October | 2015 | Primary 1

Many of the Montessori works are truly hands on, with no paperwork trail to reflect the effort required to do the work.

This is especially true in many of the math jobs, sensorial, and in the practical life areas of the classroom.

On the other hand, you may see small strips of paper with letters traced on it, pin punched papers, and even math papers referencing the color bead stair coming home, not knowing the source of this work.

Early letter recognition is practiced using the “blue stepboard.” A strip of four letters is placed in the board and the student is asked to match the letter from the board to the strip. When they are correct, the letter fits; when it is not the right match, the letter will not fit.

The tracing paper is inserted into the board and the letters are copied.

As the child progresses in their recognition of letters, more demanding strips will be used and the student will be given the chance to fill in with the beginning sound of a word, then ending sounds of a word. Finally, a simple picture is found on the strip and the student spells the entire word.

Pin punching looks deceptively easy when the work is brought home, but the labor and fine motor skills required are noteworthy. Whether the child is pin punching a metal insert design (triangle or square), or they are pin punching a seasonal shape (pumpkin or turkey), the level of concentration is immense.

The child is holding a push pin with the pincer grip (between the thumb and the first and second fingers) and is literally punching out consecutive holes around the perimeter of the shape. If a student is deliberate in their work, the shape is easily extracted from the page. If they have not sufficiently punched in enough holes, it is harder to remove it from its original page.

Often, a teacher will hold up the pin punching work to the window to check the quantity of holes before they attempt to tear it out effectively. The child can then see if they have pin punched enough holes to tear it out easily.

Finally, you may have seen paperwork showing a progression of 1-9 where the numbers are traced and the corresponding beads are colored with their specific color. For instance, the one bead is always red, the two beads are green.

The bead stair: 1-10

You are looking at a foundational Montessori math work. One of Dr. Montessori’s chief insights into educating children was to recognize that a child will likely learn better and retain the information longer, if they are taught from the concrete (holding a one bead in their hands) then introducing the abstract (this is the number one).

The one to one correspondence begins to take hold, where the child realizes that they are holding “one” and that the name of that concept is the number one. You will see papers reflecting this work when bead stair papers are coming home.

THANKS

A great big thanks to Dr. Montes (Gabrielle’s Dad) for bringing in his portable x-ray viewing machine and sharing several copies of broken bones and swallowed objects (pennies, keys). The children are currently studying bones, so it was a wonderful addition to their studies.

THANKS

Also, we were treated to an informative and amusing presentation by Dr. Valencia (Gabriel and Lucas’ father) regarding the heart. The models of the heart were quite the delight of the children, especially when the valves were easily removed. Thanks to Dr. Valencia for giving a big lesson in easy terms that the children responded to.

Thank you to all of the parents who helped make our Celebrate America Day, inspiring and fun! We appreciate your time, and the wonderful supplies that you provided.

A great big thank you to William and Enaara (and their families) for providing bountiful and delicious snacks, and beautiful flowers.

REMINDERS

No school on Friday, (10/30) in celebration of Nevada Day!

No school Wednesday-Friday (11/11-11/13) due to celebrating Veteran’s Day and teacher in-service days.

Australian animals will be here on Tuesday (11/16) visiting us in the Multi-Purpose Room at 10am.

Picture retake day is Thursday (11/19).

Kindergarten field trip to Red Rock Canyon is on Thursday (11/19).

Using the pincer grasp.

Developing the pincer grasp in a Montessori classroom is a milestone in development for children.

The urge to grasp objects between the thumb and the first and second fingers is a fine motor skill begun typically near twelve months old. It is a natural way of developing a skill in childhood that will be used during an entire lifetime.

Any time you use a fork, a spoon, cut paper, zip a zipper, tie your shoelace, thread a needle, or write a letter you are using a pincer grasp.

The importance of training the hand to comfortably hold a pencil in the pincer grasp can not be understated. Writing is the gateway to reading from the Montessori perspective.

With a developed pincer grasp, a child can practice writing letters and numbers in a left to right direction and begin training their eyes to scan the page in the same way, as when reading text.

One of the most common signs of an undeveloped pincer grasp is when a child holds the pencil with their entire fist, instead of with their thumb and first two fingers.

This is can be remedied with developing the muscles in the hand and giving the child the feel of using the correct grasp while they are stringing beads, grasping pom poms, and transferring small objects from one bowl to another. It is also helpful to gently help the child readjust their fingers to the pincer grasp when they have used their fist to hold the pencil instead.

Another component to developing smooth writing skills is to encourage the child to rest the writing hand fully on the writing surface. Often, a new student is able to grasp the pencil in the right way, but their hand is high up on the pencil instead of having the outside of the hand making contact with the table.

The practical life area of a Montessori classroom is dedicated to developing the fine motor skills and concentration needed to have a pincer grasp. With its array of jobs, including the easier grasping and transferring of objects from one container to another, to pouring jobs, and eventually the more difficult tweezing jobs; the student’s sense of using their pincer grasp is developed and refined.

THANK YOU

Thank you, thank you, thank you to Jessica Nordling and Grace for beautifully stamping the names of our P1 students on their red tote bags.

Visiting our neighborhood fire station.

We are grateful to the parents who chaperoned our first Kindergarten field trip to our local fire station. It was a very positive experience for the children and we appreciate your contribution to making the field trip safe, informative and fun.

After the field trip at the fire station, the Kindergarten class enjoyed playing at Amador Park.

Thank you to our copying, cutting and laminating mavens who generously give to our classroom in helping us make fresh, new jobs for our students.

REMINDERS

PTO’s Fall Festival is next Friday night (October 9th) starting at 5pm. It is the first of our school wide events, and a fun time not to be missed! You may purchase tickets from PTO members who are set up in our quad. Also, there are silent auction items to bid on, many of which are displayed in the office.