The Exercises of Practical Life (EPL) area, has an abundance of activity that creates concentration, muscular co-ordination and the self-motivation, to begin and end, what one chooses. Through repetitions with these exercises, the child achieves a level of skill as depicted in the picture at left. The extended use of the 'pouring activity' is what prepared him. Imagine the same focus and manipulative skill being used in a creation or, in one's day to day routine!
We suggest that you visit the blog that this link leads to before you read further if you are not too familiar with the ‘stereognostic’ and ‘tactile’ senses, that we possess.
Using the Montessori methodology, as relevant to the development of the above mentioned, we played a game to begin the day. Great fun! With a blindfold from the ‘Mystery Bag’ activity, we sat in groups first and looked carefully at each other to create an impression of each other’s features. Then it was time for a one member of the group to don the blindfold and attempt to identify individuals in the group by using the tactile sense, to name each person. Invariably, there was some self-congratulatory work in the process! Some of them identified themselves and parts of their bodies with much glee. Oh, it was adorable to watch this!
'Cha Cha' time once more, our 'dancercise guru', Suhairi, came in with his usual bounce! As some children had been introduced to the step, we had that group watch a video clip of the dance while other learnt the steps with Suhairi. Then we put it all together and had a super dance session combined with exercise. to Oye com va!
What follows, is from the open source Wikipedia.
'Oye Como Va' is a song written by Latin jazz and mambo musician Tito Puente in 1963 and popularised by Santana's rendition of the song in 1970 on their album Abraxas, helping to catapult Santana into stardom with the song reaching #13 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song also reached #11 on the Billboard Easy Listening survey and #32 on their R&B chart.[1]
The fact that the phrase "Oye Como va" is the title of the song and is sung somewhat separately from the phrase "mi ritmo" makes it easy to interpret the meaning as "Hey, how's it going?" However, the first sentence is actually "Oye como va mi ritmo", meaning "Listen to how my rhythm goes.")
Suhairi also presented a variation of the Cha Cha that the children delighted in following.
Snack followed. Today, we made something to ‘beat the heat’ - ice lollies flavoured with fresh strawberries – a ‘strawlly’, would you call it? Hmmm… The children first prepared the fruit by removing the leaves then cutting the strawberries into small pieces and that was it for the 'prep'! Into the moulds, with apple juice and brrrrr… off to the freezer! The strawllys had not frozen by the time we ended the day so, they are chilling for tomorrow!
The chit chat that includes lunch (well put that way it does not sound too ‘boarding-school’ like does it?) went off well. Nice conversations were overheard with a gymnastic side show – some decided to use the ‘Boss’ arm as a pull-up bar!
'May's-time' came next, and today she read about the ‘feline family’ and the children were invited to made up a story from what they heard. Impromptu script creation, wow!
Mila: “There was once a cat called Lola.”
Arya: “She went for a walk and fell into a drain.”
Johan: “Lola landed in the sea.”
Ishan: “A boat came by.”
Johan: “The people on the boat fished Lola out, dried her and fed her with the fish they caught that morning.”
The Endings:
Riana: “They brought her to shore and found her mummy.”
Arya: “She swam to shore and walked around for one year before she found her way home.”
Ishan: “They took her into a van and while in the van she spotted another bigger cat. That cat was also brought into the van and together they found their way home.”
Brilliant! Wouldn’t you say? We are so proud of our Montessorians!
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The Salt-Dough craft project continued at a healthy pace, towards the ‘finish-line’. With the moulds hardened into decora-table objects, we began painting, and soon, we will begin the decorating. Sorry, that’s about all that we can say for now!
Simultaneously, another group of children worked on a craft, literally ‘making waves’! Inspiration provided by Yan Mei ‘ocean waves’ were painted using watercolours, paper and a plastic fork! Surfing anyone?
Sport and today’s presentation about rugby began with the children being entertained with media clips showing some types of rugby played around the world by children. From that, they observed games of ‘touch’ and ‘contact’ and something in-between - ‘flag’! Lecture completed it was more theory about the game, using sketches, magnets and our whiteboard. The children learnt the purpose of the game, that one must go into the opposing team’s territory and put the ball down on the goal line, to score. We will present other ways of scoring, time permitting, as we go along. Please do what you can to expand your child’s exposure to Cricket and to Rugby, at home. Thank you.
We explored our newly acquired rugby drills in the ‘garden’! Once more, they practised passing in pairs and it was quite obvious that the older children were more adept today. Then came the ‘sprint and touchdowns’ and finally, we actually began to play a game. Well in a very simplistic manner that suited our children.
See more pictures from our gallery.
Rumeshi & Yan Mei together with, May and Dennis
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