CARE OF SELF

WALKING ON LINE

Children are taught to walk heel-toe on the edge of the floormat after a work cycle is
finished. We have observed that children respond really well to walking on the line with
either their hands on their hips or behind their back. This activity is very good for calming
the children down and transitioning to another class or activity.

Walking heel to toe (also known as Fairy Steps) along a line also helps children to
concentrate and improves balance.

WALKING AROUND RUG

A work rug helps your child to work within a defined area and shows
that we’re careful not to step on our lovely things.
We have a lesson write-up for unrolling and rolling work rugs. Once
again, you might ask, “Why so meticulous?” We want to foster
attention to detail that will be very helpful in all kinds of later work.

How To Present the Montessori Work Rug

Direct Purpose of Presenting the Work Rug: to learn the
movements necessary to roll up items

Indirect Purpose of Presenting the Work Rug: muscular control of

fingers and hands, independence, and concentration.

Material: a woven throw–rug that will roll up well (we both Ikea throw
rugs and these Montessori work mats from Montessori Services )

Age: 2 1⁄2 – 3, or a child new to the classroom

Carrying a chair isn’t exactly the easiest thing to carry. Its shape and four legs make it awkward
to carry and walk at the same time.

Children carry a chair sideways on with one hand supporting the bottom of the chair, and the
other hand supporting the back of the chair. This makes carrying a chair easy and placing the
chair back under the table conveniently.

Carrying a chair correctly in a Montessori classroom

How does Montessori teach kids to carry a chair?

Children are taught to carry a chair correctly in Montessori preliminary exercises and to not
scrape it on the floor. The child is encouraged to hold the chair with two hands and to lift up their
chair carefully, making sure their chair doesn’t scrape along the floor. This teaches the child to
have respect for their environment and to respect their peers while they are working.

Learning how to manipulate materials correctly from a young age is essential for succeeding
later on in school years.

SWEEPING
 Sweep the dirt into the dustpan. Lift the brush and give it a good shake. Repeat the
brushing if needed. Lift the brush and the dustpan.
...
Completion
 Pick up the sponge with your right hand and wipe away any of the chalk you may still
see on the floor.
 Place the sponge back onto the tray.
 Invite the child to sweep.

Tonging
Tong transfer is a Montessori practical life activity where a child learns how to hold a tong
and pick an object and transfer it into another bowl.

Tonging in the Montessori Practical Life classroom is a very important activity to develop
children’s hand and finger muscles. Children will tong different objects such as pom-poms
from one bowl to another bowl. By tonging objects, they will practice and review what they
have already learnt when spooning and pouring beans from the left bowl to the right bowl
and sponging water from the left bowl to the right bowl.

Therefore spooning, pouring and sponging must be presented first to the child before the
Tonging activity. With every new activity, the difficulty will increase.

Tonging Pom Pom’s from one bowl to another

How does learning to tong objects help the child?

This elementary exercise will indirectly develop the child’s pencil grip as we encourage the
children to hold the tongs correctly. Crossing of the mid-line occurs in this activity and
indirect preparation for reading and writing.
LANGUAGE

BLEND WORK
What is blend in Montessori?
A consonant blend or a cluster is a group of consonants that are next to each other
in a wor
For most children, they are ready to do it somewhere between the age of 4 to 5. Some children
may be 6 or even older. Children with special needs may be significantly older than this, or
never really learn the skill. Classification. Blends of two or more words may be classified
from each of three viewpoints: morphotactic, morphonological, and
morphosemantic.

In a blend, each letter retains its individual sound. For example, in the word brag,
you can still hear the individual /b/ and /r/ sounds in the “br” blend. This is different from
a digraph (like ch or sh). In a digraph, the letters work together to make a single
phoneme.
PUZZLE WORDS
Puzzle Words 1

Materials

- Cards about 20cm x 8cm, of any color except red, on which are written words of irregular
construction. (Cards are separated into color groups to help the directress remember what group
of words she has presented to the child. There is no relation between the words in one group.)
- Examples of cards: she, do, I, once, he, we, his, the, pretty, a, to, by, so, as, etc.

Presentation

1. Have the child bring over the basket of cards.

2. Introduce the material to the child and tell the child that we need to know these special,
words because we can’t sound them out.
3. Choose one color group.
4. Read the first word.
5. Have the child read it with you.
6. Give the word in a sentence.
7. Introduce all of the words in the group in this way.
8. Do a Three Period Lesson with the three words. During the first period, use the words in
a sentence. During the third period, have the child use the word in the sentence. Help
the child if needed.

Exerice 1

The child can read the words that have been introduced to him by himself.
Exerice 2

The child can write these words with the Moveable Alphabet or on paper and make a booklet.

Purpose

Direct

To teach the children the irregular words

Control of Error

The directress

Age

4 1/2 years onwards

CULTURAL

AMPHIBIANS