me to go to her new school.  We’re supposed to drop the kids off at the curb, where a teacher comes to get them and bring them to class.  At the open house last week, the Directress said that on the first day they would allow parents to walk their kids to the front door or to the classroom, but that it was discouraged, both for efficiency’s sake and because it is actually easier for the children to separate at the car.  I think every parent who has taken the time to find this pre-school for their child and has spent the high cost of tuition should have done enough research to know Rule Number One of separation:  Don’t make a big deal of it!  You tell the child what will happen and then when it does, you say, “Bye bye. Have a nice morning.  I’ll see you at noon.”  And you leave.  Prolonging it is counterproductive.  It tells the child that you are not comfortable parting from her and sends the message that you don’t fully trust the people who will be taking care of her.  I’m sorry, but this is so basic.  There was no way I was going to walk Sammy in.  We were going to start as we meant to go on.  But at the open house, one doofus actually asked if he could come and sit in the classroom for 20 minutes on the first morning!  He was told, “no,” which made me feel pretty good about the school I had chosen.

Still, on the first day when we arrived, there were a few cars in line but many more people could be seen walking their children in from the parking lot.  Because they did this, the line-up system didn’t work.  There were so many people walking their kids in the front door that there weren’t enough teachers to take them away quickly, and the car line-up was ignored.  I can’t really blame the teachers – they were inundated with crying children whom they wanted to whisk away as quickly as possible, while the kids in the cars had to wait, but at least they weren’t at that critical moment of separation.  Of course, I didn’t realize exactly what was going on, and after 5 minutes of no movement in the line, the mom in front of me came back and said that the front car had been there for almost 20 minutes and that we might as well park and walk the kids in.  I didn’t see any choice, although later I found out that the line did start moving a few minutes later.  So we parked and I walked Sammy in and it was a disaster.  Well, it wasn’t that bad, but she twice dropped the plant that she had brought in as a class gift (a suggestion from the teachers), and stopped at the front door, refusing to walk in on her own power.  I was carrying so much stuff that I could not pick her up and we blocked the door for a good minute.  She wasn’t crying, just refusing to enter and whining, but it was not the way I wanted to start her first day.  I wish they had told us at the open house to stick with the line no matter what and that they would eventually get to us.  They did say it might take “a few more minutes than usual” the first couple of days, but that was an understatement and it caused a lot of confusion.  Well, in the end, it didn’t matter.  The next day drop off went without a hitch and Sammy’s been happy to go to school ever since.

Because the youngest children were leaving early this week, they were taken out to the playground for pickup time each day.  I watched Sammy’s attitude change throughout the week when I picked her up.  The first day, she was on the swing with the teacher pushing her.  The next, she was on the swing by herself.  The third day, she was not near a teacher and she came running to me when she saw me, saying MOMMY! MOMMY! MOMMY!  She wasn’t relieved to see me, she was excited to show me what she had been doing.  She showed me the slide and the sandbox and the swings and the playhouse.  The fourth day it rained and she was brought out to my car, happy as a clam.  And the fifth, she again came running to me, and I watched her interact with some of the older children.

I think that being in a mixed-age class is going to be one of the most important parts of the Montessori experience.  It was important for Sammy to be around her peers in day care – she learned a lot (good and bad) from being with kids in her own age group.  But the older Montessori children are true role models.  Sammy likes older kids.  She often chooses them over her own aged kids at playgrounds and at the supermarket.

We have noticed even a bit more independence from Sammy this week.  She is picking up her toys without being told occasionally, and there seems to be a process for washing her hands now, instead of the half-hour long play session a hand-washing normally is for her.  We’ll see if those things continue.

This transition has been very smooth.  (Well, it’s been very difficult for me in terms of my schedule.  I can’t figure out when to shower or how to deal with my even more fractured time.  It will help when we move to a 3 hour day next week.)  But for Sammy, it’s been pretty painless, and I almost forgot to take note of what a huge achievement this is for her and for me.  I thought about sending a child to Montessori long before I even decided to have a child.  My own experience at Montessori (I attended through age 11) played a big role in my own character development.  Then I read what Ayn Rand had to say about Montessori, and I read Montessori’s own works.  I took classes from a Montessori-trained parenting coach, and I did a lot of hard work and research to find the right Montessori school in our area.  I didn’t know how it would turn out.  I think there are probably some kids for whom Montessori is not a good fit.  Even though that’s probably rare, I tried to keep an open mind about whether this would be right for my daughter.  I can say with confidence after only one week that I now know I made the right choice.  It already shows.  I can’t wait to see Sammy in that classroom filled with all the materials that bring back my own childhood memories – the moveable alphabet, the math beads, the geography puzzles.  I can’t wait to see what she will learn and how she will grow.  I know she is going to thrive there, and that this is the best beginning for her formal education that I could give her.  Hurray for Montessori!

