Coping with Cabin Fever
Winter weather finds many parents and children spending more time indoors than usual. Don’t let that keep your child from engaging in big gross motor work. Read below for some expert tips on cold weather play from Ms. Jenny Wyrick, one of our Young Children’s Community guides.
1. Get the right gear.
All over the world, as long as they are properly clothed, children safely head outside in all seasons. Gloves are incredibly difficult for young children so search for toddler mittens. Snow bibs help to keep cold air and snow from sneaking up above the waist and boots allow for lots of time before little toes start to get cold. Shorten the length of time that you spend outside and be sure to keep moving. Jogging, climbing, and shoveling are great. Consider pulling out the gardening tools from summer time. Don’t forget to get yourself the right gear so that you can be comfortable while exploring winter with your child.
2. Set up an indoor obstacle course.
This is one of the most fun things! It can change every day. Use what you have– you don’t even need any fancy equipment. Elements of your course can be as simple as climbing over a chair, scooting under a table, or running around a shoe on the floor. Want some other ideas? How about climbing over a pile of pillows, sliding under a blanket hung between two chairs, jumping over an empty tube of wrapping paper, or carrying a heavy box across a room? Add a timer and the whole game is suddenly even more fun.
3. Dance!
Turn on a variety of music and explore how changing tempos and rhythms make our bodies want to move in different ways. Freeze dance is an absolute fave– when the music stops, everyone freezes and laughter abounds! Maybe this is the time for you to join in and finally figure out how to do the floss. Add gymnastics to the beat with jumping jacks, hopping on one foot, push-ups, sit-ups, leg lifts, somersaults, crawling, or even some yoga poses.
4. Clean!
Even cleaning the house can include some energetic movements. Give your child a spray bottle, a cloth, or a mop, and show them how to clean the kitchen floor. This is a wonderful way to let your child concentrate, move, and help. Water work always engages children. Remember, this kind of mess is easy to clean with some old towels and the benefits of their efforts are priceless. Contributing to the work of the family increases self-esteem and self-confidence and offers a sense of belonging and value.
Movement is important for your child’s developing body all year long. It will also offer an invaluable opportunity to burn energy even while confined inside during cold weather.
Jenny Wyrick
Young Children’s Community Teacher
Check our website next month for another round of tips from our experts!
Self Construction and Independence in the YCC
Self Construction and Independence in the YCC
by Jenny Wyrick
Young Child Community Teacher, Chesapeake Montessori School
There are moments when I look around my classroom and wonder about the future. Who will these children become? How will they contribute to the world? What will they be like as adults?
I know that there is only one person who holds the full responsibility for who this young child will become – that is the child herself. It is the child who will create the adult that is developing. What a wonder that is! Montessori tells us, “We must think of the child from the point of view of the miracles it accomplishes. No construction is greater than that which makes humanity.” (Montessori, 2012). Regardless of any situation for any child, within a few short decades he or she will have created an adult.
Above is a photo of Cooper using the Velcro frame. This activity isolates the task of learning to use Velcro, while also offering repetition and practice. Cooper is learning movement skills and developing his ability to concentrate, but also is gaining a skill which will transfer to his life. Soon he’ll be able to Velcro his apron when setting the table or take off his own shoes, and even help a classmate with their shoes. These moments of independence will give him an abundance of positive experiences as he develops all those skills we hope he’ll gain as he constructs himself. Plus, look how much fun he is having!
Now, it is useful to remember that the child does not create himself in isolation. He is part of a community and he resembles the community he is part of as he grows. Here is where our roles as parents and educators become so vitally important. We want to offer the child physical, social, and emotional environments that demonstrate the best we can provide, knowing that these contributions will support the young person’s development of herself as a truly amazing person. We know that the child has a strong drive for independence, from the 2-year old who wants to put on his own shoes (by himself!) to the adolescent who wants to complete that project in her own way, with her own time-frame.
Children crave self-worth and value contributing to care of themselves and care of other people.
Here is a photo of James and Hunter. They are making pizza for the YCC to eat for snack. Some of their other classmates helped with this process as well. While none of the children in the YCC are quite ready to do a complicated process of this sort entirely independently, they are gaining enormous skills in both physical independence (where they can DO something) and psychological independence (where they FEEL CONFIDENT in doing something). Making food and eating it, while also being thanked for their contributions to a meal, add to the child’s all-around independence as the child becomes his own person.
