The Montessori Way

We are constantly surprised at what J is learning in school. Montessori does not seem to do a great job of letting you know what lesson plans are in store, what to expect or basically any in-depth explanation of what a "45 layout" (see above picture) is when your child comes home telling you that is what they did today.

So we trust that he is learning a lot and it is fun to see what comes seeping out of his brain at home. For instance, we had no idea he knew all of the planets in order of proximity to the sun, the Spanish word for pumpkin, the anatomy of a bat, or even the level of geography he is grasping.

For example, the above picture is of an Isthmus. Remember those? Me neither really. But it's a narrow strip of land connecting two larger bodies of land. I couldn't get him to correctly identify "lake" and "island" from his worksheet. But Isthmus he remembered.

The only obstacle we are running into is he doesn't really want to tackle the harder projects because "they take too long" and in Montessori the work is somewhat child-led, as to when they decide to work on it. So he's been working hard through encouragement to tackle the longer projects and we're excited he has taken the initiative on his own to do so.

Tomorrow is our first parent-teacher conference of the year.

This should be good.