Montessori

On Wednesday I had the opportunity to stay for the first circle time in Evie's classroom.  It's a Montessori classroom and so they have circle to start the day, circle before lunch, and circle at the end of the day, and during this time they sing songs, share stories, learn how do to a new activity or "work", and build community.  The teacher is very good about welcoming parents into the classroom, so I was one of two moms who stayed for circle time on Wednesday and it was a delight.

Evie and the other children were very involved and attentive the whole time.  They enjoyed singing along with the teacher to a song called "Throw It Out the Window" which takes nursery rhymes and puts them into situations where one character or another throws the other one(s) out the window.  For example:

Little Miss Muffet sat on her tuffet

Eating her curds and whey.

Along came a spider and sat down beside her

And threw her out the window, the window

The second story window

Along came a spider and sat down beside her

And threw her out the window.

The kids love the zaniness of the story, and the teacher stops and talks about the vocabulary in the rhyme that they may not know (like, what is curds and whey?).  The kids had the opportunity to volunteer a particular character or animal to be thrown out the window (my dad retitled this situation to the Great Defenestration), and Evie volunteered characters twice.  I was impressed that even though she is the youngest in this class of 3-year-olds to kindergartners, she was able to keep up with the song and volunteer appropriate characters, though her teacher didn't know any songs about camels, which was Evie's first suggestion.

After a couple of songs, the teacher showed them how to make a collage using scraps and then it was time for the kids to choose their works.  Evie asked for art and started walking over.  I followed her, but I had told her before observing that I would need to leave after circle and she remember that fact and said, "It's time for you to go, Mama."  So I left her perfectly contented with her art project.

Two language funnies, both from our dinner with Granna and Grannadaddy last night.  While eating at her little table, she got some food in on the table.  I said, "Evie, what are you doing?"  She said, "I'm messing."  Later after someone said something funny and all four of us (me, Seth, Mom, and Dad) laughed, she asked, "What's you funnying?"