Each session is anticipated to be approximately 1.5 hours long, over 3 evenings, within a 5 week period and will be conducted virtually to accommodate the busy schedules of trustees.
Session 1: What Every Montessori Board Member needs to know: the role of a non-profit board member, how to engage and retain a great board, and why board service is so important.
Session 2: Effective Governance Practices for Montessori Schools: Board and Head of School partnership, evaluation, and ways to avoid pitfalls.
Session 3: Empowering your School for Long-Term Success: Accreditation, Strategic Planning, and Capital Campaigns.
We must diligently attend to what is in front of us, down to the smallest details. As we move along the path, side by side with the child, we strive to prepare both the environment and ourselves to support the spontaneous activity of children in an atmosphere of freedom. Observation is our core and most ardent ally in these fundamental preparations. It protects the integrity of the method and the work of the child. It fuels our understanding of each unique individual child, allowing us to truly serve their needs in an exact and thoughtful manner.
Dr. Montessori reminds us -
As we observe children, we see the vitality of their spirit, the maximum effort put forth in all they do, the intuition, attention and focus they bring to all life’s events, and the sheer joy they experience in living.
The Child, Society, and the World,
Be as the children, and we will thrive; we will become joyful observers.
In this series, Charles and Gretchen will challenge our notions about the way we contemplate and present the Montessori Mathematics materials. We are given the awe-filled opportunity to introduce children to the wonderful world of mathematics! Keeping this in mind, what ways can we find to show how numbers are truly tools that are a help to life?
They will offer several key points of inquiry including:
Is there a fresh way to look at the child, the material, and the adult?
Am I centered on the child or on a series of lessons I must "get to" regardless?
How do I dig into my observation practice to really see what’s before my own eyes and ears when children use the math materials?
How do I build exploration into my presentations? Am I inviting the child to articulate their own observations and their understanding as they grow their mathematical mind?
Session #1 - A New Way to Look at the Child and Materials (February 10, 2024)
Do precision and exploration sound like words that don’t belong in the same sentence? Does this sound like a basic paradoxical situation? In this initial session of our three-part series on Montessori Mathematics, we’ll examine ways that we can be both precise in how we present Montessori Math materials and, at the same time, encourage exploration. Using specific examples from the 1-10 materials, we’ll blend the idea of discovery into the initial presentation and demonstrate an approach that moves the emphasis from the presentation of the material itself to the observation of how the child makes sense of the material and the variety of ways they might approach the task before them.
Session #2 - Discovering and Building Patterns (March 16, 2024)
Using the Bank game as the centerpiece, the second session will explore the patterns in each of the four operations and the ways they are connected to each other. Focusing on discovering and articulating patterns rather than simply manipulating materials, can support a real explosion into mathematical understanding for the late first-plane child. Using real stories as well as shifting into “what if….” scenarios, we’ll talk about ways to stretch the child’s thinking to naturally incorporate knowledge of number patterns and progressions. We’ll build upon this experience to demonstrate ways to support children’s growing ability to talk about what they know in their mind and connect it to what they have done with their hands.
Session #3 - How the Imagination Propels Us Forward (April 27, 2024)
Focusing on everyday problem-solving, we’ll invite Practical Life to join Mathematics in a complimentary duet. In our final session of the series, we'll explore the inquiry - How do we fuel the imagination in Mathematics and not make it pro-forma? Using different kinds of measuring as our foundation, we'll explore myriad examples of “limitless imagination.” If I can measure the classroom with the red rods, how does that relate to measuring my own growth in inches? Can I experience and describe the inverse relationship between measuring in feet vs inches? What else can I measure? If I want to make more muffins, how do I increase the recipe? If one part changes, what happens to the other parts? Why does the glass thousand cube weigh more than the cardboard one? Invite the child's imagination, and the possibilities are endless!