Relationships between humans can be quite tricky to navigate.
As we roll into winter, I am noticing a growing restlessness within many of the kids. This is normal, of course. In the physical classroom, winter months can be a challenge too. I am sure virtual school will add another layer to this, making the next few months even more complex..
Follow the child is a common term you will hear within the Montessori community.
One of Dr. Maria Montessori’s core tenets was the directive to “follow the child.” In the classroom, this means allowing children to experience and engage in activities independently. The inverse is also true: It means resisting the urge to lead the child but instead to create an environment encouraging self-direction.
Freedom with responsibility is defined as a person’s ability to make responsible choices and to then have the discipline to carry them out in society. It is a learned behavior. Dr. Montessori believed the mind developed like this up to the age of about six. She explored the idea of freedom within the crucial text, The Absorbant Mind.
Expository writing can be used for different purposes. It can be used to provide a reader with explanations, the steps in a process or evidence supporting an argument. The writing is defined by logical sequencing and transitions. An expository essay requires the writer to research and investigate an idea, gather supporting evidence, and present a point of view or argument on the topic. This can be done through multiple methods. It can be done through compare and contrast, cause and effect or examples. In my classroom, we simply refer to it as “research writing.”
Virtual School: 2020 has ushered in unprecedented learning challenges. It was as if the whole world changed in one day back in March, throwing everything we knew on its head. Dining room tables furnished with tablets and Chromebooks were transformed into stay-at-home classrooms. In an instant, parents and caregivers became distance learning teachers to their children. There was no way to prepare for this.
Then came fall. Teachers were told they would now be teaching very differently. Most of us were thrown into the frying pan with little to no training. Career teachers suddenly felt like they were starting over. All those classroom procedures and lessons they spent perfecting over decades were now useless.
Dictionaries. These days you can quickly find most anything online. This includes definitions of new words. According to my students, it is so much easier to just ask Alexa than to open a book. While observing my students trying to navigate their way through a printed dictionary in our classroom, they will randomly open to a middle page and then get stuck. I will next suggest, “find the first letter in the word.” That student will often reply, “I don’t know how to.” After explaining how to just follow the alphabet and helping them to maneuver to the first letter, I will then ask them to find the second letter in the word. The usual response? “I don’t know how to.”
ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), also called ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) or sometimes a combination of both, can make certain activities difficult for those struggling from it. These activities includes learning or completing large amounts of work.
ADHD/ADD behaviors in students are becoming more and more observable in the classroom each year. This is true whether it is in a virtual classroom or in a physical classroom..
Listening actively is becoming more and more of a lost art. Why? Today’s world has sped up dramatically. It sometimes even feels as if time is moving faster. Consequently, it is difficult for many of us to slow down, pause and reflect on our days.
As a result, it feels as if some very important life skills have become more and more difficult for many students to understand and master. These include: Slowing down, sitting silently for a prolonged period of time and actively listening when others are speaking.
Focused, challenging reading is so important for everyone (big and small) to do each and every day. Current research supports reading from a printed book format helps even further. The printed format seems to offer higher levels of comprehension and retention than reading text from a computerized screen: “When reading long, linear, continuous texts over multiple pages that require a certain amount of concentration, referred to as “Deep Reading.”
Montessori Second Plane of Development: “Cosmic Education” is the plan Dr. Maria Montessori developed for children during the elementary ages or, as she named it, the second plane of development. She believed children at this age would be motivated to learn by being given a broad view of the universe and all of its great forces.
Through Cosmic Education, children learn everything in the universe has a cosmic task to fulfill. During the second plane, teachers (also referred to as guides) offer the universe to children so that in time each child will realize her own potentiality; it is to help each individual child find her place in the universe.