I was dropping Sammy off at Montessori.  It’s a car line-up and the teachers come out to the curb to bring each child in the building individually.  The teacher tried to pick Sammy up out of her car seat and Sammy said, NO!  I DO IT MYSELF!  The teacher watched as Sammy got out of the car on her own and said, “Now there’s a perfect Montessori student.”

Yesterday, Samantha spelled the words “Sam,” “cat,” “Adam” and “Jinx.”  Adam wrote them on the ground with sidewalk chalk as they sounded them out together.  She needed help isolating the sounds, but as soon as she heard the sound, she knew what letter it was.  The only one she didn’t get was the “i” in Jinx because she’s only learned the short “i” sound so far.

We’ve continued to use Starfall and we also practice while driving around town or at meals.  Sam knows all the standard letter sounds now, although she’ll still forget “l” and “r” sometimes, mostly because she has a hard time pronouncing them.  I do think that this work of isolating sounds is going to help her pronunciation, and even her vocabulary because she’ll be able to distinguish words more clearly now.  I didn’t think she’d be able to reverse the process and name the letters based on the sound – we’ve never worked on that directly - but she did it with ease. She is also “reading” everything she sees – food packaging, signs on the road, stuff that comes in the mail.  Usually “reading” means that she’ll name some of the letters and maybe make their sounds.  Sometimes it means opening a book she knows well and telling the story from memory as she turns the pages.  I thought it was cute when Sam insisted that there was an “x” on my computer screen and it took me a while to figure out she meant the red “x” icon to close the window.

Next, I’m going to try reading Montessori Read and Write, by Lynn Lawrence, and next month I’ll talk to Sam’s Montessori teacher about where to go from here.  It’s amazing to see Sam learning so much so quickly, and taking such obvious pleasure in the process.

Samantha is learning how to take turns!  After a few Montessori classes, I can see the light bulb going off.  

She really likes to play with a particular toy at Montessori:  a low, flat box full of hard clay, with golf tees and a mallet with which to pound them into the clay.  This week, the clay toy came to her attention when she saw another girl pick it up.  She went over to grab at it, and I did my usual explanation of how the other girl had chosen it and Sam could have a turn when she was finished.  Sam didn’t protest, and went on to work on a puzzle.  But in the middle of it, she leapt down from her chair and raced away.  When I looked up, I saw that she was picking up the clay toy just as the other girl returned it to its shelf.  She had her eye on that toy the whole time!  And since that lesson was the most important at the moment, I didn’t call her back to put away the puzzle, but went with her and told her that THAT was called taking turns.  Ok, so I probably praised her too.  I’m still working on less praise and more description.  But I was so pleased!

Samantha and I went to our first Montessori class today.  Since it is a 7-week session designed for toddlers, I thought that it would be full of moms and kids who were starting pre-school in the fall, just like me and Sam, but the school starts taking toddlers into this class as soon as they can walk, and some people repeat the 7-week session, so the ages ranged from 15 months to just-turned-three, and most of the kids had been to prior sessions.  I think there were about 8 children there today, but it varies from week to week.

The class was held in a room set up just like a Montessori classroom, but geared just a bit younger.  There are rolled up mats which the children use to define their own work space on the floor.  If they prefer a table, there are a few, all with just two chairs, one for mommy and one for the child.  There is a potty on the floor in the corner, but no pressure to use it.  The materials/toys are similar to a primary Montessori class, but a bit simpler.  Everything is on low shelves and the children pick what interests them, or they watch other children. There is also a big slide for those kids who just need to get their energy out.  There is a snack table with just two chairs, so the kids must take turns.  Bananas, plastic knives, napkins, cups and a pitcher of water are nearby, to be used whenever hunger strikes.  The moms stay with or near the children, guiding them in the proper use of the materials (but in a more informal way than a primary class) and the one teacher floats about and makes suggestions as necessary.  The last 15 minutes of the 1.5 hour class is “circle time” for singing a few songs as a group.  It’s a good signal that class is about to end.

