The St. Peter’s Montessori Preschool/Kindergarten classrooms are very busy and many different “works” and reading groups take place simultaneously throughout the building.
The preschool girls are at the reading table in the sensorial room downstairs. Here the students (no matter the age) begin their reading journey with their “green books”. Day after day, teacher and students, together, work on identifying upper-case letters. Teachers review and teach different strategies to do this–and students are awarded a sticker for each letter they SOLIDLY master the letters. There is no hurry and emphasis is on ensuring this foundation to be solid enough to support a lifetime of learning!
Almost every day, Montessori teachers read with each child individually. After mastering uppercase letter recognition, the child is able to attend computer class in the elementary. (A big big deal!) Next the readers will head upstairs to work on reading skills–lowercase recognition while at the same time SOUNDS! That continues–step by step–until the children of all ages (2 1/2 up to 6+) are reading!
The young boy working on his sounds, specifically the “H” in the photo, is enjoying his “work”. It is an amazing phonics-based system of creating amazing readers!
In the photos with students doing the scissors “work”, children who have been in Montessori for several years intermingle with the new, younger students and often help teach. Maria Montessori loved having this mix for this very reason. It teachers so many desired life skills–patience, empathy, respect, cooperation and responsibility.
The two young boys working on their geometric shapes have just put away a “work” on geometric shapes and are now using a punching tool to poke holes around the shape they chose to do that day. After many days of work, they will have books of their own (and new knowledge) of shapes including curvilinear triangles, quadrefoil, trapezoid, rhombus.
Thank you to Kathy Beres for these photos and “works” updates.