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. :)