Emee+Morgan

2/14/2007 We tried to go to Rainbow Mountain, but we got lost and spent the entire time driving around looking for the school. 2/19/2007For the first observation I went to Rainbow Mountain Children's School and visited the fourth grade. They were having a geography lesson about rivers and mountains. The teacher lead the class by pointing things out to the students on maps or drawings on the board, and asking questions. Most of the class consisted of the students or the teacher asking and answering questions. The kids sat around one u shaped table and the teacher stood in front. It was a small class, but it seemed larger because the kids were very energetic. The students were a little distracted because it was almost time for PE, but all of them participated in the class. 2/21/2007On my second trip to Rainbow Mountain the fifth grade was away on a ski trip so I visited the seventh and eighth grade class. There are 17 kids in the multi-age classroom and two teachers. The class was in the middle of an grammar lesson, the students and one of the teachers sat in a circle on the floor. The teacher led the class through a worksheet on prepositional phrases. She did this by asking questions and encouraging the students to define the new terms in their own words. After they finished the lesson, the students were given study hall time to finish up any other work they had. This gave me a few minutes to talk to the teachers. One told me that comparing Rainbow Mountain to public schools is like comparing apples to oranges. She said that teaching at a public school was rewarding and she had felt she was making a real difference, however she preferred teaching at Rainbow Mountain because she could do more with the students. She said that at Rainbow Mountain the students could do more work in less time, because almost all the students perform at grade level. The other teacher said that he liked teaching at Rainbow Mountain because he can create his own lessons and curriculum.

Emee, Sorry about how lost we got that first time going to Rainbow Mountain, it was some adventure! its really cool to read about your experience in the multiaged classroom, i was part of a multiaged classroom system in my elementary school, i think its pretty cool to have that. I would agree with the teacher that said compairing public schools to private schools like rainbow mountain or friends school, where i went, is like compairing oranges and apples. They are so different, in there student population, teachers abilities and the restrictions the school places on the way teachers go about things.One thing i have been struglling with lately is if i do decide to teach at some point in my life, do i want a public school or a school like rainbow mountain. I often think of where i would be needed the most and where i could make the most differance. Sara Rubin

2/28/2007 We visited a Montessori preschool and kindergarten in west Asheville. While we were there the children were either napping or playing outside on the playground, so we took the opportunity to talk to the owner, who is also the kindergarten teacher, and get a tour of the school. The classrooms are very small and the classes don't have more than about five children. Each room has a little loft space for reading books, child sized furniture, lots of "toys" that are unique to Montessori schools. Everything that might be needed for snacks, drinks, and cleaning is set out for the children. In Montessori schools children do these things for themselves. Everything in the classroom is at the children's level and they choose what activities they want to do. However this school did have something you don't see at all Montessori schools, each room had a center for imaginative play. Montessori noticed that when children were offered toys like dolls they lost interest in them quickly and were often more interested in the educational "toys" she had in her classrooms. So she did not include imaginative play in her program. However North Carolina rates preschool classroom environments and to achieve certain ratings rooms must have centers for imaginative play.

That's all very interesting. I have no experience with Montessori schools and I'm really intrigued by the history and methodology behind them. What do you mean exactly when you said children do these things for themselves? Do they put it all out and clean it all up? I find it intriguing that they decided originally to have no center for imaginative play. I find it even more interesting that imaginative play centers are something of a requirement in North Carolina preschools. What kind of educational "toys" did the children take a particular liking to? Sounds like a cool visit, nice job. - Jamie Hart

