A 5-day program is ideal (and more profitable) and I hope you can persuade your community of the value in it.
In our class, children wash their snack dishes in two round plastic basins on a low table. One for washing, one for rinsing. The children dry the dish and return it to the serving table. The assistant changes the water as needed, using anti-bacterial soap. The adult sanitizes all dishes again at the end of each day. This is not ideal
from a germ-control perspective, and some day care inspectors will not allow it, but it offers the most independence for the child and conservation of resources, b/c we're not using disposable products.
The day's used towels (from dish-drying or table-washing) go into a dirty laundry basket, and the teacher or assistant takes them home for laundering on the weekend. You might get a parent volunteer to this as well. Small cloths from polishing exercises, etc. are washed by the children in the cloth washing exercise. These too are periodically taken home for a real laundering. Thus you need a large
supply of each type of towel/cloth used in the classroom.
Articles on setting up a Montessori environment:
http://www.montessori.org/
http://www.montessori.org/
Photos of a Montessori environment:
http://mymontessorijourney.
setting-up-the.html
http://www.flickr.com/photos/
http://www.
http://sunhillmontessori.
Very affordable materials:
http://www.kidadvance.com/
Seasonal lesson guides:
http://www.newchildmontessori.
For some practical help....
The way snack works in my classroom is this. There is a bowl of snack on and pitcher of drink on a counter. There is a table devoted to only snack that has flowers on it and three placemats. There are two small baskets near the snack set up. One basket has a small nametag with each child's name. The other basket is empty. The day begins with all the names in the left hand basket.
The child is hungry. She finds her namecard and places it at a place at the snack table saving her spot. She washes her hands and dries them. She looks at the snack chalkboard top see what there is for snack and how many. It might say 2 apples. She unfolds a paper napkin and places it into the snack carrying bowl. (It is simply a dollar store cereal bowl that color coordinates with the entire snack set up- in my class that is blue.) She counts out her snack and places it on the napkin. She carries the snack to her place and lifts the napkin containing the snack out of the bowl and places it on the placemat at her snack spot. Then she returns the snack bowl to the serving area. (We have a total of two snack carrying bowels.)
She gets a cup- paper or glass and pours her juice or dirnk. She carries that to her snack place. She sits down and enjoys her snack socializing with the other two children who are there as well. When she is done, she discards her napkin and her cup. She uses the small table sweep to sweep up the crumbs and replaces the sweep. Then if necessary, she gets a small bucket and a half size sponge and puts a small amount of water in the bucket, dips and squeezes the sponge, wipes the placemap, pours out the water in the large dirty water bucket that sits next to the sink. and puts the bucket back where it goes.
Lastly she places her namecard in the finished snack basket (sometimes I start the year with this being a margerine tub with only small slit in it so once it is in there, it can't be easily retrieved.) Now the snack space is available for another child.
Each child may have snack once a day and any time they would like. The namecard placed in the second basket is the reminder that this is the rule.
The first few days you begin this individualized snack process, it will be teacher intensive! You will need one adult monitoring the snack process untill the children master it. Then it is very easy to maintain it.
If the water at the sink is difficult to access, you might want to try one of those plastic jugs- like people take on picnics. Some hold about 5 gallons of water and that is usually enough for a day's water activities. We have done that in spaces that do not have a water source. You have to refill it each day but that is not too difficult.
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