The materials they have are wonderful – I wanted to play with everything myself!  They have dozens of items: peg boards, scissors and paper, puzzles, paper and glue, a sensory table with beans, and Sam’s favorite: a small box with 5 beautiful marbled rocks in different colors.  She would shake the box and pour the rocks out on to the table in a controlled fashion, sort of like she was playing craps.  Then she would carefully put the 5 rocks in a line.  Then she would pick them up one at a time and drop them back in the box.  She repeated this exercise many times.  Who would have guessed that this would be the most interesting thing in the room?

Sam immediately understood the concept of taking one toy at a time, bringing it to a table or mat, and then returning it when finished.  She needed a reminder to put things away a couple of times, but it was great to see that this was not a foreign concept to her.  We clean up at home, but there is no one-toy-at-a-time rule and things get pretty messy every day.

Sam didn’t do as well with respecting others’ work.  She pushed and grabbed a few times.  Although this is “normal,” I’m really looking forward to more of this structured Montessori time where I can work on this with her.  I knew this was one big drawback to putting her in day care, where the practice seems to be to yell loud instructions across the room when a child does something really flagrant, like pushing another kid hard enough for him to fall down.  I’m not worried about Samantha in this area, though.  She is a very empathetic and orderly child and I’m sure with the right guidance, she’ll get the idea of taking turns and respecting others.

Just before circle time, the teacher took a bell and walked in a circle around the carpet.  The bell is one of my strongest memories from my own days in Montessori.  At circle time, we’d play “pass the bell.”  While sitting in a very large circle (well, we sat in a square around a carpet), one child would get the bell and have to walk with it to a child on another edge, without allowing the bell to ring, and then hand it to the next child. It was an exercise in concentration and body-control.  Today, the oldest girl in the class, who has been to a few primary classes, took the bell and tried to walk without ringing it.  I didn’t realize this was a Montessori tradition – I thought it was just my own particular teacher’s invention. 

Beyond all the other reasons I want Samantha to go to Montessori, it will be wonderful to share all of these traditions with her.  I look foward to all the memories that will surface in me as I watch her go through it.

I just mailed the check to secure Samantha’s spot in the Montessori school we chose.  I can’t wait for her to start.  And it turns out, I don’t have to.  They have a toddler program.  Starting Wednesday, once a week for 7 weeks, Sam will go to Montessori with me for about an hour and a half.   This is the perfect reason to reduce her day care time to 2 half days per week, which I’ve been wanting to do anyway to save money and also because I just don’t like this new day care as much as her first one.

I wish we could attend the Montessori program right before the school year starts, but they don’t have any summer programs at this school.  Still, it’s a good way for her to get used to the environment, and I’ll bet that I get some good ideas for nurturing her independence at home.  Speaking of which, check out this video (HT: Principled Parent) of a 20-month-old being raised by two Montessori-trained parents.  It’s a bit long but if you’ve never seen young toddlers acting this way, you might need the time to pick your jaw up off the floor.

I took notes, and here are the things I might try at home:

  • Put Sam’s mattress on the floor.  We were just about to go from crib to toddler bed, so I’ll consider this option. 
  • Put a step near her dining chair with booster seat so that she can climb up and down herself.  I’ve been struggling with how to help her do this independently, but I never thought of a stool for some reason.  (Sam is probably the same size as the 20-month-old in the video, so she is just too small to do many things kids her age normally do.)
  • Set up a pitcher of water and cup on a low shelf in the kitchen for her to get her own drinks.  She is really bad at pouring so this will be good practice.
  • Get her a backpack.  If a 20-month-old can carry one, even little Sam can too.

We’ve also always struggled with washing hands.  Sam loves to wash her hands and hates it when we help, but she can’t reach any sinks in the house, even when on a high stool.  I have to pull out the retractable faucet in the kitchen and she gets very angry about that.  (And when the sink is full of dirty dishes she just doesn’t get to wash her hands at all).  When we visited the Montessori school, we realized all we have to do is to set out a bowl of water, soap, sponge, and towel.  Sometimes you just don’t see the obvious solution!

