Scintillating September

Dear parents,

We have had an eventful, productive week so far. Here's a glimpse of all that we did last week:

We brought in the week with Janmashtmi Celebrations, in our colorful costumes and zestful mood. We broke the handi as a ritual and made Janmashtmi craft. As a group activity we prepared Sev boondi and buttermilk.

 

                             





We continued to develop positive work habits through daily activities.

We celebrated teachers day.

                                                       

               We worked towards enhancing our gross motor skills in the gym class

We learned a few acts of drama and role play. Our teachers read out the story of Goldilocks and the three bears, thereafter we tried taking on the roles for acting out the story. 

Our week ended with a grand celebration along with our Grandparents. We tried our culinary skills and made 'Delhi Tokri Chaat' by assimilating all the ingredients of this wonderful North Indian dish. We rejoiced a feast thereafter. 

Thank you!!!

The Montessori toddler

The Montessori toddler classroom is mostly made up of Practical Life materials, with many “pre-Montessori” materials that are typically used with this age group (1.5-2.5 years). Montessori for toddlers focuses on certain key aspects:

General Equipment: The Montessori toddler program is designed to gear children towards the development of basic skills and independence. This is only possible if the furniture and resources are at the child's reach. Therefore, long low shelves, small tables and chairs, an easily access easel, working mats, age-appropriate books, musical instruments, plants, artwork etc. are all set appropriately.



The key areas of development for a toddler are:

1. Practical Life: Practical life activities include pouring, transferring work (both for the whole hand and fingers), stringing beads, dressing frames, sweeping, mopping and dusting. These activities develop the child's control of movement that is essential to perform non-academic and academic tasks.







2. Sensorial: The sensorial activities include activities with colour, size and shapes such as; colour tablets, cylinder blocks, smelling bottles and tasting food. These activities are mainly set out for the refinement of the senses. Sensorial learning is now being laid as a foundation in many schools for a conceptual understanding.




3. Language: Language is offered to the child through wooden puzzles, matching work, classification of materials, singing songs and reading books.




4. Food preparation: Scooping, chopping, juicing, pounding are offered to the child as food preparation activities. Such activities allow children to prepare a small snack independently, thereby enhancing their fine motor skills and giving them a feeling of accomplishment. These are activities that are familiar to the child and so we enable children to move from the 'known into the unknown'.


Children in a Montessori school have a freedom to choose the activities they want to work with rather than being directed towards what they should work with. However, the Montessori approach is neither ‘permissive’ nor ‘authoritarian’. It is actually an approach where children have freedom, but within clear and consistent limits.
We ensure that the free will of each child is gradually being educated. Each choice they have is constructive, developmentally appropriate and interesting.
We call for meaningful opportunities for real choice at every level of the learning process.

Holistic Education and Montessori

The definition of Holistic education is, 'Philosophy of education based on the premise that each person finds identity, meaning, and purpose in life through connections to the community, to the natural world, and to humanitarian values such as compassion and peace' (definition from Wikipedia).

As such, holistic education is based on the idea that children can be taught in a more natural and engaging way. A holistic approach to child development seeks to simultaneously address the physical, emotional, relational, intellectual, and spiritual aspects of a child's life.

We, at Casa Vista Montessori have an approach that is in tune with the child's unique needs and one that prepares the child to become a well-rounded adult.

Some principles of holistic development:

 1: Values 
Our Montessori curriculum is based on core values such as; honestly, equality, respect, tolerance, open-mindedness, cooperation, harmony, empathy, compassion and peace.
We aim to imbibe these qualities in each child through implicit and explicit teaching practices. Montessori schools model appropriate behaviour and essential values through Grace and Courtesy activities. Some examples of Grace and courtesy activities are;
How to greet a person
When to say Please and Thank you
How to offer help
How to talk/respond in a gentle tone
Appropriate way to yawn and sneeze
Learn to show respect towards others

These activities enable children to be more mindful of their actions, thereby gaining more awareness of the environment. Such activities help the child to feel more connected and oriented to the social surroundings.
Values like these are modelled by the Montessori teachers and can also be expressed through stories, poems and day to day actions.

Learning the appropriate use of our hands

Narrating a story on values

The primary goal is to incorporate these graces and courtesies into the child's daily life, which will allow for a more pleasant classroom as well as a more pleasant environment wherever the child may go.

2: Respecting uniqueness 
We understand and value each child's unique capabilities. We recognise each child's learning styles and incorporate the theory of Multiple Intelligence's. Each child is allowed to work with his/her choice of activities and at his/her own pace. The learning centres in a Montessori classroom are based on the observations of children in that classroom. Then the curriculum is altered to meet the needs of the existing children.

Different children having different learning experiences 

3: Hands-on learning
Most educators have argued for centuries that 'education is a matter of experience', this is affirmed in Montessori schools. Children make meaning and learn about concepts through hands-on experiences. Most of the learning involves the use of the 5 senses and therefore, we create  environments based on activities that are real and applicable. Hands-on learning is a great way to acquire skills essential to build a strong foundation for future learning.

