week 9/2-9/5

The weather is beginning to show signs of fall, with its cooler mornings and shorter days. We spent the week celebrating the remaining summer hours by playing in the sun and water while we were outdoors.
These two students are fishing with magnetic poles, a popular water table activity.


Each week we will be featuring an activity in the Montessori environment. It is our hope that these little windows into the classroom will be informative, foster community and encourage an ongoing dialog.

The sequence of the Language Area begins with the development of the child’s oral communication, starting with oral language lessons that increase vocabulary. Then the child is introduced to sounds and symbols. These lessons help the child to identify the sounds each letter makes. The exploration of sounds and symbols begins with the ‘I Spy’ game. This activity helps the child develop his/her auditory skills and fosters the child’s awareness that spoken words are composed of individual sounds.

We begin an initial lesson by removing several objects from a box, saying the name of each one and emphasizing the first sound as we do. Once all the objects are laid out, we place an object (for example, a mop) in one hand. With the other hand we form a spyglass to peer through.

"I spy with my little eye, something that begins with a "m'" (here we are using the phonetic sound).

The child then guesses, "mop", and so on, incorporating more objects as appropriate.

Children sometimes, require varied repetition of this game to ascertain its objective and to discriminate among the sounds.

After initial sounds are isolated, we can play the game listening for ending sounds and then middle sounds.

It was another wonderful week of getting to know one another and the classroom.

We look forward to the weeks and months ahead. See you soon.