Montessori Classroom Guided Tour, Part One

The first stop in any Montessori classroom is the Practical Life area.  Here is our snack table, conveniently close to where the food prep work will be.  It is also between the sink (yay -I have a sink in the classroom again!) and the yet-to-be-purchased dish washing station.

I like having some shelves to put on top of the cabinets.  It allows me to keep things out that I don't necessarily want 3 year olds getting into, such as the CD player.  It also gives me more options for vertical display space -we have really high ceilings in our rooms!

I hope to get a few more table lamps for this area.  It seems bright now, but that is because we don't have any window treatments up yet.  I prefer natural lighting to fluorescent, and this corner can get too dark to see on cloudy days.

We won't necessarily have these works out on the first day of school.  We wanted to give families an idea of what kind of work children do in this area. 

These fabric bins were outside my classroom for the past two years -they held coats, backpacks, work, etc.  They are getting a new life as classroom storage for the kids.

I have Art in the Practical Life area as well because it is, erm, well practical.  I don't have a hard surface in the entire room so it is easier to fix artistic missteps on the linoleum.

Don't worry, the art section will fill up before the start of the school year!

Tomorrow I will show you the rest of the room :)