Montessori in Redlands


8:45 a.m.
Four-year-old Hope arrives at school with her mother. Her mother signs her in and hugs her good-bye. Hope carries her lunchbox to the coat rack where she sets it down. She spends some time finding the hanger with her name, lays her jacket on the floor and works at setting the hanger on it just right. She struggles with the zipper for a while, until Brandon comes over and offers his help. She now hangs up her own jacket. She is welcomed by the teacher with a handshake and a "good morning."
9:00 a.m.
It is David's snack day and he invites Hope to help prepare it by washing the grapes, slicing the cheese, and bringing in clean plates. David pours juice in a small pitcher and Hope piles small cups next to it. They lay a clean tablecloth on the assigned table and make sure there are four chairs around it. David promises Hope that she will be the first friend to have snack with him when they are done. David picks two other friends, Autumn and William, to join them. They put some grapes and a slice of cheese on their plate, and pour juice in a cup. They sit at the table eating and talking. When they finished, they wash their plates and sweep under the table, leaving the snack area clean and ready for another group of children to sit. The snack will remain set up for the rest of the morning work time.
9:15 a.m.
	Hope remembers she has the United States of America puzzle map out from the day before. She is anxious to return to her work. She traces the state of California on pink construction paper, punches out the shape with a pin, and glues it onto her map paper. She stops for a moment to look at her paper, exchanges a few words with Angie, who is sitting next to her working with the stamp game, and then proceeds to follow the same steps with the state of Montana.
9:30 a.m.
While still working on her map, Hope pauses a moment to look around the room. She notices 3-year-old Jimmy who is trying to open the rabbit's cage to replenish the water. She offers to help him by holding the cage open and petting the rabbit while he brings the clean water. They observe the rabbit drinking for a while, Jimmy wiggles the bottle a little and they both laugh at the rabbit trying to resume his drinking. Hope goes back to her work and completes the last three states. She sits and admires her work. A friend walks by and notices Hope's finished map. "Wow!" the friend exclaims. "You finished your map!" Hope rolls her map carefully and puts it in her drawer. She puts her puzzle map, scissors, pin and pencil away. She then washes her table that was tacky from the glue.
9:45 a.m.
Lisa, the teacher, invites Hope, Tiffany, Louis, and Brenda to have a lesson on the geometric solids. She asks Hope to bring a rug to the classroom's open space. Hope carries the rug carefully, lays it on the floor, and unrolls it slowly. She smoothes the rug with both her hands in a sweeping motion, and then she sits back on her heels and waits. Lisa thanks her and asks the other children to gather around the rug. Lisa takes the blue cube from the basket, touches it gently with her hands, and says, "Cube. This is the cube." She offers the shape to Tiffany, who touches it and offers it to Louis, who offers it to Brenda. Brenda touches the cube and gives it to Hope who holds and touches the solid with enthusiasm while saying the name, "Cube!" Lisa presents the cone and the cylinder in the same manner. She then demonstrates how to put the cube and other solids gently into the basket. Hope rolls the rug and puts it away.
10:05 a.m.
	Hope walks around the classroom while looking at the shelves and trying to decide what to do next. She finally chooses the watercolor paints from the art shelf. She puts on the apron and takes the placemat rolled up by the activity's tray. She scans the room with her eyes to locate an empty place at a table. She finds one next to Reanna, who is carefully sewing a button on a piece of fabric. Hope unrolls the placemat on the table and goes back to the shelf to pick up the tray with all she needs. She brings water in a little cup. She sits and paints a colorful picture. Anthony stands by her table and quietly observes Hope painting. "Nice," he says, then walks away. Hope is done. She takes her picture outside and hangs it up to dry.
10:30 a.m.
After cleaning up her watercolor painting and replacing it on the shelf, David invites Hope to help clean up snack as the teacher mentions that everyone has had a snack. They put away the left over food, clean the dishes, and sweep the floor.
10:50 a.m.
Hope goes into the library corner and sits and takes out a book. Reanna joins Hope and hey sit side by side in the comfortable library chairs looking through the book silently. The sun shines through a nearby window warming the library corner and giving light to readers.
11:10 a.m.
Hope collects the golden bead material to do some static addition. She invites her friends Julianne and Faith to join her in this work. They add numbers utilizing units, tens, hundreds, and thousands, using concrete bead material.
11:40 a.m.
The teacher turns on the classical music CD that signals clean-up time. Hope and her two friends clean up their golden bead materials and join the Guide and other children in group.
11:50 a.m.
The children rehearse the song they are performing for their school Holiday Sing program. They work on singing all together. The teacher shows the children how to take a bow when they are done singing.
12:10 p.m.
Since it was David's snack day, he puts the date on the calendar then calls the children one at a time to line up to go outside to play. Outside on the playground some of the children sing the song that they had been practicing while swinging on the monkey bars. "We love this song," they call out to their teacher.
12:30 p.m.
Hope waves good-bye to two of her friends that leave midday, as she sees their parents come to pick them up.
12:40 p.m.
The children of Hope's class are called to line up for lunch. They walk in line to the door. Hope waves good-bye to her new friend Gwen who is lining up with her class. The children brush and clean their shoes and enter the classroom. The children wash their hands and gather their lunchboxes and sit at the tables which have been prepared by two Elementary service students who have washed the tables, set out the tablecloths, and put plates down.
12:50 p.m. Eating Lunch Together
	The children open their lunchboxes and set out their food on their plates, then place their lunchboxes under their chairs. They sit, talk, and eat. Hope has a squeeze yogurt in her lunchbox. She tries to tear the top off, but it won't come off. Reanna gets up and gets a pair of scissors and offers them to Hope. She cuts the end of her wrapper 4off then washes the scissors and puts them away. Hope notices Reanna using the apple slicer to cut her own apple and thinks to herself that she might bring an apple in her lunchbox tomorrow.
1:20 p.m.
	The children are finishing lunch and begin to clean up. They wash their plates, put away lunchboxes, sweep, put the tablecloths in the laundry and put any leftover food in the compost. Hope reminds Reanna that apple cores can go into the compost.
1:40 p.m.
Returning to the classroom, Hope takes out a rug and the movable alphabet. She uses small objects from a basket. She chooses an object. It is a small mop. Hope says the word "mop" out loud. Then chooses the letter "M" from the alphabet box. She says the word mop again, slowly sounding out each letter. "M-O-P." Then she chooses the letter "O" from the box. Next Hope finds the last sound, "P." Hope sounds out several more words, first choosing an object, then sounding out the word with the letters. Hope puts this work away.
2:15 p.m.
Hope walks to the bell stand and picks up the striker. She very gently strikes the first bell. She listens to the sound of the bell until she can longer hear it. She does the same with the next two bells. The guide comes over and asks if she can show her how to match the bells. They work on the first three bells, mixing them up then matching them to a control set of bells. The guide does this first then offers the striker to Hope. Hope matches the bells easily.
2:25 p.m.
The guide observes that Jonah, a younger child, is watching Hope matching the bells. She asks Hope to give him a lesson and Hope agrees.
2:50 p.m.
The clean-up music is put on. Hope and the other children clean up their work and come and sit with the guide in group. The guide presents how to blow your nose to the children as she noticed that there were several children with runny noses that day.
2:50 p.m.
Hope's mother arrives. The guide shakes Hope's hand and says good-bye. Hope hugs her mother then goes to get her water color painting, her map, lunchbox and jacket. Ready to go, Hope says good-bye to her friends.