Theme of the week~ Face

This week we are making face, drawing face on the A4 paper, scribble on the paper plate and even making face on the biscuit. Children like their age group really need to practice all these activities to master their hand eye coordination. They really enjoy the face cracker activity.

How to make face on the biscuit?

1st: prepare the biscuit.

2nd: apply the peanut butter.

3rd: make eyes, nose and mouth using raisin

4th: eat.

Look very easy for adult, but when come to the time when they need to apply peanut butter, they really facing some difficulties, but at last they still can solve it by themselves.

Attached with some photos. Enjoy

Montessori

How can a child take care of his/herself and others when he/she only 1.5 years old?

Well, you might be impressed with Maria Montessori way of teaching.

Practical life- in short we always call it as PL, is one way to train the child to take care of he/himself and also taking care of others.

PL include:

Changing shoes

Dressing frame, dress up by themselves even the shirt is on zip, Velcro, button etc.

Self clean (hair, teeth etc)

Toilet train

The activities above are about care of self.

Grace and Courtesy

Table manners

Sharing

The activities above are about Social skills.

Opening and closing

Cutting and pasting

These activities will help children to develop their fine motor skills

Dusting and sweeping

use of peg, washing up

Scrubbing table,

care of garden, pet

Those activities are about care of environment

You will realized that the child is not only know about the knowledge on taking care of self/ others, but the child will also understand what is the responsibility he/she should bear after using the utensils or after using the table for example.

So those are what i am doing with my 19 months daughter... not only that but also my "babies" in school.

Attached with the photos, you all can check out how much they like about this activities. the concentration they have when they are doing those activities are amazing, this can proof that children can really learn with those Montessori apparatus. So check out more about Montessori Apparatus in all Montessori center, or the Educational Games shops, you will be impress with your child development.

English Language Reading Program

Children nowadays are smart, unfortunately when parents are too busy to take care of their own children, the "kakak" will be the one who need to take the responsible to take care of those little "angles", even in charge of their lesson too.

So as a teacher, i think of giving them the program called English Language Reading Program in order for them to read more, learn more. I know some of them might be wondering:" what is that regarding to?" I would said, this is a program that same like reward program. Children will learn/do revision for the wording that they used to learn during their lesson. If they can read out the word, loud and clear, they will get 1 mark for each word, the highest mark child will get a present. Of course, the children which are not doing well will also get the present as consolation prize. Yes, the children love this program very much, i think this would encourage them to read more.

Here, i would like to wish :"Congratulation to all winners!"

The photos are the 1st, 2nd and 3rd prize winner with their teachers, also included the group photos from the children who take part in the contest.

Montessori Convention 2009

I really enjoyed the Convention, is really the good one.

Mr Lee Harvis give me a lot of different concept about Montessori teaching which is totally different from the way i used to learn in college. Thank you Mr Lee

In next article, i might have some time to share some notes about what MR Lee taught in the convention. But i still need sometimes to arrange the notes in order to share:)

New term

After a long holiday, the school re-open again.

Most of my students who reach their 3 years old will be moving to 3 years old class which is is in-charge by another aunty( Montessori directress didn't give a name of teacher in this school) and they get to learn something new in the new area.

For me, i get few of the new students who come in for the 1st day, as usual... the children cry for mummies... well, montessori materials are always the good subject to caught their attention. They will be stop looking for their mummies after they started to pay attention to the materials.

I realised they like pouring activities soooo much, they will pour and pour, again and again until they think that's enough. It's doesn't matter because this is also one way of practice, good for their hands and eyes coordination. Maybe they can also help out for housework one day.

Art

Montessori encourage children to work byself, in order for the children to work byself, every sets of apparatus in montessori school have control of error.
Unfortunately, not all the "subject" can be fix by control of error, the "subject" that i talk about is art. Art is so subjective, the artist who produce the art work might think he/her art is the pretty, so do we as a parents, we would never think our children art works are not nice, not pretty, even we don't really understand on what he/she is drawing.
Unfortunately, most of the schools are not really display children's art work on the art board, but they only showing what have been touch up by the teachers/montessori directress. Some even worst, the art works that used to display on the board is teachers/montessori directress's work.
Parents, give me some opinions, do you like to see the children art work or the one that have been touch up by the teachers/montessori directress? Do you like to see children's art work or teachers/montessori directress' s work?
Montessori School owner, what would you do if the teachers are doing children's art work? will you trying to stop her or let her carry on? Then what is the purpose of setting up montessori school?
Remember, Montessori always encourage independent!

Montessori School

To enrol your children to Montessori School, you do not have to wait until she is 4/5 years old. Just send he/she in 2 years old, you will be suprise when you see he/she learn alot of things in Montessori Environment.
He/she might come home one day and show you how he/she can button his/her own shirt, or maybe tying his/her own shoe lace, or wiping table after dinner time and alot more activities that he/she will do to suprise you.
Besides, do you think a 2 years old children can socialize well? The answer more likely is no. But in Montessori Environment, children learn on how to become more socialize. He/she will sharing toys with each other, "communicate" with each others rather than quarrel/ fighthing. This is because the Montessori teacher will help out the children to know each others, to love each others.
Each set of Montessori Apparatus is having a magic power too. Children learn to share because there is no other sets of the same apparatus for them to use on, if they want to use the particular apparatus, they should wait. Once the children finished using the particular apparatus, he/she will put the apparatus back to the shelf and the children who are waiting willtake their turn, walk to the shelf to take that particular apparatus. Of course, the children who are waiting just now must return the apparatus they are using (while waiting) to the original place before taking the apparatus that they have been waiting for. In other word, Children also learn discipline and order in Montessori Environment.
Overall, Dr Maria Montesori had create an easy way for the children to learn more