I share my birthday with a lot of people, I know. And some cool stuff has happened on my birthday as well (to me and in the world). Not so cool stuff too, like Princess Diana died on my birthday.
Bu a really cool fun fact is the Maria Montessori’s birthday is the same as mine. Here is the blog post from my school celebrating her 142nd birthday!
March is conference month!
We recently met with Brendan’s teachers to talk about how he is doing. The answer is GREAT! Montessori is such a great way for children to learn and we can see so clearly how Brendan is growing in confidence and leadership.
Funny quotes from Brendan’s conference:
‎”He’s not the child I would want to disagree with because you know he will convince you he is right.”
“If you want to know anything going on with anybody, just ask Brendan.”
“He fixed the whole job chart- he knew what everyone’s next job should be and when other kids tried to get involved we had to just say let Brendan do it. He knows how it should be.”
‎”There are many layers to Brendan.”
I was sharing this story today with a group of parents. I thought it would be fun to post it as well.
Last year Aidan was an “oldest child” in the same classroom that Brendan was one of the “youngest children.” One of the jobs of the oldest children is to give the younger ones lessons. Maria Montessori believed children learned through observing.
One morning Brendan poured too many Rice Crispies in his bowl. As a result he didn’t finish all of his breakfast and was going to dump the remaining cereal in the trash. (He does not like milk in his cereal) On his way to the trash can the bowl spilled and the Rice Crispies were dumped all over the hard wood kitchen floor. I shrugged it off and told him to clean up his spill.
He responded he didn’t know how. I asked him what he did at school if he didn’t know how to do something. He said he first asks a friend or older child. Then he went and got Aidan.
With a tremendous amount of patience Aidan showed Brendan where the dust pan was. Instructed him to sit beside him, and showed Brendan how to angle the pan to brush all the Rice Crispies inside. Brendan watched carefully. Soon Aidan had swept all the cereal into the pan.
He looked at Brendan and asked if he had any questions. Brendan said no. Just as I was thinking what a remarkable moment, what a perfect depiction of what we want our children to learn and how we wanted them to work together- it happened.
Aidan tipped the pan, dumped out the Rice Crispies and looked at Brendan.
“Now you do it.”
Sigh. Too good to be true.