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."