Montessori, Money & McDonalds makes me happy :)

Vaxjo Montessori School

5 & 6 year olds working independently.

7 year olds learning how to subtract large numbers.

More 7 year olds working independently.

The title to this particular blog might have you wondering what I am talking about.  The first word Montessori is because on Tuesday my class visited the Vaxjo Montessori School which was very nice.  The school is named after Maria Montessori who was an Italian educator and is known today for her philosophy of education.  This is not the only Montessori school, they are all over the world but this is the one located in my town.  Students in the Montessori schools are given a lot of responsibility from a very young age and they get to decide what they learn with in reason.  Students are encouraged to make their own decisions. Each morning the students are to work on whatever they choose until lunch time with out being interrupted.  I found this from Wikipedia and it best describes Maria Montessori's methods..."The Montessori method involves a curriculum of learning that comes from the child's own natural inner guidance and expresses itself in outward behavior as the child's various individual interests are at work."The teacher is there to assist with anything they need but no classroom instruction is given as a whole.  While I was there all of the students worked independently on various subjects.  I even visited the 6 year olds and they were working on math independently.  There were a couple things I noticed while I was there...All of the children were spread out throughout the whole school working, another thing I noticed  was the peace and quiet.  Even though the children are given freedom to go and do what they want they are extremely well behaved.  It was incredible!  Then after going to the Montessori school I headed back to campus because I had class in the afternoon as well...This was a lecture with a class of Swedish students.  This was nice because I got the opportunity to meet new Swedish students.  After class our professor announced some wonderful news that Wednesday we would not have class so I was officially on my weekend by Tuesday afternoon...oh the life of a study abroad student.  Wednesday (today) I decided to do something that was way overdue....pay my January's rent haha. Your probably wondering why I have not paid and that brings me to my next word...Money.  FINALLY the university gave me the stipend for rent and food so Kait & I decided to go pay our rent and do some shopping.  After we paid our rent we bought our first food with our stipend...

A Big Mac!

Whoever said money can't buy happiness obviously never lived in Sweden and had to cook on their own.... every time Kait & I go to town we buy a little bit of happiness :) --Side note a Big mac combo in Sweden is approximately $9.50....totally worth it!  After we ate we shopped around and ventured into new stores that we have yet to visit.  We also got outfits for the 80's & 90's party in Friday night which we are anxiously awaiting..don't worry I'll blog and post pics after it!  We spent majority of our time in the home stores looking at things that we wish we could buy to decorate a house with.  It is so hard because we hate to spend money on things that we can get by without but at the same time its not so fun living in a plain room...so I bought some candles that were on rea (sale).  Don't they look nice?  So today I'm realizing how little things in life can make me happy like some candles on sale, a big mac, paying my rent...finally, and visiting a neat school in a lovely small town.  Looking forward to the 80's party and the rest of my relaxing weekend!

Best,

Allie