What is First Friday? First Friday is an opportunity for you to observe and learn from the children. This is a chance to experience the Montessori lessons that your child have been given.

As a participant of First Friday, you are an observer and a learner. Please keep this in mind as your child goes through the steps of their lessons.

Your child will have a list that they have created with the lessons they will be showing you. The importance of completing a lesson before moving on to the next is vital. This is an essential practical skill, we must complete the tasks we start before moving on the next task. If you child wants to move on to the next lesson on their plan, please ensure the initial lesson is complete.

The Montessori material is designed to start the child at the most concrete stage of a concept and progressively leads them towards abstraction.. Each step is important to the child’s critical thinking process. It is important that the children master each step before moving on to the next lesson. With this said, your child might only be showing you part of the process for one concept. It is a culminating effort from a plethora of lessons and mastery from the child that leads them to abstraction with minimal teacher intervention. When teacher intervention is necessary, open-ended questions are used to allow the child to utilize their critical thinking skills and supports higher level thinking.

If your child makes an error, that is ok. In life we are meant to learn from our errors. If we do not allow our children to make errors, we cannot expect them to be avid learners and critical thinkers.

“As an inventor, Edison made 1,000 unsuccessful attempts at inventing the light bulb. When a reporter asked, “How did it feel to fail 1,000 times?” Edison replied, “I didn’t fail 1,000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps.”

Sincrely,

Christine, Danielle, Sara & Torey