Developing Through the Senses, Despite the Possible Messes

By Claire Nguyen, Toddler Guide

The Young Children’s Community is busy mastering their movements, the BIG movements! They practice daily climbing up and down the stairs and riding the trike, repeatedly. In addition, the toddlers are focusing more on the intricate and controlled movements they do in mixing the ingredients for bread, kneading the dough, and particularly in dish washing, table scrubbing, hand washing, and window washing. 

The latter four works I mentioned share an important matter needed to do the activities, they all require WATER!! Water is used daily for many things. In our toddler classroom, we use water in our practical life works to care for the environment and to care for ourselves. Children are naturally attracted to water which is why these works are so interesting to them. They love these works so much that most children need to change in to dry clothes (sometimes twice) before the morning concludes.
 
To give you a glimpse of what the children do when they choose a practical life work, here are the steps:
 

1. Fill the pitcher with water (sometimes several times);

2. Hold the pitcher with two hands and walk carefully with the water-filled pitcher to the basin/bowl;

3. Pour the water into the basin/bowl; and

4. Do the work (hand washing, dishwashing, table scrubbing, etc.) – the child is engaged for long periods of time and is deeply concentrated.

After step 4, most children walk away from the work without cleaning up, which is normal for toddlers that are 1 or 2 years of age. Some toddlers do the clean up process and/or restore the work back on the shelf. As the year progresses, most of the children, if not all, will be able to accomplish the work from beginning to end. 
 
As I’ve mentioned before in one of our weekly updates, the importance of repetition with no time restrictions is necessary in supporting toddlers to master their skills and achieve independence. I highly encourage parents to allow your children to work as freely as possible with water. Water is invaluable for their development so “sit back” and witness the full sense of joy and love of your children’s activity!

Motor Skills Making Way For Mental Growth

By Jennifer Ashton, Primary Guide

When the children arrive in the morning, there are many things to tend to, and first is the tying of their shoes! In the classroom we have a Bow Tie Frame that the children can us to practice tying a bow, and this week we have two more children successful with this task! The exclamation of joy was heard across the room, “I DID IT!” We also have a lacing frame, which is usually introduced after the bow tie frame (about age 3 1/2 to 4) but I am observing 2 1/2 and 3 year olds working on it with extraordinary concentration! They have seen older children lace up shoes and they are watching me lace up their shoe over and over, (because oh, how fun it is to take the laces out of shoes!) The children love to do these things for themselves and they are learning to be careful and precise in their movements as they are refine their muscular coordination.

View fullsize

View fullsize

Once the shoes are tied, they are ready to begin their day. As I am often in the cubby area greeting children as they arrive, by the time I get into the classroom, activity is in full swing. Children are folding and laying the napkins and glasses on the community table, others are preparing food (so the classroom always smells delicious!) A group of children with untied shoes is sitting (or rolling around) on the center rug, waiting for help from me or an older friend, and another child is often sitting with a basket of clothes and washcloths to be folded from the previous days laundry.

There are a myriad of ways to look after the classroom throughout the day, such as sweeping up spills, dusting, watering plants, and polishing. The children take great interest in the tasks of daily life, which helps them connect to their classroom, slow down and settle their bodies, and develop concentration. Consequently, when I sit down to give them the lessons of reading, writing or math, they are ready to enjoy and receive it. Maria Montessori refers to this as education of movement. We give the children something to handle: trace an outline of a letter with their finger, hold a thousand cube in their hand, or manipulate a binomial puzzle. We are interacting with children in a way that is natural to them and they are learning at the same time!

These daily actions involve judgement and will, self-disciple and an appreciation of orderliness, all of which are growing in the children each day that we are together and reminds me of a song we often sing in the classroom, “the more we are together, together, together; the more we are together the happier we’ll be!”

Surround Your Children With All Things Good, Their Environment is Forming Their Soul

By Claire Nguyen, Toddler Guide

"The child has a different relation to his environment from ours... the child absorbs it. The things he sees are not just remembered; they form part of his soul. He incarnates in himself all in the world about him that his eyes see and his ears hear." Maria Montessori (The Absorbent Mind, p.56)

There is a term that comes to mind right now in the Young Children’s Community for me -- the absorbent mind. Dr. Maria Montessori observed that children under the age of 6 years old take in information effortlessly, just as a sponge soaks up water. She further stated that from birth to the age of 3, children do this completely unconsciously. Dr. Montessori referred to this as the "absorbent mind." Some may or may not be familiar with this term but I wanted to share how this is fully present in the toddler community!

I had the pleasure of observing a child working with clay for some time recently. After 15-20 minutes, I noticed the child continued to be very focused and concentrated on the work in front of her. At the other side of the room, out of sight of the child working with the clay, Mrs. Clune was working with another child. She was providing the nomenclature for table setting, one by one, slowly naming the table setting items “plate”, “fork”, “spoon”, etc. Each time she provided the name of a table setting item, the child working with the clay repeated each word, while still fully focused and working on the clay. Not once did she turn around to look at what Mrs. Clune was presenting to the other child; it was almost as if they weren’t there. But yet, the child working with the clay was absorbing this other information fully.

In The Montessori Toddler, Simone Davies writes, “The ease with which a toddler learns gives us opportunities, as well as responsibilities. Opportunities because they absorb with such ease the language around them (building a rich vocabulary and understanding), how we handle furniture and objects (ideally with care), how we treat others (ideally with respect and kindness), where we put things (creating order), and the beauty of the environment around them. Responsibilities because, as Dr. Montessori points out, a sponge can absorb dirty water as easily as it can clean water. A child will pick up negative experiences as easily as positive experiences.”

With this in mind, let us therefore be mindful, as much as possible. Let us also be positive role models for our young children, to provide beauty, and to offer kindness for them to absorb.