3/7/2007 We visited the school in the morning this time so we were able to see the children in class. We sat in on a kindergarten class. It was picture day and when we got there children were still arriving and they were having show and tell. For all the excitement of picture day the classroom was very calm, something Montessori schools are known for. After show and tell they had calender time and then started working. One girl next to me was using a hundred's board. It is a wooden board with one hundred squares in rows of ten, children place one hundred wooden number tiles in order on the board to learn number order and patterns. There is also a wooden board that shows where each number should go, children can use this when they get stuck or younger children use it to practice matching. This is a good example of Montessori's self correcting materials. She believed children should be able see and learn from their mistakes without the teacher having to point them out. At another table one girl was working with a letter box. The box was filled with items that started with the same letter or sound. She put all the items on a piece of felt and then matched the words in the box to the items. While all this was going on another girl decided to have her snack so she washed her hands and sat at the little table where the parents had left all the snacks and drinks when they dropped off the children. When she was done she /cleaned up, washed her hands, and went back to work. 3/14/2007 We went in the morning again and got there during show and tell time. After show and tell and calender time the children started working again. The classroom was even calmer than the week before. Today one of the girls wanted to play an alphabet bingo game and almost everyone else decided to join in. At first there was a disagreement over who would get the card with "Qq queen" on it but the teacher solved it by asking the girls how they could work it out and they settled on taking turns with the card. 3/28/2007 We were supposed to visit Art Space, but the school had too many teachers out that day. I drove a group to Oakley Elementary and observed a kindergarten class. The class was large, but there were two teachers and the classroom was big enough for the children to spread out and have their own space to work in. The class was very calm, and structured, but the children seemed to enjoy themselves. The children were assigned to different centers in the room, but they could also read or work on puzzles. Everyone had something to work on and knew what they were supposed to be doing. While the children were working the teacher called one child up at a time to work on their numbers. She said that by the end of the year they had to know their numbers up to 30, and they already knew 1-20. I talked to the teacher about what the children were required to know by the end of the year, and was surprised by how much they had to learn. I was also impressed by how well the children could read. 4/2/2007 We went to Art Space. The school had a very strong feeling of community that you could feel as soon as you walked in the door. I was impressed that they have a nursery for teacher's children. I observed a kindergarten class, they were finishing lunch when I got there and were having a discussion about imaginary friends. The children took turns talking about their imaginary friends, and the teachers also told about their friends. Each child had a chance to tell a story. After lunch the children cleaned up, each one had a different job to do. They obviously took great pride in this and the responsibility made them feel grown up. However, the entire time I was there the children had a very difficult time focusing, they had too much energy to sit still during lunch and had trouble finishing their chores. So after chores the teachers decided to do yoga with the children to help them calm down. 4/4/2007 When I got to Art Space the kindergarten class was eating lunch outside. I sat down with them and talked to some of the kids. The class was much calmer than last time. When we went back inside they finished their chores. Then the teacher asked me to listen to some of the children read their books. The first two children I read with had very little trouble, but the third had a very hard time focusing on the words. I spent the rest of the class helping him read his book.

I went to Art space as well, and had a similar experience. I actually go there every Monday and Wednesday and read with the kids. I wonder how the teachers handle the children who are at slower pace than the others. Im not sure what I think about Art space, I sometimes feel like there is not enough one on one attention going on in the classroom

LT 4/16 4/23/07 We visited The Learning Community, a small school on the site of the old Black Mountain College. The school has about 55 students and was started as a home schooling group. When we were there they were doing earthday activities. The kids were making rattles to use in a spiral dance. The older kids worked with the younger ones, helping them find sticks and flatten bottle caps. It was easy to see that they do activities like this often, because the kids worked very well as a group. The school was very relaxed and felt more like a large family than a school. 5/2/07 When we got to The Learning Community I watched two girls learn the signs for a poem. Then I went outside where everyone was having recess and talked to one of the teacher's aids. She told me that on nice days like that day they let the kids stay outside longer and that they spend at least an hour outside everyday. After recess I watched a kindergarten/first grade science lab. They were doing a lesson on listening and started by reading a story about listening to nature. Then the kids got dry erase boards and markers, the teachers had them draw a smiley face in the middle of their board and told them to find a place outside to sit and listen. Then the kids had to make an x on their board where they heard sounds. The first time they tried this the kids never really settled down, some needed new markers, others wanted to move to new spots... They came back into a circle and discussed what had happened and went over the rules again. Then they tried the activity a second time and the kids did very well. I was surprised by how well they were able to focus on the activity. After a while they came back into a circle and discussed what they had heard. After this activity I joined a second/third grade class that was having a baton twirling lesson from one of the parents. The parent told me that she was impressed that none of the boys had complained about doing baton twirling, she said that one of the things that she liked about the school was that they the kids did not say things like "thats for boys."

5/15 LT