week three of Montessori

Here we are closing out week three of Montessori and, yet again, we're all smiles around here.

Lovie's still in the bigger kid class (4-6 year old) and it only makes sense. I think they had her in with the under 4's that first week because she was brand new to Montessori, but once they discovered how much she knows, they moved her on up. In fact she told me just yesterday that they have a new student in her class but he's just new from the other class... and he's four, too. (That's why I'm guessing they start new-to-Montessori kids in with the younger kids.)

This week she's been doing a lot of punching activity.

No, they don't have her practicing to become Layla Ali. They're having her pin-punch to strengthen her grip to hold a pencil and write.

I'd never heard of this before this week so I did some researching into it and it's quite badass, really. The other day when I picked her up, she forgot something in her room, so we went in and she pointed to a picture on a wall, "That's one of the toys in the room!"  It's was a pin-punching of the Pink Tower that a student did! I read somewhere else during my discovery of pin-punching, that one student (not sure where or when) was so fascinated with pin-punching States that she spent weeks on a project of pin-punching out every single State of the US- and glue each of them onto a map!

Most of what Lovie punched this week were shapes like rectangles and squares but then one day she came home with a punched shape of South Africa! And I guess they sing some Continent song that she really wants me to learn so we can sing it together. And did I know that Australia was a continent?

All the reports I get back tell me she's a great listener and especially loves to help out at lunch. And when I ask Lovie about that she gets all excited telling me about how she's able to set out real plates and real cups and help cut with a real knife and serve real food.

Anyway, week three has been fantastic-- just like the other two. Probably even more so actually, because now when I pick her up, she's playing with several children instead of just the one 6-year-old she had befriended. In fact, she hasn't mentioned much about said 6-year-old.

And bedtimes are still a freaking unbelievable dream. Every single night, she's snoring away within minutes of me starting to tell her a story. And absolutely NO arguments at when bedtime is.