Thursday, October 20, 2011

Montessori Showcase

Last night we got to go to Kylie's school for her showcase. For an hour, the kids get to show the parents what they've been working on in their preschool class. The class is divided in half with the 3 year olds participating at 5pm and the 4 year olds, like Kylie, at 6 pm.

Last year, with a different set of teachers, the children got to pick what they wanted to do for showcase. Kylie surprised her teacher last year by picking things for showcase that she had never attempted before. This year, the children had a list of three things to show their parents.

Kylie's activities were the ABC Roll, bead stair and small color box. Kylie was supposed to do the ABC roll with her friend Landon. I was looking forward to watching Kylie interact with Landon on the task. Kylie can be so bossy and I wanted to see if she was that way with Landon. But Landon didn't arrive so Kylie got to do the ABC roll all by herself.

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In the basket are all the letters (the vowels are in red) and Kylie placed them on this long roll.

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She is so precise!

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When she had all the letters in place, she opened a box of small objects and matched them with a letter--like "e" for elephant and "f" for fish.

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She cracked me up when she whispered "This one is easy. My Mommy loves Y-Y-Yarn!"

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It took a while to do all the letters and objects but Kylie worked quickly and steadily. I never saw her get distracted even with all the parents in the room.

Her second activity was the Bead Stair. Kylie got a rug and showed us the proper way to unroll it. Then she quietly got her activity from the bookshelf.
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This activity had small numbered tiles and beads. She put all the tiles in order on her rug. Then she counted the beads and put them next to the matching tile.

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When that was done, she gathered the corresponding worksheet and colored pencils she would need to complete the project. She traced her numbers and colored in the beads on the worksheet. Notice how the number two bead string is green and how she used the green pencil on her worksheet for that portion.

Once her teacher checked her work, she put that task away and got out the final one--the small color box. These were small tiles that Kylie matched together. I love how she lined everything up precisely with the top of the rug. This activity had a worksheet as well but we ran out of time before she could do it. Kylie started to get upset about not finishing her work but her teacher said that she could leave it out with her name tag on it and finish it the next morning.
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Kylie was so focused. Her teachers said she was a hard worker in class. We are so proud of her and she was proud of herself!
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4 comments:

Ashley said...

I'm a long-time lurker, finally speaking up to say how cool it is to hear about Kylie's Montessori school. I went to Montessori school from age 4-grade 6 and briefly trained to be a Montessori teacher. I love seeing the familiar lessons and how wonderfully Kylie has taken to the whole educational approach. I can't wait until my son is old enough to start at my old Montessori school!

Unknown said...

This is so cool. We have very few Montessori schools here, all have waiting lists and even without twins out of my price range. I have been introducing many of the materials and practices at home though.
Way to go.

kiles1670 said...

well done Kylie, you are a very clever "big" girl

Kerry Lynn said...

Wow! I don't Madison could match up ALL of the items to the proper letter! I think that's really impressive!