4: Teachers as facilitators
The role of an educator now is to ensure that they are preparing children to become life-long learners. This will only be possible if children are given the freedom to think, freedom to inquire and freedom to make choices. Exploration and inquiry are possible only when children have the essential tools to explore and the necessary skills developed. Therefore, the Montessori directress sets up a prepared environment, with resources to ensure that children have acquired adequate skills to work independently. The teachers then act as facilitators or guides, helping the children to move forward into new learning experiences and directing them when necessary.

5: Freedom of Choice 
In the Montessori classrooms, children are given the freedom to choose activities from a carefully prepared environment. This prepared environment is the key! When a child chooses his work instead of doing what he is told to do, he often develops a more genuine interest and learns to follow the direction of what we call the “Inner Guide.”

We all know that each one of us is unique, while one of us may be an avid reader, another great at computing, yet another has an eye for art. Some learn the best through the sense of touch and others through visual input. We are not all the same. Nor are all our children the same.
They all learn but they may have vastly different tastes in what interests them and when they are ready. Therefore, children are allowed to choose activities from a prescribed range of activities that interest them. 

We ensure that this free will of each child is gradually being educated. Each choice they have is constructive, developmentally appropriate and interesting.

6: Spirituality and Education
We integrate body, speech and mind to be sure we are offering a whole, integrated experience. In honoring body, speech and mind in our learning processes we are giving attention to sensory integration, communication, self-expression and flexible thinking.

This kind of an educational approach seeks to engage children in the learning process that aids to intellectual, emotional, physical, artistic, creative and spiritual potentials. 

Thank you,
Casa Vista Montessori.

The Future Begins Here!

Human Tendencies- This blog will take you through certain tendencies observed in children. These tendencies form a basis for many Montessori directed activities.

But what do we mean by the word "tendency"? The Britannica dictionary defines it as “The State of being directed towards some purpose or result or end. They are natural impulses that direct an individual to perform certain actions without a conscious plan, providing him individual satisfaction.

These tendencies are present at all ages of our lives but they vary in proportion.

When the human tendencies are blocked or somehow prevented from manifesting, children will exhibit behaviors like temper tantrums, anger, an inability to concentrate, or excessive shyness.

Dr. Montessori was able to identify distinct human tendencies, the same tendencies that have accounted for man’s survival since his first appearance on earth – Order, Orientation, Exploration, Communication, Work (purposeful activity), Exactness, Repetition, Abstraction, Self-Perfection, Mathematical Mind.


1. Order and Orientation
Everything in nature has an order, the sun, the moon, weather patterns and disturbance of any of these would lead to disturbance in life. This sense of order prevails in human beings also, right from birth. It is a natural process.
Order is of two kinds; an internal order and an external order. Internalizing order means maintaining a sense of routine for waking up, sleeping, eating, playing etc.
For example, if one morning we dressed our child before brushing his teeth, another morning we brush his teeth first, and the following morning we forget to brush his teeth all together, our child may have temper tantrums while getting ready because there is neither order nor precision in their environment.

External order helps children orient themselves to the space around them e.g. where things are found, physical order of things around them. Order brings predictability and orientation brings security. Once there is order and orientation then the child can explore.

Sense of order through materials

Order of keeping things back in place

2. Exploration
Children are naturally curious, and love to use their senses to learn more about the world around them. We are all born with an inquiring mind. Its the opportunities given, that facilitate or block this mind. A child explores by imitating, not just replicating what he sees but by interpreting and reproducing it in his own way. The child has the power of the intellect and through experience he gains controlled coordination and his intelligence expands as he develops movement. Experiences laid out in the child's environment must be real and rich to enhance this inquiring mind with little interference of the adult.

Exploration of colours and sizes

  

Exploration of different shapes

3. Creative Imagination

It is the next step after exploration: once you have found something interesting, you will quite naturally want to use it in some way. This is how the concept of "tools" began. Creative is not fantasy. We do not have the natural tools but with our intelligence we manipulate to suit our needs. Through the use of images and experience, we make the ideas a reality. Many of our children use materials in the class using their imagination. They modify the use of these resources to meet their individual needs or as per their perception.

Developing imagination through stories

4. Work/Activity.

Maria Montessori believed that it was through work that a child constructed his true self. Work leads to a feeling of accomplishment and self-respect. This work in Montessori is laid out systematically at child's reach in terms of activities. These activities are developmental and they meet the needs of the child. The work the child does is very essential and the environment stimulates him.

Developmental activities

5. Group Orientation/Communication

Various types of communication include the written and spoken words, touch, facial expressions, gestures, art, music, and dance. We pass on ideas, concepts and emotions to another person through communication. A man has a natural herd instinct. Therefore, we orient children to activities through groups. We encourage an open communication and help children orient themselves to the world around them through activities.

