Montessori Volunteering

While I've been on maternity leave I've been helping Steven's class with some of their work. It has been a great experience - it has helped me learn some of the Montessori materials, get to know some of his classmates and understand better the abilities of the children at this age. I've wondered if Steven should repeat kindergarten since he is the youngest in his class but after working with the children for the last few weeks, I can see that he is keeping up (at least with the math work that I've been helping with) and even a little ahead of some of the children.

This is him working with Mikala on the the 1000 chain (excuse the thumb interference, I was holding a wiggly baby). They lay out a roll of felt (their rug) and have a chain of beads broken into segments of 10. Their work is to count each and every bead up to 1000. When they get to 10, 20, 30, 40, etc they put a label above the bead that represents that number. It takes about 2 hours for them to complete since you have to keep reminding them to stay focused on their work.

On another occasion I was helping Mikala and Kaden with the 1000 chain. Mikala started counting by 10s. I was pretty impressed that she could do that and so I let her finish out the chain that way. When they were finished (very quickly, less than an hour) and went to get Mrs. Jongeling, she scolded them for not doing their work properly. I think I felt more guilty than the kids did for not knowing how to do the work!