Mabel Molanphy

Mabel in action at school. Lots of pho­tos attached, descrip­tion below.

In Montes­sori school, each con­ti­nent is a col­or. That col­or remains true through­out their entire edu­ca­tion. You can see in the first pho­to, she’s trac­ing each con­ti­nent onto the coor­di­nat­ing col­or paper, then she cuts it out, and glues it to a new piece of paper, in the appro­pri­ate lay­out as the globe. As she moves onto oth­er work, and learns about ani­mals, cul­tures, etc, each image will have a coor­di­nat­ing bor­der or stick­er match­ing the col­or of the con­ti­nent that it rep­re­sents. It helps give them a con­crete learn­ing and under­stand­ing of dif­fer­ent peo­ple and ani­mals around the world. Brilliant.

In the next pho­to, she’s learn­ing her sand­pa­per let­ters. She’s trac­ing each let­ter to devel­op mus­cle mem­o­ry for how to write them. Also, she only learns the *sounds* each let­ter makes, rather than the name, so she can begin spelling and writ­ing in cur­sive right away. In this case, though, she’s learn­ing the sounds in Span­ish… at home, we teach her the sounds in English. 

In the third pho­to, she’s clean­ing a table, prac­tic­ing to take care of her envi­ron­ment, and keep it orga­nized and clean.

In the next pho­to, she’s doing con­crete count­ing with the num­ber rods. They are placed in ran­dom order, then she counts them, and match­es them up with the sand­pa­per num­bers (again, traced for mus­cle mem­o­ry). It helps the con­crete under­stand­ing of the num­ber symbol.

Last­ly, she’s prac­tic­ing writ­ing her num­bers. Zoom in and you can see how clear her hand­writ­ing is. This is a prod­uct of prac­tic­ing with the sand­pa­per let­ters, before she’s able to prac­tice writ­ing with a pencil.

Also notice that she’s work­ing alone? Each child is able to work on what they would like, to help them devel­op con­cen­tra­tion and fol­low their inter­ests. If they are ignor­ing a cer­tain work, the teacher (guide) will help them get involved in that work to pique their inter­est. In Mabel’s case, she was resist­ing sand­pa­per let­ters, but Miss Toba began telling her she need­ed to do that work first in the morn­ing, then she could choose anoth­er work after that. A won­der­ful way to have them learn some­thing new, but still be able to do a work they real­ly like, too.

Er, that’s prob­a­bly the wrong sub­ject since I’m not actu­al­ly here to post the actu­al fes­tiv­i­ties. Just a note that I actu­al­ly *did* do some­thing for her birth­day. I was feel­ing bad­ly that I did­n’t make some awe­some cake, like Aunt Stephanie would have (bus cake, shark, “Grant” cake, etc, etc.) or have some super-cool soc­cer-fest like Aunt Melin­da. And if Uncle Steve were in charge? It’d be “Skate the Gold­en Gate” (a par­ty I’ve tried to con­vince David to throw for me…no luck). I’ve seen Tia Liza­’s pic­tures, and she goes all out, too!! But me? I go for the park and play­ground. A fenced one, at that, so the kids can run wild, require zero super­vi­sion by me, and let the par­ents hang-out and eat. Oh, yah, it’s fam­i­ly-style, so I don’t have to wor­ry about watch­ing oth­er’s kids. 😉

So, here’s the invi­ta­tions (I’m includ­ing last year’s, for a momen­to sake). Con­sid­er your­self invit­ed. Wish all our loved ones could be here, too!!

When we real­ized that the name “Mabel” meant lov­able, it seemed very sweet. Only it turns out, it’s very accu­rate. Mabel has the sweet­est nature about her; she always wants to share what she has. With all her Hal­loween treats, which isn’t much with her aller­gies, she shares every. sin­gle. piece with me *and* David. If it’s a Kit-Kat, she’ll break it in half, break each piece in half, and sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly divide it up. No mat­ter what the can­dy or treat, she always breaks it in half and brings it to us. We only accept some of the time (to show our grat­i­tude), but she always offers. As I write this, there is a col­lec­tion of treats on my desk, that she left “for when you want a treat.” that she had gath­ered from her own bag. She real­ly is lovable. 

In June, we got notice that LeP­ort would­n’t be able to open until Jan­u­ary. I was com­plete­ly dev­as­tat­ed, as I had been liv­ing in SF for a full-year now, wait­ing for a real Montes­sori school to show-up. We were able to score a home (to rent) that had enough space to offer an entire room to six of the chil­dren. LeP­ort pro­vid­ed the mate­ri­als (well, most of them…) and the Guide, to teach. Though I don’t love this home nor neigh­bor­hood, the mem­o­ries being cre­at­ed here are priceless.

Note: her hair in two braids with orange ribbon…her dad­dy did the braids AND rib­bon-tying. She was so proud. 🙂 Also, she’s in a “dress” phase, and wears some dress/skirt with tights daily.

I got an expect­ed text mes­sage last Sat­ur­day morn­ing at 7:30am, ask­ing if Mabel would be inter­est­ed in being a flower girl. To quote my cousin, RJay, “is a 50 lb chick­en heavy?” I asked the wed­ding col­ors, and I hap­pened to have this fab­ric (orange and white). There were going to be African dancers, so I threw on the “chee­tah shoes” for good mea­sure. This pho­to is her “tri­al run,” as I was in the lob­by dur­ing the real deal (mak­ing sure she did­n’t freeze up!). She was a hit, of course, and the flow­ers matched the shades of orange on her dress perfectly. 🙂