Welcome to the Oak Room!

January 10, 2012

Welcome back to school! We hope that everyone had a wonderful break! It has been so wonderful to see all the children back. It is fabulous to see how easily they get back into the routine of school! They are clearly happy to be back and to be be back in this routine and seem happy to see their friends!

On the day before the children came back to class, the CMS staff had a wonderful staff day to meet and be together. After our meeting, the toddler staff was able to be in the classroom, do some deep cleaning of the rooms, switch materials and put out some new materials that we had gotten. It was wonderful to see how excited the children were when they returned. Even though as adutls we don't think of something as small as changing the spoon for spooning, they notice, and are excited! It is wonderful!

A few details we want you to be aware of in the toddler community are how we handle Valentine's day. Because this holiday is very abstract, we will be incorporating Valentine's crafts on the shelf. We will not do a Valentine card exchange with the children, and ask that you not send in individual cards. We work on grace and courtesy, friendship and taking care of our friends each day, and we will continue to do this throughout the school year! Thank you for your understanding in this!

The children are really enjoying their time at the end of the day working with our yoga cards, book, and music time (with instruments, finger plays and singing). We try to rotate the activities during our group time each day so that we have as much participation as possible! We are also trying to incorporate movement in these activities as cold weather is around the corner.

Please remember to send in boots, hats and gloves, and snowpants on the days that they are needed. We will try to go outside any day that we are able. Our playgournd is extremely muddy, so if you would like our mud to stay here at school, please feel free to send in a pair of boots to stay here at school,  and we will change your child's shoes before they get in your car!

If you have recently done a "toy clean out" with the holidays, please consider donating gently used non-character toys to our after care program. The children who are here with us after nap would love to have new items that can be rotated in. We would also love any gently used push toys, ride on toys and outdoor toys. Just send me a quick e-mail if you have a question about if something can be used by the school or not. Thank you!

February 2 is our final parent education night. We are still working on our topic, and if you have anything in particular you would like to hear about, please send a quick e-mail. We look forward to seeing you on the 2nd at 6:30pm.

Please remember these dates:

• Monday, January 16--No school MLK Day
• Thursday, February 2--Parent Education Night at 6:30pm
• Monday, February 6--No school/Flex day

Kate Bender and Kalpana Tummala

CMS Oak Room 

Montessori Practical Life Article

The child can only devlop by means of experience in his environment. We call such experience work.

-Dr. Maria Montessori

Today the importance of the formative first six years of life is common knowledge. During this time a child becomes fully a member of her particular culture and family group, absorbing language, attitudes, manners, values, of those in which she comes in daily contact. A child who spends the first six years in a loving and supportive environment, learns to love herself and feels safe in the world. A child who has experienced the joy of making a contribution to her family or group, learns to love making an effort, and feels needed.

Every child, by instinct, wants to learn and grow to the limit of his abilities. In the first six years of life he does this by imitating those around him. To support this need we must carefully prepare the physical and social environment, provide tools that enable the child to work to create himself, watch for those first tentative moments of concentration, and get out of the way, following the child as his path unfolds.

The Child's Purpose

The child's reason for, and way of, working is different from ours. Adults will usually choose to do things the most efficient and quickest way and to rush through to avoid anything labeled work. A child, on the other hand, is working to master the activity and to practice and perfect her abilities. She may scrub a table each day for weeks, then turn her attention to some other activity to master. We must not look upon this method as inconsistency or laziness but rather cumulative mastery of abilities. The child's purpose is not to complete the task as much as to construct the self.

By means of these activities the child learns to make intelligent choices, to become physically and then mentally independent and responsible. She learns to concentrate, to control muscles, to move and act with care, to focus, to analyze logical steps and complete a cycle of activity. This lays the gourndwork for mental and physical work in all other areas of work, not just in early childhood, but throughout life.

Participating In Family Life

The traditional work of the family is referred to in Montessori as priactical life work. It is the single most important area of an education for life. The activities of practical life are generally thought of in three main categories, and looking at the child's life in this way helps to keep a balance in the activities we offer children to master. These areas of practical life depend on the culture in which the child is growing up, and may include, but are not limited to:

• care of the environment - cleaning, sweeping, washing clothes, gardening, etc.,
• the care of the person - dressing, brushing teeth, cooking, setting the table, etc.,
• grace and courtesy - walking carefully, carrying things, moving gracefully, offering food, saying "please" and "thank you" and so on

It is in learing to do such seemingly mundane activities as dressing, dusting, sweeping, preparing and serving food, and fixing or building, work that the child sees going on around her all day long, that she learns to use her body and mind for a purpose, to concentrate, to complete cycles of activity, to finish what she started, and most importantly to contribute to the important work of the family, the social group. Practical life activities provide superior groundwork for physical, mental, and social development, and teach the work habits that lead to success in all later academic work.

Practical life work provides practice in eye-hand coordination, the control of large and small muscles, the ability to walk and to carry objects with control, and to behave with knowledge of good manners. These are the activities that bring the child's attention to his own progress and development, and that open up a world of important work. Learning to look a person in the eye when speaking, to listen patiently, to exhibit thoughtfulness through good manners, enables the child to be welcomed into a social group, to be happy and to make others happy.

Children have for eons shown an interest in daily life through make-believe cooking and cleaning. It was one of the pivotal discoveries of Dr. Montessori that, given the chance, children usually choose real work over imaginary.

Allowing the child to participate in the daily work he sees going on around him is an act of great respect for, and confidence in, the child. It helps him to feel important to himself and to those around him. He is needed. We can empathize if we think about the difference in treatment of a stranger, perhaps a dinner guest in our home, who is served and waited upon, compared to that of a good friend who is welcomed in our kitchen to talk and laugh while we prepare the meal together. Children don't want to be the guest, they wat us to help them to do it themselves.

Oak Room Wish List

• Wooden Food Slicing (Melissa and Doug)Place Setting Puzzle-Michael Olaf $29.95
• Dusting Activity-Michael Olaf $16.95
• Countertop Composter with filters
• Window mounted birdfeeders and bird seed (2-can be found at Wild Birds Unlimited)
• Hex Bolt Board-Michael Olaf $32.95
• Peace Begins with Me book-Michael Olaf $12
• Instruments from different countries -Global Gifts is a great source for these
• Pieces of Nature Animal Matching Game-Michael Olaf (World Animals $9.95, North American Animals $9.95)
• Water Table and Aprons
• Water Wheel-Michael Olaf $8.95
• Water Pump-Michael Olaf $8.95
• Child Sized Benches for outside
• Small playground balls
• Push toys for the playground
• Bubbles and bubble wands/bubble makers