Observation at Artgarden Montessori

Today was my very first "Parent Observation" at Artgarden. I learned so much about my child and her classroom experience! Up until now, I have held back for a few reasons. 1. Leia Rose is a very independent child, and there have been times (like right after we first had Annie) that she considered any entrance into her schoolroom as an invasion and 2. Playing with my little Annie love takes up ALL of my time in the mornings. ; ) So today, off Annie went to Miss Laurie's, and off I went to Artgarden. I opted to not take any pictures so as not to disturb anyone and to sit right in the middle of the action (instead of up above) to truly be immersed in the classroom. (Actually, those two decisions were hard for me, . . . considering my "disease" of picture-taking. Ha! And as for sitting right IN the classroom, I was afraid I'd be in the way. I really wasn't.) ; )

The first thing I noticed was that there was a huge drumming sound coming from the side of the classroom. Turns out that Mrs. Schnell brought her African drum today for the children to play, . . . and the kids had just had chocolate coins as a part of their celebration of Tet (Lunar New year). So Mrs. Schnell and Mrs. McDowell both said that this was a "really high-energy day" as opposed to many others. Quite honestly, except for the drumming, I didn't gather any feelings of chaos. It seemed like a nice environment of learning, as it always is. Of course, Leia Rose did come up to me in the midst of the loudest drumming moments and say, "All that is, is the drumming that I hate." Ha! And as she walked back to the "work" she was doing, I noticed that her crocs made her look like a little Dutch girl. They turned out to be REALLY great inside shoes! : )

I finally saw why her teachers always talk about Leia being so "busy." Leia Rose was either doing a work, getting a work, or putting away a work. There was no wandering around for Leia. She always had a plan. : ) When I arrived, Leia was doing a dot-to-dot of a Rhinocerous, and then coloring it in. When she put that work away, I noticed how quickly she sorted the colored pencils into their proper places. (And for some reason that surprised me.) Then se did some rubbings of African animals, and traced their names in both English & Swahili underneath. She gave the first one (the elephant/tembo) to Jessica. : ) And then she gave the rest to me. : ) (Laura, you'll notice the names of the animals in our beloved Jungle Drums!)

[It was here that I noticed the difference between Leia Rose (one of the older extended-day students) and Ava (one of the younger students). Ava spent most of my observation time dancing in front of the CD player that was playing lots of fun African songs. The rest of her time was spent wandering around, although once she stopped at the hanging beads (right beside me) to pretend they were jump ropes. She also came up to me, ran her hands over the rhinestones on my shirt and said, "You are pretty!" Ha!]

Then Leia Rose began working on something at a table a little further away from me and noticed Lorenzo working beside her, tracing a turtle puzzle, at which point she said, "Whoa! That's AWESOME, Lorenzo!" [And it was cute to hear Mrs. Schnell give the same type of praise, with the word "awesome" to Sophia doing something else.] In the middle of her work this time, Leia Rose randomly got up, came over to me, and said, "You're the best Mom in the world!" Then she asked for help from Mrs. Schnell to write, "Happy Valentines Day." (And it was interesting that Mrs. Schnell held Leia's hand holding the pencil while they both wrote it together.) And then I got the most spectacular Turtle Valentine in the whole world!

It was really fun for me to see some of the works that I hadn't really seen, like the easel and the moveable alphabet and this hanging-bead work with little number tiles, . . . but most importantly, I learned something about Leia Rose that I never knew before. Leia Rose is very much a Good Samaritan. No matter what she was doing, or how immersed in a work she was, she ALWAYS was the first person to get up and help (without anyone asking) if one of her fellow classmates dropped a work, . . . which seemed to happen often. First, Jack dropped a bead work and then Ethan dropped a work with a whole bunch of cards that spewed out everywhere. And there was Leia Rose, the first to offer a hand to help! What a little Beacon of Hope! And it was observing this quality that made me the proudest Mom in the world today.