6. Repetition

This occurs when a child repeats a task over and over again. Often times it is with the intent to master the task, but even after mastery occurs, a child may continue to repeat the activity for the sheer pleasure of doing so. Through our own experiences we see that tendency of repetition is essential. In order to do something well we repeat till we master it. When we repeat, we reach self control and confidence which leads to exactness and, perfection.

Repeating the same activity on different days

7. Abstraction
This is truly the characteristic that sets us apart from animals. We are able to visualize events that have not yet occurred; we are able to feel and express emotions that are not tangible. We can imagine something that exists only in our minds, and then take the steps to make it happen. We at Casa Vista Montessori lay a foundation with concrete experiences which drive children to this path of abstraction. Through stories, picture talks and other materials we pave a path to abstraction.

8. Mathematical Mind
We all have the tendency for exactness which comes through calculation, order, and precision. We calculate for performing even the smallest of tasks like pouring water in a glass, knowing when to stop pouring when the glass is about to get filled up to the brim. Even when we cross the road we calculate. There is computation all the time for simple activities such as sitting on a chair, walking, judging distances, climbing stairs. In the words of Pascal, “Man has the propensity to calculate”. In order to calculate we need to concentrate. This is the mathematical human tendency that leads to scientific discoveries based on precise detailed observation. 

We provide direct and indirect opportunities in school to fine tune the Mathematical mind with varied activities.

The greatest development is achieved during the first years of life, and therefore it is then that the greatest care should be taken. If this is done, then the child does not become a burden; he will reveal himself as the greatest marvel of nature- Maria Montessori



References- Montessori essays- The Human Tendencies

Team Casa Vista.

We Enter To Learn, Leave To Achieve

Our little achievers

MATCHING COLOURED DISCS
The purpose of this activity is to enable the child to use his visual and chromatic sense to match the coloured discs to its appropriate cards. Indirectly, this activity gears the child towards the preparation for a Mathematical mind. 

DRESSING FRAMES
Dressing frames enable children to develop fine motor skills so that the child will be able to independently use this skill into daily activities.

BATHING A DOLL
Washing activities prepare children to start developing a caring attitude, thereby enhancing their use of fine motor skills. There is a lot of language involved in the process, that helps the child to become a good listener.

JUICING A LEMON
Such activities allow children to have early sensorial experiences. They feel a sense of pride on completion of such activities. They are meaningful and allow the child to apply it into their daily life. Such an activity would help the child develop his fine motor skills and language for the material. 

LOCK FRAME
The frame gives the child an opportunity to explore different kind of locks, that he may come across in his actual life. Opening and closing the locks give the child a sense of accomplishment and independence. It works towards developing concentration and fine motor skills

PAINTING
There are innumerable benefits of  art. Painting enhances the child's creativity as they explore colours. Besides discovering the world of colours, this activity gives the child the freedom of expression and develops the child's ability to associate these colours found in reality. 

STRINGING BEADS
 Such activities prepare children to develop focus for work and enhance motor skills. Stringing beads will also indirectly prepare children for Math as they can see a pattern in sequencing the beads.

TRANSFERRING OBJECTS USING TONGS
Such activities allow children to independently use objects like tongs which in turn work towards developing their fine motor skills and concentration. This activity would also help the child indirectly for Math as there are specific number of compartments for the objects to be transferred.

SCISSOR CUTTING SKILLS
We all know how young children love cutting with scissors, sometimes even cutting hair, clothing, and other important items. That is one of the reasons why, in the Montessori classroom, we acquaint young children with the appropriate use of scissors and help them develop basic cutting skills. As children develop coordination and skill with scissors, they will experience the satisfaction of mastering an important life skill.

COLANDER WITH PIPE CLEANERS

This activity aids fine motor skills as the child has to make use of the pincer grip to ensure that the pipe cleaners fit inside the vegetable colander holes. The child learns to sit and concentrate throughout the activity and the concept of colors could also be reinforced through this. 

SHAPE SORTER

Children learn to work by fitting the shapes into its respective frames. This activity would enable children to learn about names of different shapes and it works as an indirect preparation for Geometry.

SPOONING GRAINS

Enhancement of fine motor skills along with concentration is encouraged with activities like these. Children learn to have a grip of the spoon and more controlled movements while transferring the grains from one bowl to the other. We introduce children to activities like these as they are familiar to the child and they ultimately aid towards independence.

AMBUCARE BOX WITH A BALL

This Montessori activity enables the child to have more controlled movements while opening and closing the box. Such an activity is called as a preliminary activity as it prepares the child for more complex work at primary level e.g. opening and closing boxes and bottles. 

In the first three years of life, the foundations of physical and also of psychic health are laid. In these years, the child not only increases in size but passes through great transformations. This is the age in which language and movement develop- Maria Montessori

We at Casa Vista Montessori recognize these developments and offer a prepared environment in order that these activities may develop freely.

Thank you,

Team Casa Vista.