Below is a picture of Norah. She is learning to sweep using a dust broom and dustpan. But, that’s not all! What you cannot see from this picture is that this event began when another child was exploring the plant and pulled all the leaves out of the pot. After watching me tuck some of the leaves into the pot and then point out, “There is soil on the floor,” action occurred. Without even being asked, Norah fetched these tools, while other classmates brought the broom and the mop. I wouldn’t claim that they actually ended up with a clean floor, but they did demonstrate independence in initiation, choice, activity, movement, social interactions, language, concentration, sequencing, follow-through, and more. And this was just a small moment amid the beautiful work of independence that is happening constantly in the YCC, all leading to the construction of adults that I hope to know and be amazed by someday.
There will be moments when the children fail. There will be times when intentionally or unintentionally, consciously or not, they will not live up to our ideals and hopes for what we want, which is the best we can imagine. This makes sense to me. They are, after all, human. They absorb everything their environments offer when they are young. As much as we all hope to have perfection around them, I’m sure none of us would claim to be a perfect parent. Montessori suggests that we should “refocus our hearts”. ” We must put the creations of man at the centre, and not his defects…How much fuller and richer life would be if we saw the child in all his greatness, all his beauty, instead of focusing on all his little mistakes ?… We must give this development, this miraculous force, the help it needs. It needs the warmth of heart and it needs understanding.” (Montessori, 2012).
References
Montessori, M. (2012). Education as a Help to Life. In A. Haines (Ed.), The 1946 London Lectures (pp. 1-6) .Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Montessori-Pierson Publishing Company.
If you’d like to see a Young Child Community in action, contact our Admissions Office: admissions@chesapeake-montessori.com, or click below to register for a Group Tour today!
Five Freedoms in the Montessori Primary
Here at CMS we educate children for life. We follow the child and guide their social, emotional, and academic development with the goal of raising adaptable individuals who know how to learn and how to be responsible community members. This requires that we offer your child freedoms that do not exist in traditional pre-school, kindergarten, elementary, and middle school programs.
The following freedoms guide the classrooms at CMS. When these freedoms are present, they offer the opportunity to become spontaneously engaged in activity. This spontaneous engagement is absolutely essential to the growth of the child because only here will independence, self-discipline, self-confidence, self-mastery, and responsibility emerge.
1. Freedom of choice of activity: This is the most significant freedom in the classroom. Each child chooses his/her own work at any given moment in time. This freedom allows the child to confirm and follow his/her own interest, which creates a deeper understanding and absorption of the knowledge built into the work.
2. Freedom of movement: Children are able to move about the classroom as they deem necessary to their work. Some may choose to work at a desk or a rug while others may be working in the outside environment. A child may choose to work independently or may find friends to work with or near. Current neuroscience research demonstrates the connection between physical movement and cognition.
3. Freedom to interact socially: Children are free to socialize. This spontaneous interaction, not directed by an adult, is essential to social development.
4. Freedom to work for as long as they choose: This freedom allows the spontaneous engagement in an activity to continue for as long as the child is engaged.
5. Freedom to reflect upon their learning: A child does not require that work be in front of them at all times for learning to take place. Deeper understanding of work frequently happens during reflective periods at the end of a work cycle.
Respect for the other individuals in the classroom and respect for the materials in the environment limit these freedoms with healthy boundaries. Children are guided by “grace and courtesy lessons”, which teach them what respect for the others looks like. As freedoms are given, so are great responsibilities: to demonstrate care for self, others, and the environment.
Come see freedom and responsibility in action in our Primary community: contact our Admissions office to schedule a visit!
Caroline Duffy
Admissions Director
admissions@chesapeake-montessori.com
Facebook And Kids: Are Their Brains Ready for Social Networking?
As a mother, I have recently discovered Facebook. My kids knew about it long ago and I poo pooed it as another mindless waste of time. Finally, I joined so I could track my kid’s antics like a sneaky James Bond spy. Trouble is – I somehow got hooked myself. Suddenly, friends from far and wide started popping up. People from the dim recesses of my childhood resurfaced. Facebook is like a really good piece of chocolate or a bag of those great salt and vinegar potato chips.
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Students Sound Off: High Schooler Kelly Tan Says The Key To Keeping Kids In School Is Building A Community Of Learning
If you were given the chance, how would you help kids at your school graduate?
Failing high school is not as rare as we can hope. This is a contradiction with the “superpower” image the U.S. hopes to maintain, and contradictions cannot exist. What this means for this country is that it will eventually be phased out by another country, one where education is a priority. A country where a high majority of its high school seniors actually graduate and go on to receive a higher education. These are the people that will make a country great, but they are also the people that we lack. It is clear that if the U.S. wants to continue to be a superpower, it will have to motivate students to succeed.
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Middle-School Friends Are Critical For Future Success
Hanging out with the right group of friends is especially important as children transition from elementary to middle school. Click here to read more.