First Days
by Theresa Powers
Our first days at MSSA are off to a great start. It’s amazing to see how quickly our students acclimatize to routines, and morning arrival is a good example of this; after an initial unsureness, in a few days, the children have figured out where to go and head to their classrooms with purpose and confidence. There’s a sense of accomplishment in executing a routine, and this gets played out each day in our Montessori environment as developing autonomy and purpose are key components of what is known as normalization.
Children go through what Dr. Maria Montessori called normalization as they learn routines and processes in their classrooms. Teachers carefully prepare the classroom environment so that children can spend long uninterrupted periods of time on work that they choose. Choosing their work and focusing on it allows children to work purposefully and feel satisfaction in what they have discovered and accomplished.
First days at MSSA also include grace and courtesy lessons, which are key components of a Montessori environment and provide a social setting that promotes mutual respect. In addition, our classroom communities emphasize care of self, care of others, and care of the environment. I love seeing our students enter the building with a sense of joy and excitement as they start their day, and it is with joy and excitement that we welcome our new and returning students and families back to campus.