From birth through the first 3 years, humans experience the most profound and dramatic development of life! The infant develops starting from the head down.  A process called melanization occurs that connects the child's body and promotes movement starting from the head first and ending at the feet. This is apparent in the first few months when we see the child holding up their head when placed on their tummies on a flat surface. Within a short time, the child goes from the ability to move their head, to rolling over, standing up, walking, and speaking.

         Lately, our class has been focusing on the concept of what it means to live within a community-- treating our environment and others with the utmost respect and kindness.  A large part of cultivating this culture of mindfulness among young children starts with emotional awareness.  Why emotional awareness?  It's important that children learn to process, regulate, and express their emotions in healthy ways so that they can engage with others and their environment in healthy ways as well. 

       I wanted to briefly touch on the importance of established routines.  As most of you know, established routines are vitally important to your child's sense of security. Often, when children have something on their minds or are concerned about "what happens next," they are too preoccupied to focus on the task at hand. When they can routinely predict what's going to happen next, children can dedicate more energy and concentration to their current work because they are not anticipating any surprises.

There's a beautiful blog post by Seth D. Webb, the Instructional Leader for the Upper Elementary Department at Free Horizon Montessori, a charter public school in Golden, Colorado, regarding the value of children-centered learning. He gives a beautiful example of what lies underneath the children's work and their more significant connection to their environment and how we, adults, may only perceive what is above the surface, which is easier to see. His post brings awareness to the critical thinking of an excelled child.

As some of you noticed and will notice in the next few weeks, we are working hard on our gardens and hope to have them budding with life over the upcoming months.  We hope that the children gain a valuable experience through this and expand their pallets, eating habits, knowledge of food and how it's produced, and also to see the process of seed to fruit (veggies).  We hope to embrace organic gardening practices with no chemical fertilizers or sprays in our garden. 

I heard from many of you that your children love to sing you the songs they learn in class.  I recently read a great article on the importance of singing in early education settings and thought I would share some key points.  

I was thinking of you all this morning as I was taking a leisurely stroll to the office with two of my very sweet yet very inquisitive children. You know the type. The never-ending “why, why, why, why” type. I truly believe it consists of 75% curiosity and 25% subconscious knowledge that it will eventually drive the adult batty. As I was randomly spitting out answers that would satisfy their curiosity yet entertain me I realized that I have been giving out a lot of answers lately.

I would like to share with you a new Montessori Blog by Miss Donna Bryant Goertz who is the founder of Austin Montessori School in Austin, Texas, and who also acts as a resource to schools around the world entitled "Instead of Punishment."  She gives us an insight into what happens when two friends at school get into a situation when one of them becomes hurt.  What do we do then, as the adults, trying to resolve

I would like to give you a few tips on how you can prepare a Montessori environment at home.

                Maria Montessori (1870-1952) noticed that young children are naturally drawn to the types of things that allow them to put their sense of order to use. They also have an inner developmental need to gain independence. This certainly seems to be true for most toddlers that I know.