As the regular school year winds to a close it is reassuring to see that the children are still thrilled to learn new activites.

Yesterday, I invited a child to do something new with a standard invitation, "Come, I have something new to share with you." Her immediate reaction was to clap her hands and burst into smiles. One might expect this if she had not learned anything new for a while, but it was her second presentation of the morning.

Then there is the variety of ways that children react after a lesson presentation is completed. Some children cannot wait to get their hands on the material as soon as the teacher returns it to the shelf. Once the invitation to use it is given, the child immediately takes the material to use independently. That is a good clue that the teacher was successful in the presentation.

Other children, though, act aloof about the new choice. they go off and do something else once the presentation is complete. That does not necessarily mean that the teacher chose an inappropriate presentation. There is a child in the classroom who invariably comes back to those new activiies that day. But there is always a break between the presentation and the personal choice. It is almost as if that intervening time allows the child to truly claim the lesson, since the personal choice comes later, not at the teacher's discretion.

An observer in the classroom commented that, "They all look so happy." Yes, learning should be joyful.

Montessori observed that children learn very well from other children. This horizontal learning is a powerful energy in the classroom. In our early childhood classroom we saw this happen with multiplication this week. I taught the lesson whereby a child can count colored bead bars to clarify the concept of adding the same number over and over to achieve multiplication. We did the table of fours. Another kindergarten-aged student saw it and remembered having learning the process earlier. She started doing it. Then another and another student chose multiplication. By the end of the week all the kindergarteners and some of the four-years-olds were working on multiplication with the bead bars. Two students were also working on multiples on the pegboard, a related activity. All were having a great time with these activities. What an affirmation for the Montessori method