I pretended to be a raccoon today!

That was a lot of math for one day... After going through all the didactical characteristics of Montessori materials, possible ground rules (I particularly liked one school-wide ground rule another student brought up, "Be safe, kind, and gentle"), and the sensitive periods, we did math.

Lots of math. How the child learns to count linearly, recognize the numerals, get the concepts of zero, teens, tens, hundreds, the decimal system, etc. The golden beads amaze me. It starts with just one golden bead, and the child learns that that is one unit (just like you could have a unit of shoe, or a unit of pencil). Then they can use ten of those units, to equal a ten bar, and then ten of the ten bars can equal a hundred square, then ten of those is the same as a thousand cube (which can also be formed by the thousand chain), and so on and so forth. It's pretty mesmerizing. Everything is incredibly well thought-out and connects with the other materials (color coding beyond just the golden beads) so that it is more concrete and interrelated for the child. We were able to add, subtract, multiply and divide large numbers (in the thousands) without using any paper or pencil. We just used the Montessori materials to concretely find the answer, even if it involved exchanging or carrying. (In a subtraction game, I got to be the raccoon who steals hot dogs from a sleeping family, because she has lots of hungry babies at home (i.e. I stole the certain amount that we wanted to subtract from our original number)! In the morning, the campers had to figure out how many hot dogs they had left. The bank game was particularly helpful, because it helped me change out ten bars and hundreds so I could steal the correct amount (just enough for my number of babies... which was about 2784 or something like that... yikes).

Of course, we also got to see a little slide show about Maria Montessori; it was really neat to see the pictures of her family, and of Maria herself at the age of ten, when she was "supposed" to be finished with school, when she graduated the equivalent of high school at sixteen, when she graduated from med school, and when her first book was published.

Anyway, it's been quite the week! I learned a LOT about the 3-6 world, and am just even more excited about starting the birth-3 classes on Monday. Meanwhile, I'm going into NYC tomorrow to do some touring around with a group from CMTE-NY, and also meeting up with my cousin Joachim! So it should be a fun-filled day. :)

Today's quote: "I'm so gushy I practically need duct tape over my mouth." (In reference to holding back distracting praise of a student's work)

Blue skies!

Ah, I'm always amazed how much weather can impact my mood. Today was sunny and beautiful, full of blue skies and slight, cool breezes; this is weather I could get used to. It made me feel like I could conquer the world! This morning I was also able to sleep in past dawn a bit, so that helped.

In class, we discussed the three-period lesson, actually acted out with a real child (the same helper from yesterday). It was an informative way to introduce us to the geometric solids! (side note, an unwrapped Toblerone is a triangular prism, in case you were wondering.) Of course, the shining stars today were the binomial and trinomial cubes. I've seen them before and heard about them, but never understood what they were for. I won't be able to explain it here, really, but I will say the binomial cube is a concrete, physical representation of the formula:

a^3 + 3(a^2 b) + b^3 + 3(ab^2) = (a + b)^3

The trinomial cube, on the other hand, is a physical representation of the formula:

a^3 + 3(a^2 b) + 3(a^2 c) + b^3 + 3(ab^2) + 3(b^2 c) + c3 + 3(ac^2) + 3(bc^2) + 6(abc) = (a + b + c)^3

Maria Montessori wanted to make mathematics understandable on a sensorial and concrete level. If you can get your hands on one of these cubes (with a trained guide to present it to you, of course), it will definitely be concrete! The idea is that when the child learns to build these cubes, he will begin to visualize each piece when he sees part of the corresponding formula, because he knows where the numbers are coming from. Suffice it to say, that with this presentation, the formula made complete sense to me; I just wish I had learned it this way to begin with!

Now that I've completely lost most of you, I will say that I was able to walk around campus today and take some pictures of the lovely buildings and grounds. So hopefully this weekend I can get some of those posted!

We also got to explore the Children's House environment that is set up for the full training at that level. Everything was so beautifully arranged, and it felt like an honor to just be in there! It was so calming to observe the students (adult students, I mean) practicing the calculated choreography of each work.

And for today's quote, which I think is especially relevant to our Young Children's Community:

"Nurture the exploration; help with the clean-up."

It sure does rain a lot here...

