- Jennifer Hoyt
Classroom 1 January in Review

Classroom 1 is happy to be back after a lovely winter break! The kids have settled back into the daily routines. Just a reminder to please make sure your child has appropriate clothes to play outside each day. Label everything so it will be easy to find it when it gets lost and ends up in the lost and found. We will go outside everyday unless the temperature is below zero, this
includes the windchill.
A huge thank you to Maddy Ganz and family and Allie Egelseer and family for the classroom
materials donation from the Classroom 1 wishlist on the website. It was such a treat to
introduce the new materials to the children when they came back from break. Thank You!!

January and February are amazing months in the classroom. The children are all what Maria
Montessori referred to as “normalized”. This does not mean that the children have conformed
but that the children are independent and confident enough in their abilities that they want to
work, they love the order and their work. They are able to make their own choices during the
work period and have the self discipline to complete the work. Below is a quote from Maria
Montessori about normalized children which sums up January and February in the classroom.
“Only “normalised” children, aided by their environment show in their subsequent development
those wonderful powers that we describe: spontaneous discipline, continuous and happy
work, social sentiments for help and sympathy for others… an interesting piece of work freely
chosen, which has the virtue of inducing concentration rather than fatigue, adds to the child’s
energies and mental capacities and leads him to self mastery..” (The Absorbent Mind, 1949)
