BLOOMING MINDS OBSERVATIONS 1

Blooming Minds Montessori Observations

Stacy Symons

Salt Lake Community College

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Blooming Minds Montessori Observations

When you think of playful smiles, exuberant play, endless amounts of energy, and an

insatiable zest for learning, what image comes to mind? These are all hallmarks of early

childhood, those tender and malleable years from three to six. To explore this field of

development a little further, I was able to go and observe a classroom of early childhood

learners. Blooming Minds Montessori was generous enough to let me spend several hours

observing the actions and interactions of the class. I noted and applied many things that I have

learned in my human growth and development psychology class.

I arrived at the school in the morning, staying from 9:00 AM to almost noon. This is

typically a block of time devoted to unstructured play, or “work,” as they called it. The students

were given the time, space, and materials to pursue whatever learning they desired. Certain

activities were to be done in designated areas of the classroom, such as the quiet area or art table.

Students needed to define their work area with a rug when working on the floor. Individual

activities were typically pre-sorted in baskets that the students could carry with them to their

work space. One teacher was in the corner, helping a few students with an art project. Several

others were watching over the class, sometimes providing scaffolding to help children learn the

appropriate ways to do things, sometimes to step in when a confrontation or misunderstanding

occurred.

Overall, the class had a sense of managed chaos to it. The students emitted the same kind

of energy and attention span one would find during recess. It was not coincidental that they

referred to play time as work time. Play is an important and crucial part of development. It
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helps children assimilate new concepts, ideas, and growth over an array of contexts. The

students were all actively engaged in learning and experiencing.

Shortly after I arrived, one of the younger little girls approached me, gave my leg a hug,

and immediately walked away. I sat down at an empty table and began watching. There was a

mix of girls and boys, with girls slightly outnumbering the boys. The boys seemed to be

engaged in more constructive, hands-on building projects while the girls looked to be more

engaged in fantasy play. I watched as one boy, playing with blocks, was assisted in moving the

blocks of varying lengths over to his work area. Another boy was playing with trains. A young

girl cradled a wrapped blanket in her arms, referring to the blanket as her baby. These behaviors

are consistent with the early childhood development we discussed in class.

After that, a four-year-old girl approached me with her work. It consisted of two tea

cups, a miniature wooden spoon, and dry corn kernels. She practiced her fine motor skills,

scooping three or four kernels at a time from one cup to the other. She cooperatively engaged

me with her learning by allowing me to take turns with her. Sometimes we counted the kernels,

other times we simply transferred them from one cup to the other. Once we had been working

for a few minutes, two other small children approached our table, about three years old. They

engaged in onlooker play, watching the two of us work. After a short while, they each brought

their own work to our table. The three girls then began parallel play, working alongside each

other independently. One of them was drawing. Her crude fine motor skills were apparent in the

child-like drawing of her family. She asked me to draw a mermaid for her, to which I obliged. I

asked her to describe the mermaid to me that she saw in her head. As I drew the character, I

described what I was drawing as I was drawing it. I began my drawing with, “Well, she needs a

chin, a nose, eyes, and a mouth. Can’t forget eyebrows! Then she needs some hair. After her
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head, she needs a neck to support it!” I continued in this fashion, from head to tail. When I got

to the hands of the mermaid, I asked the children, “How many fingers are on her hands?”

Together we counted five fingers on our hands, and together we counted five fingers as I drew

them on paper. The entire time I was there, I tried to be descriptive in a zone of proximal

development to the children’s understanding. I had just read an article in the newspaper, and

learned in class, that exposure to words and conversations with adults are crucial for optimal,

efficient, and quick language development. Once I finished with the mermaid, we gave her a

name and another girl wanted one, as well. So, I continued in a similar fashion. This time when

I drew the eyebrows on our mermaid, they were angled toward the nose, making her look angry.

The girls quickly noticed and pointed this out to me. It’s understood that facial recognition

occurs early on in infancy, and it was interesting to note their development of understanding

facial expressions, even on paper, so accurately and well. After drawing for the girls, more

children gathered around our table. An older boy, perhaps five to six, requested I draw more

technical things for him, such telephone numbers and maps. It was convenient to draw the roads

on the writing paper he had presented me with, but then I learned that that was the wrong paper

for drawing. The teacher stepped in and told the boy that he can only practice writing on that

paper, and that there was other paper specifically for drawing. I also found out that some of the

blank paper I thought was for drawing on was meant for a stencil rubbing area. From this

experience, I learned there was more structure going on than what meets the eye.

I observed interpersonal actions between the children, as well. A young boy named

Corbin, about four years old, joined our table in place of one of the girls. He asked me to draw

his house for him. I reverted to the way I drew houses when I was young, with three windows,

one door, and a roof. He corrected me in my drawing, though, because it wasn’t what his house
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looked like. In an example of lack of effortful control and theory of mind, he got impatient and

angry when I didn’t draw the house exactly as he wanted it to be. He started drawing on my

paper, which I let him take over from there. I watched as, a few moments later, he turned his

attention from drawing on his paper to that of another little girl, Mary. This upset Mary because

her drawing was now ruined and would never be the same, a sign of irreversibility. Out of

frustration, she displayed instrumental aggression when she grabbed Corbin’s pencil, and he

responded with reactive aggression by striking her hand. As Mary began crying, so did Corbin.

I tried to talk Mary through her emotions and to try and teach Corbin why she upset. That’s

when one of the teachers stepped in to try and calm down Mary. With the elevated energy level

of this interaction, it seemed as if it attracted other students. Another girl, uninvolved with it,

began getting upset, too. I was suddenly bombarded with other children wanting attention. Fast

mapping was evident when several of the students chimed for my attention by calling me

“teacher.” Not all adults are teachers, but in this situation, they assumed that’s what I was there

for. The emotional outburst and lack thereof made a clear distinction between the younger

children of the group and the slightly older ones. The older children were much better at

emotional regulation and effortful control. These actions between the children were also

consistent with things we’ve learned in class.

I saw many things in my time observing early childhood education at Blooming Minds

Montessori. I observed the types of play children engage in and how they differ from girls to

boys. I watched adult and child interaction, such as scaffolding and teaching within the zone of

proximal development. I saw the energy and excitement that innately grows within young hearts

to play, learn, and grow. To watch this class and to connect facts and concepts we talked about in

class has reinforced my own learning and development.

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