Anna Black
Anna Black’s first Montessori experience was at a small Casa in Birmingham, England which she attended as a four-year-old. She remembers cutting apples with the push-down apple cutter, writing with the Moveable Alphabet and the excitement of choosing what colour paper she would use for her metal inset work. Those fond memories led to a life long love of Montessori. In 2002, she qualified as an AMI 3-6 Directress and spent the next two decades working in various Montessori settings, at times alongside her mother, a Montessori principal and teacher. Since May 2020, she has been working for Inspire Early Learning Journey, a multi-centre Montessori early childhood provider, firstly as a Montessori directress and now as a guide and mentor teacher for all teaching staff across several campuses.
Saturday, 11 March
1:30pm – 2:30pm
concurrent workshops - select one
Children learn best through play, therefore play-based learning is best practice for young children. It is written into our curriculum frameworks, so where does that leave us Montessorians? Play-based learning is often held up in opposition to Montessori programs as a way to differentiate one from the other. Somewhere along the line, many in the Montessori community have moved away from seeing play as the wonderful vehicle for learning that it is. To truly follow the child, we must become playful and find ways to integrate play philosophy into our practice. This workshop will explore definitions of play, identify where play already exists in our environments and how to extend our understanding of work and normalisation through play.
