The really nice part is that making the craft is enhancing her learning. Oceans has been the topic of the past few days, and I know she's connecting with the material because I was on Google Earth the other day, and she pointed out a large body of water (it was actually a lake in Sweden; I was looking up place names from my latest reading, the Stieg Larssen trilogy) and said "That's the ocean, Mummy".
I guess I can also contrast what I see in the elementary school kindergarten when I go in to do volunteer work with the kids. I can never equate the environment there with the richness of the Montessori experience, from the learning, to the classroom environment. I don't know, Montessori seems to be a hard sell to parents, locally, and I can't ever explain it properly, but if you compare directly, there really is no comparison. It can be a bit of a shock to enter the drab public school system from Montessori, and I wish we had Montessori here for elementary school grades, but by age 6, most kids are pretty good with the transition. Mine did OK, anyhow. There's enough new and exciting to keep their interest. A bigger school, the sense of moving out of their babyhood, all of that helps with the change.
Speaking of school transitions, Sean and I went to visit two local high schools recently, as preparation for his upcoming transition to one of them in September2012. Grade 7 and 8 in the local elementary schools are moving to the high schools next year. Lots of changes are being made to accomodate the kids, but there are too few answers to a lot of parent's questions right now. And those of us with children of special needs are quaking in our boots.
I did find that one school principal did venture into the area of "special needs" in her talk to the group, and was the only principal who did so. I had a good chat with her after the tour, and figure this is going to be the better high school for Sean, partly because of their attention to the problem, partly because it is a smaller school than the other.
It also happens to be Skyler's current school, but that did not factor into the equation. I asked Sean his opinion, and he had to refer the question on to his imaginary dragons, Sparky and Squirt, who go with him everywhere (they're from one of Evie's favorite TV shows, "Mike the Knight", who also happens to have a sister named....Evie!), and Sparky said he preferred Skyler's high school also.
Basically, for Sean, it came down to knowing that some of his current classroom peers were going to be at the same school. I guess that's a pretty normal preference.
It was an interesting experience overall. Of course while I was noticing classroom size and proximity of washrooms, Sean was studying the heating system and and vents or other piping that he could see.
Whatever makes him happy. I am just happy that we are 90% decided, as I was really going back and forth on the issue for awhile.
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