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A Glimpse in the Primary Classroom
It's a Tuesday morning at 9:15 and I thought you might like a glimpse into the primary classroom to see what the children are working with.
Here is a closer look . . .
Two friends work on a map of Africa together. One young man has arranged the flowers he brought to class into vases. He then puts them on tables around the classroom. Two children visit as they sting beads and pasta together to develop fine motor skills.
It's fun to look through the color paddles to see how colors mix. Putting beads onto pipe cleaners and bending them just right makes nice Christmas ornaments. It also helps build the muscles of the hand. Pouring work is a favorite among the children - building concentration and coordination.
In the first photo a young man is concentrating on matching words to picture cards. The second photo shows a young man strengthening his fingers with and imagination with clay. The children also enjoy taking time to look at books in the reading area.
Spending time learning to use scissors can be complicated but when a child is not interrupted concentration is built as well as coordination. The young lady in the second photo is crafting a bookmark to take home. In the third photo a student is preparing to do a scrubbing work. The scrubbing motion works the muscles in the arm. It also takes concentration, memorization and coordination to complete all the steps needed to prepare, do, and clean up the work.
Language in the Montessori Classroom
The process of writing to reading has many steps in a Montessori environment. Children begin shape recognition and visual discrimination activities at a very early age and continue them through the 3-6 environment.
The letter sounds are taught in the primary classroom in a sensorial way. Children are able to internalize the shapes of letters without worrying about perfecting the writing by tracing sandpaper letters and writing in sand. They also match the letter sounds to objects that begin with the sounds the child is learning.
After the children are comfortable with their letter sounds they work with the Moveable Alphabet - which are letters made of wood. The individual letters allow the child to develop and reinforce phonemic awareness. Word blends and word families are learned by manipulating the letter sounds .
The children then begin to experiment with writing on their own. Early sentence construction is usually spontaneous work from the child. Story development often follows.
As soon as children begin reading, grammar activities begin. They enjoy identifying parts of speech and analyzing sentence structures. Here are some examples of sentence diagramming and identifying parts of speech.
