Update on my Classroom

Well, the month of February has been particularly hard on my classroom. As I knew it would be. The children were gone for nearly two weeks so they forget a lot and their concentration levels certainly decreased more than I am accustomed to in America. I think it's because when they are at home in China and away from school they are so much less independent and are taken care of by their caregivers so much that they forget to do anything for themselves. And also, we've had five new children join us along with four that left to be a part of the new Primary classroom. So you can do the math and figure out what an adjustment it has been for them and for me.

But things are looking up. The new ones are somewhat settled in... read, they are not crying when they arrive each and every day. And they are getting used to the routine. They all happen to be girls which I think have an easier time assimilating to the new environment. Not saying that I don't like three year old boys but right now I don't have the most normalized classroom and boys are easily swayed into playing around and goofing off and they would definitely change the tone of my already unstable classroom. I know it's not the best stereotype, but I'm making it. So the girls... they are all sweet in their own way. And today I was giving a lesson where the child learns to match color tablets of the primary colors. It was the first lesson. She enjoyed the lesson and was excited that she could do it and came over to show me. It had also snowed for the first time this winter in Beijing and the snow was on the ground. We stared at the snow for a second and then she looked at a picture I had displayed of fresh snowfall on the trees and on a hill and she said, "It matches!"

DING DING DING! The child was abstracting to the real world! Success. I did my job. She was able to take the previous lesson of matching colors and the vocabulary of it and use it in a real world situation. As other Montessorians out there will know that one of our main goals in the environment is to get the children to experience the world sensorially and then to use that knowledge as keys to the outside world. So that was a great story from today.

I am going to a dance class tonight for the first time in over six years. It's been on my goals list for about a year now and especially because I didn't have my ice skates with me this winter I really need an outlet for self expression. I'll fill you in on it in my next post.