Going to school!

After months of searching for a Montessori school for Froggy Boots to attend, (that was able to work within our budget) I finally found Doughty Montessori School!   The school is in an old train station near downtown Ann Arbor -- complete with a real red caboose on the playground for the kids to play in!  I wish I had a picture of the caboose to share, but I don't.  Maybe in the future I will think to take a picture and post it.

The school accepts children from age 2 1/2 to 6 years old within traditional Montessori multi-age classrooms.  And, yes, this means that the 2 1/2 year old's are in the the same classrooms as the 6 year old's!  But, many of you probably already know that.

So, Froggy Boots turned 2 1/2 in December and was able to start at Doughty at the beginning of January, after the winter break.  She has been doing really well, except for the actual getting ready and going to school part.  After she gets in the door at school, she is fine.  The separation from Dad (who drops her off) is a little rough still -- but getting better.

This week my school is closed for mid-winter break, so I decided to spend the week with Froggy Boots at her school!  Parents are always welcome at Doughty, unlike some other Montessori schools.  Today was my first day at school with her!  Yesterday the school was closed for Presidents Day.  Needless to say, since Froggy Boots knew I was going to school with her, she had no separation issues this morning. 

My husband dropped us off at the school so that I did not have to deal with trying to park in downtown Ann Arbor.  Thank goodness for that, because when we got there at 9am, there was no parking left close to the school. 

Froggy Boots was so excited to be there with me!  And, I was really excited to be there as well!  Surprisingly, though, I was actually a little nervous at first.  I guess I was surprised that I was nervous because I teach at my own school every day already.  But, I guess it was just because it was a different school that I am not used to yet.

I couldn't wait to see what kind of work Froggy Boots was going to do!  However, today the teachers decided to take the kids outside first because the snow was going to be turning to rain later in the day and they wanted to make sure the kids got outside.  So, I had to wait a little bit to see her working.  But, we did have fun out on the playground!  We even ventured into the caboose!

Once we got back inside, we got right to work!  Here are some pictures of the work Froggy Boots did today:

She started out in the Math area doing several counting works:

Numbers and jewel counters.  The control of error was the color of each number and matching jewel counters.  So, for example, there were 5 pink jewels for the pink number 5.

The bead stair hanger.  We worked on this one together.  But, she seemed to get the idea!

These are egg shaped number puzzles.  The control of error is in the different way each egg is cut apart.  The numeral is on the bottom half of each egg and there is a corresponding number of dots on the top portion.

Froggy Boots took a break from the math work to try out some animal matching puzzles.  They were to easy for her, so she stopped after the first three matches and moved on to something else.  She did have fun making animal noises for the pig and the cow, though!

And then she moved on to some Sensorial work:

She did the pink tower (cubes) first.

And then added the brown stairs!

For her final work, she did some wet pouring:

As you can see from the wet table, there was a little over pouring that happened before she got the hang of it.  But, after the initial spill, she really did an amazing job pouring the water!

Not only did I get to see Froggy Boots do lots of wonderful work today, I also learned that she can put her coat on all by herself!  Recently she had been coming home, taking off her coat, hanging it up, and then taking off her boots all by herself.  But, I had no idea she could put her coat on all by herself!  She's not zipping it up yet, but she can zip other things, so that will not be to far off I don't think.

It was a great morning at school!  And, I get to go again tomorrow!