Find your home!

After teaching for nine years in the same classroom at the same school, I am (very anxiously) preparing to open a new Montessori classroom at another public school.  Due to an outstanding group of generous parents, I have boxes and boxes of brand new materials.  (No furniture yet, but lovely, lovely shiny new materials.)  Already, I (along with kind family members and friends coerced into joining the crazy) am up 'til the wee hours, sorting through cards, finding containers, and herding tiny bits into the appropriate tiny boxes.

In the best of worlds, children would attend to our modeling and always carefully restore all of the little bits to their proper places, never leaving loose parts behind when the work is finished.  In the best of worlds, children would always carefully carry boxes of tiny bits and never drop them and their contents.  In the best of worlds, custodians moving furniture for summer floor-cleaning would never tip a puzzle map cabinet sideways in such a way that all of the countries all over the world fall into a single jumbled pile (a very serious international incident!).  In the best of worlds, I would never return to my room one summer morning very close to the start of school to discover that a mystery foe has sprinkled bead chain tags from a variety of boxes into a mixed mess on the floor.

I've been teaching long enough to know that we live in the real world, and these things sometimes happen.  As I contemplate the inevitable spills and wayward little bits, I am reminded of a post by P.S. Montessori, describing a hilarious insect situation in which children shouted "Find your home!"  Many materials (and bless these suppliers!) have codes on the back for just this purpose.  Some do not.  How will we help them find their home?  If someone discovers a wayward clock label, how will we determine in which of the many sets it belongs? How will we easily reunite numerous seemingly identical small countries with their respective continent puzzle maps?  If we find a lost chain tag (or a pile of them) on the floor, how will we help it find its home?  Certain dark blue tags might belong in any one of four boxes loaded with tiny tags!

My materials are new.  Nothing is lost.  No pieces are missing--yet.  Now is the time to be kind to my future self and prepare for these potential problems.  Feeling supremely sacrilegious, I turned over every tag for the square chains and used a Sharpie to (oh so carefully!) draw a thin black line across one end of the back of each.  This will help us distinguish a found square chain tag from its identical cube chain mate.  Next, I drew a thin green line on the back of the tags for the long ten chain.  I am even considering a small dot of paint carefully applied to the back of each of the tiny country puzzle pieces, color-coded to match its continent color.

I know, I know.  Montessori teachers everywhere are cringing at the thought.  If you've been teaching for a while, though, you just might be getting out your markers and your paint . . .