...I think it has rained every single day since I came up to NJ / NY a whole week ago! At least it's keeping it nice and cool. :)

First of all, I should clarify that this week is sort of a serious crash course in the 3-6 curriculum specifically. I am excited about this for a few reasons: the first Montessori classroom I ever laid eyes on was for that age level; the first classroom I worked in at Mariposa was for that level; and this past school year, I still got to visit that environment twice a week to lead music classes. So of course, I'm totally interested in what happens at that point in development. Besides, it's where my toddlers go when they leave me!

So, today we talked a lot about practical life (including care of the environment and care of self) and sensorial work. Our instructor has set up an environment for us to observe and interact with, and we had time today to really explore the materials. I got to try out the sound cylinders, lots of pouring and transfer work, penny polishing, corn tweezing, color mixing (to discover secondary colors) and a fellow student gave me a lesson on the binomial cube! Throughout the day, we also made bread by hand (from scratch), fried an egg, built sculptures (with the red rods, brown stairs, and pink tower), scrubbed a table, chopped an apple, and a host of other activities. There are so many interesting pieces of work! I was especially impressed that a three-year-old would be able to complete the bread-making and egg-frying cycles successfully. We also spent a lot of time talking about nutrition and how much diet affects the child (this is something I plan on doing more research about on my own over the next few weeks).

Quote of the day: "White sugar is not a food; it's a drug."

We also had a special guest in our classroom today: a child! The executive director's 7-year-old granddaughter visited us, and gave us a hand with the demonstrations. It was nice to see a child in the environment! But it also made me miss my students back in Austin.

Anyway, I am beat. Don't get too used to this daily posting... it probably won't last. :)

Day 1

Greetings!

I arrived yesterday in New Rochelle, and got situated pretty quickly. Instead of just assigning us a room, the coordinator brought us around to a few rooms and let us choose one ourselves. I was able to get one of the last rooms on the air-conditioned hall (the rooms are still sans AC, but they're a little cooler because of the AC in the hallway). I still don't have a roommate; maybe I just lucked out, but it seems there are fewer people than they expected, and we are all just spread throughout the dorm. Anyway, it's a little quiet, but I'm hoping to get a lot of productive studying done, distraction-free.

The campus is quite cozy... especially in comparison to what I was used to at UNC Chapel Hill. It's nice to be able to walk just two buildings down to the Student Center for breakfast, then just walk up the stairs to class. And if I need to use the library, it's just the building in between our dorm and the Student Center (which also houses the College's bookstore). Convenient, eh? It is also a beautiful campus. The buildings look like small castles, and, don't quote me on this, but I heard our dorm used to actually be a convent (the College of New Rochelle began as a small Catholic women's school). The chapel is right across from our dorm.

This week, I am taking classes giving an introduction to Montessori philosophy. We have class all day, 9-4:30, with a break for lunch. I must admit, it's a LOT of information. This evening I've been typing up my notes from class, and it ended up being about 6 pages of single-spaced bullets. And that was just the first day! And it isn't even focusing on my particular age group yet (Infant-Toddler classes start next week). I am slightly concerned I'll get carpal tunnel by the end of the summer.

Apparently, I am going to have to change my eating habits a bit; the dining hall actually closes at 6pm every day (Monday through Friday). I feel like I'm back in high school, having to eat dinner early before rushing off to band practice! But there's pretty good variety, the salad bar is reeeally good, and there's coffee. We all know that last one is the most important component, anyway... And it was definitely a sudden (college) flashback, putting my lunch tray down on that conveyor belt.

After classes, I checked out the student bookstore and purchased an ethernet cord I ended up not needing and a sweatshirt to wear in the classroom (freezing AC...), then headed back to the dorm to do some laundry! Definitely starting to settle in.

It has been fun meeting all these Montessorians, especially the teachers and coordinators. I can already tell I have so much to learn from them, and can't wait for them to start talking and demonstrating and sharing their ideas.

The one downside is that I'm really missing Toby, my family, my friends, my school, my coworkers, my students, my home. But I know that this is where I need to be right now, and that this is really changing my whole outlook on life and the way I interact with people... child and adult alike.

And this was just the first day.

New Beginnings!

Though I have had other blogs in the past, I wanted to start anew at this important juncture in my life. In about three weeks, I will begin my training to become a certified Infant-Toddler Montessori Guide. I am psyched, and would like to document my journey through this process. This way, my friends and family will be able to keep up with me while I am away, and I will have something to look back on later on in life. And who knows, maybe someone out in the blogging world could benefit from my troubles and triumphs! So cheers; here's to new beginnings.