My daughter turned three on the last day of my Montessori training classes at WSMS-TEP. We started in person during the fall of 2019. It’s a serendipitous coincidence that the first day of my training was on my birthday, and the end was on my daughter’s third birthday. She’s really the catalyst of this whole series of events in my life and with the way this year has turned out, (COVID-19! Social distancing! Trying to stay alive!) I can’t be more grateful for what I’ve been introduced to during the past 10 months. We had the Philosophy and Practical life classes held in person, and rest (Sensorial, Math, Language Arts, Culture) were done via Zoom.
The first lesson in the Geography, Science, and History section is titled the Earth and the Sun, and the photo above is just missing some yarn surrounding the sun to represent the earth’s orbit. I did the activity during her actual birthday on a zoom call with family, and wanted to do it again during her call with her friends, but I saw that she was more interested in talking to people on the screen than walking around carrying planet earth. Hopefully next year I can prepare it better and have her be more involved.
I have a three-year-old now. She was 26 months when we started school- she went into the classroom next to mine and she cried for the first 20 minutes for maybe two weeks. Eventually, she was happily running into her classroom. I’ve been a very attached parent from the start, probably because of her food allergy situation, and being my firstborn. I stayed at home with her full time until I got the job at her school, but now that our school has closed for good, I’m staying home for the rest of 2020. I miss our school community, but I’m grateful for the life-changing experience of assisting in a toddler classroom.