Mom Night in Sunshine Room

As you likely know, Emma attends Maria Montessori Academy, and is in the full day program, which means she attends regular school hours, 8:30am-3pm.

Here is some information about the Montessori method of teaching:

Montessori emphasizes learning through all five senses, not just through listening, watching, or reading. Children in Montessori classes learn at their own, individual pace and according to their own choice of activities from hundreds of possibilities. Learning is an exciting process of discovery, leading to concentration, motivation, self-discipline, and a love of learning. Montessori classes place children in three-year age groups (3-6, 6-9, 9-12, and so on), forming communities in which the older children spontaneously share their knowledge with the younger ones. Montessori represents an entirely different approach to education.

Emma's day is broken into 2 classrooms. In the mornings she is in Casa, which can best be described as a home play environment, and after lunch she heads to the Sunshine classroom, which is the educational preschool environment.

Tonight the Sunshine room invited the children's moms to spend an hour experiencing what the kids do. Sunshine room is filled with shelves of individual activities, each on a tray, and the children choose an activity and get to work. Once they have finished they put their activity away in it's specific place, and move on to the next.

It was truly fun doing this with Emma, but it was strange too. To see her so comfortable in an environment I don't know well, and to see her act so independently. Crazy.

First Emma showed me the "clouds" (her name for it), where she takes these cards and lays them out on a mat on the floor "You have to get a mat mommy..."

And then she takes a basket of felt shapes, and matches them to the cards....

Next we made "the maze". First we collected sticks, in varying lengths, from their station, and carried them over to where we had mats laid out (this activity required 2 mats)...Oh, and we had to carry the sticks "just like this mommy, so you don't hit anybody"...

Next, we lay them out like this...Until we build a maze! Then we take off our shoes and walk the maze to plant a mini flag at the centre.

Two of Emma's teachers - Miss Janelle and Miss Estuko.

We did some pouring exercises...

And cleaned up the spills...

We did some cleaning and polishing on a portable tabletop - an African mask, as the children are learning about Africa right now, so the class is filled with African themed items.

Stencils!

We ended our evening with circle time, and sang one of the children's "goodbye songs". It was awesome.

Next Thursday is Dad's night. Chris is going to have a blast.