One other thing I would note from that video:  I would never spend the amount of time necessary for Sam to “help” me in the kitchen as much as Edison did.  I try to let her help in ways that actually help me.  I’ll do a little extra work, like helping her wash her hands after cracking an egg, or asking her to get things for me from the cabinets, but spending that kind of time would be a sacrifice for me.  (I really have to finish my introductory post on Selfish Parenting.)  At a certain point, it feels very forced to let a child “help” when they are not really helping.  Edison seemed to do a good job, but when I’ve had Sam do similar things she just wants to play with the food.  She’ll help me wipe and dust and sweep all day, but when food is around she just wants to rub it all over her face.  Maybe that’s just a difference in different kids, but I’m not going for that one.

Three Good Things for the day:

  1. We had our second and final Montessori interview today.  We have two great choices and we need to decide or get an extension by tomorrow.  The interview was fun.  I’m sure that Sam will thrive with Montessori.  She was so excited by this school that she practically joined right into a classroom.
  2. After the interview, Samantha and I went to the mall for lunch.  I love dining with her.  We were both in a great mood when we left and then I saw the Canadian geese, flying back north.  I got so excited and told Sam that seeing the geese going home meant that spring was coming.  We stopped to watch, right there in the parking lot.  Then 3 geese flew directly over our heads, probably just 20 feet up, honking their beautifully ugly honk.  It’s hard to explain why, but it was just one of those magical times you have with your kid – a time that you know she will remember.  Sam said, MORE GEESE MOMMY the whole way home.
  3. Sam got into my office drawer for the first time today and I restrained myself while she played with thumbtacks, a stapler, and other various sharp objects.  She didn’t hurt herself once, and she (mostly) put everything away.  Still, I may have to claim that drawer as my own personal property, just like my nightstand drawer and my purse.

I love identifying examples of Samantha’s sense of order.  The world must still be something of a jumbled up flux to her, and she’s working so hard at integrating her experience into chunks she can deal with.  Socks must be put in the shoes before shoes are put away; bib must be on before beginning to eat; dolls must be on their tummies for “nap.”  Her rules, not mine.

This morning we were sitting at my computer.  I was reading blogs and she was sitting on my lap drawing with my pens.  I needed a bathroom break, so I told her I had to get up for a minute, and that she could draw more after I used the bathroom.  I started to take her off my lap, but she reached for the pens.  Instead of saying no, I waited to see what she would do.  She put the caps back on all 3 of the pens she had opened, and put them in the cup.  Then she was ready to get down. 

Just now, she picked up her Tupperware container of crayons, brought it to her table in the kitchen, colored something (I hope not the wall), and then brought the container back to its place on the shelf.

It’s very rare that I have to explain to Sam which things should go in the trash and which should not.  Same goes for the laundry basket, and the kitchen sink.  She seems to have picked it all up from watching me.

Maria Montessori and Cornelia Lockitch taught me about children’s need for order.  It seems to be common wisdom these days that kids need routine and structure in the events of their days, but they also need for things to have their place, and for this to be consistent.

It’s a great excuse for nagging the husband to put things away, too.

The last Montessori school I visited is going to be our top choice.  I didn’t get that, “this is the one” feeling when I observed the classroom, though - I thought the kids were flailing about too much and the environment wasn’t quite as attractive as one of the other 2 options on my list.  But they do indeed respect the 3 hour work cycle, as advertised.  Actually, it turns out to be more like 2 1/2 hours, but that time is uninterupted. 

Another thing I noticed was that the older children at this school were using the math beads, the moveable alphabet, and other reading and math tasks.  I didn’t see much of that at any of the other schools.

I’m a bit concerned about the ideological garbage at this school: environmentalism, multiculturalism, religion, and volunteerism.  They have one elementary class, and the kids “volunteer” at a soup kitchen or something.  The administrator spoke about how they try to get the kids to see that “it’s not all about them – that they are just a part of a community.”  This disturbs me, but I can’t say it’s any worse at this school than it would be anywhere. 

Our backup school is the one I that said felt cramped, but I ruled out the one with the more attractive environment because the tuition was quite a bit higher.

Now I have to figure out how in the world we can afford this.

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