Orientation Night

If you missed Orientation Night on Thursday, August 21st, there's information and signatures needed from you in a folder to be picked up in the office.

In the classroom portion of the evening with parents, I emphasized the triangle of parent/child environment/teacher and responsibilities of each.

CHILD ENVIRONMENT: The classroom is known as the child's learning environment. It holds developmentally appropriate materials that appeal to the child and call to him to investigate. At the beginning of the year, however, most of the materials are covered up and the teacher is the focus as she builds a sense of how to use the room and works on community-building. Guided discoveries of each area with whole group activities in them help the children learn how to use the area prior to uncovering the materials held within it. As the child operates more and more independently in the room, the teacher takes on a more passive role and moves into an independent guide helping each child reach his/her potential.

ROLE OF THE TEACHER: My job is to set up the environment to make it as appealing as possible to the children; to observe how the children use the materials and where each has problems; to re-teach the material, slowing down where the problem areas appear for the child; to entice children to try challenging materials; to model joy of learning and teaching others; to be a care-giver and exhibit the character traits we work on all year long, including: peacefulness, respect, courage, self-discipline, kindness, etc.

ROLE OF THE PARENT: Experiencing the Montessori approach to life--not just education--involves- in fact-demands, input from the parent as well. Attending Montessori school part of the day and then reverting back to non-Montessori values limits the effect of this type of education on your child. We are going to start very simple: two things you can start immediately doing are: 1)walk up to your child to talk to him/her instead of yelling across the room. We work hard on using a peaceful, quiet voice in the room so everyone can concentrate, and insist everyone walks over to the person they want to address, so this can be modeled at home as well. and 2)protect all signs of concentration your child shows you. Do not interrupt it or allow others to. Deep concentration is the child building who they are to become.

I have handouts, too, for each parent, including a phone directory sheet, snack sign-up sheet, volunteer sheet, and some paper cut-outs to decorate. There's also a sheet explaining some of the Montessori vocabulary we use and what slippers to buy for use in the room, etc. Please come get these from me as soon as you can. I am also requesting $20 for helping with supplies. This defrays MY out-of-pocket cost, which usually amounts to well over $500 a year. (One of the handouts I have for you shows the types of things I purchased for the classroom in one year.)

This is the first time I have used a blog to keep parents in touch with what we are doing in the classroom. I welcome your comments and suggestions as I fine-tune and experiment with all this vehicle has to offer.
Sincerely,
Nancy