A Day in the Life

We have a guest, Tino, who is helping me with my computer and I am entering a world that leaves me in trepidation. There are some buttons on my computer that I had no idea could make my life a little simpler. Oh well, we live and we learn. I want to welcome you into a normal day at school, as well as show you my kiddos, my treasure….

Here is Noly, our school “cocinera” who prepares the children’s lunch with 2 helpers each day. The boys are some of our most willing cooks! The work space is chid-size which probably gives Noly back problems……

Josepha is teaching one of our students math using our Montessori didactic material….

Our girls washing their hands in the pila, used to wash clothes, vegetables, take a sponge

bath (not here of course, but at home!!!)

In heavy discussion during lunch break!

Lunch straggler!

Here I am listening to one of our children ‘reading’ a primer. He can’t but boy does he make

Us all believe he can, we were trying hard not to snicker!

Learning sequence…..

This material is called metal insertions and is a pre-writing skill. The children earn to hold a pencil and trace the forms.

This particular day the first graders held their first puppet theater performance about racism! Just a few hiccups but all went well and the children were proud of their team work!

The year so far has been one of lots of smiles and hugs here! The children who came for the first time were timid and hesitant….for about one week and then it was as if they had been with us for the past two year! The changes that we have seen in those who were a little bit of a challenge in the beginning are amazing to us. In fact, we had administrators from the Dept. of Education come down and visit us for a day and I happened to be absent that day. One of our girls was constructing the pink tower (blocks that are graduated in size). The administrator asked the little girl “how many parts are there”. One of our boys looked at her and ‘translated’ for him. He said to her, “he wants to know how many cubes there are?” Hahaha! Correcting the administrator…love it. Then when they were eating lunch, the men had joined them and the children reminded them that they had to wash their own dishes just like they did. The men were impressed and said that they had visited schools that said they were Montessori but clearly were in name only but we actually taught the method. That’s pretty good considering that we have had so little formal training before we opened up. About less than six weeks to be exact!

 

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