We are loving working outside in this beautiful spring weather!
Pouring water using a funnel. A great Practical Life exercise for fine motor control practice! #montessori #practicallife
The dressing frames are a key practical life material for the care of the self. The primary purpose of the dressing frames is to teach the child how to dress themselves through mastering different clothing fasteners, but they also develop a child’s hand eye coordination and fine motor skills. Children are first introduced to the button frame (as pictured here). Other dressing frames include zippers, bows, laces and buckles.
Each of our casa classrooms is equipped with a yoga mat and yoga pose cards and the children really enjoy using them!
Learning to play a new instrument has its challenges, but learning to play a new instrument by Zoom is even trickier! Our upper elementary students continue to learn how to play the ukulele virtually, relying on their older, more experienced classmates as mentors.
One of our elementary teachers made this new version of Guess Who? in celebration of Black History Month and the kids love it!
“The very fact of snow is such an amazement.” -Roger Ebert
The lower elementary students made butterflies this week with modelling clay as part of their study on texture in art class. #art #texture
Learning about the skeletal system is more fun with great visuals and hands on materials.
The upper elementary students did Paul Klee inspired watercolours in art class today. #art #paulklee
Care of the environment tasks like window washing give a child a great sense of pride and ownership over their classroom. And when a child takes ownership over their space, they will begin to truly care for it. #montessori #practicallife
SNOW!!!
Today we wrap up our Home Learning Program for our elementary children as we welcome them back to in-person learning next week! We have been so impressed with all of the students’ hard work and our teachers’ creativity in keeping them engaged and learning during the closure. Of course, the involvement of our parents has been essential and we are so grateful for their support.
Tiny hands. Big concentration.
A birthday celebration in Casa is a very special occasion. Normally involving parents, when a child turns another year older, their class will gather in a circle to share photographs and stories for every year of their life. A candle (representing the Sun) and the months of the year are placed in the centre of the circle around which the child will walk one time for every trip they have taken around the Sun. While they walk around, their classmates will sing, “It takes a year for the Earth to go ‘round the Sun”. The children look forward to this special celebration every year!
A first year casa child matching sandpaper letters to items with the corresponding beginning sound. #language #montessori
Colour mixing! Using dropper bottles filled with water and colouring, the child can see how secondary colours are made by mixing the primary colours.
Some of the beautiful picture books our elementary students have been exploring for Black History Month.
The Montessori red rods are a series of ten rods that increase in length by increments of 10 cm. The basic presentation of this sensorial material has the rods placed from longest to shortest like a stair, with the purpose of helping the child develop greater visual discrimination. There are multiple extensions that can be done with the red rods, but the most popular extension is the maze. The neat thing about this extension is that it becomes a lesson in balance and coordination, as well as the construction of the maze itself. #montessori #sensorial
This casa child had an impromptu opportunity to practice her sewing skills, learned through the practical life exercises, when her coat got a tear in it! #montessori #practicallife