More Montessori at Home

My daughter got some ABC and Numbers puzzle that are slightly bigger than her age when all put together at a single set.  So, I bagged them up into zip locks and labeled them. I divided the ABC puzzle into six sets according to the Montessori language divisions; SMAT, BFOX, HUCP, NERD, WIJGL, KQVYZ.

 I divided the numbers into 5 piece sets; 1-5, 6-10, 11-15, 16-20 since she is getting really good at 1-4 and should be up to 5 soon.

 I like buying materials just a little bit out of her grasp and the pairing them down like this. 1. It pushes her and 2. It saves money because I can use them longer. I also got these three wooden puzzles on sale, I think individually that they might be easy for her so I put them into one container together.  I used a Montessori trick- "control of error"- to help her discern which pieces fit to which puzzle.  I put all dragon fly stickers on the dinosaur puzzle, all heart sticker on the duck puzzle, and all animal stickers on the lion puzzle.

I know that these tricks are not belonging to Montessori alone but they are valuable, you can use anything that you find and make it fit your child/children's abilities. Happy teaching! 

Fancy Stick

Check out this great project I did with my daughter today!  Mercury has a thing for sticks and picked another one up the other day while we were outside so we thought we'd dress it up a little.

 

 

We got out a bunch of random beads/buttons, paint pens, ribbon scraps, snippets of old colorful drinking straws, scrap puzzle pieces and googly eyes.  She told me what she wanted and where, while I manned the hot glue gun.  We counted how many beads in a line or a grouping while we made it.  You could also do ABC beads to talk about letters or talk about colors or patterns.  Naturally her stick has been a magic wand, a sword, has become a creature and much more.

You could do this with an older child (I'll probably do this for Mercury tomorrow) and create a story with the stick as the main character.  Or a story where the child is a pirate and this is his/her sword, etc.  The child can draw their stick or take a picture of it and insert it into different backgrounds. I like how this project had us really working together to transform the stick into something new.  We also used a lot of ribbon scraps and other stuff that helped de-clutter.

One of my favorite projects is an idea I found in a book back in high school for my K-5 summer program is creating a Pirate Utopia.  This can last one week or all semester.  The children create their own society complete with things like: Name, Flag, National Animal, Gross National Product, Political Map, Topography, Customs, Native Art....and on...and on. I can see turning the stick into something like that.  Check back for the Fancy Stick Book, coming soon.

Seasonal Fun!

Here's some fun seasonal stuff we've done in the fall and winter. Sensory and Science activities and just bringing Fall and Winter objects into the normal shelf work.

Pumpkin Carving:

Washing our pumpkin.

Taking out the insides. Sorting seeds so we could bake them.

We talked about how pumpkins grow and had a work on the shelf with cards showing the different stages from seed to pumpkin.  When we were done carving our Jack-o-Lantern the sequence cards and some dried seeds were kept on the little table with it.

We turned off the lights and let it glow after they watched me carve it.

For the design I printed off a few choices and we voted, they wanted the standard face.

Cornucopia:

Snow and Ice:

 We found a nice big sheet of ice that quickly became lots of pieces.

It's transparent, how cool!

We brought the snow inside when it was too cold to go out.

Holiday themed works:

Decorating the tree on our felt board.

Glueing ornaments on a tree.  This is a work that is regularly on the shelf, not a special project.

Decorating a tree.

 

Toy train (fine motor skills).  They're going to be sooo upset when this isn't there in January. \

Montessori at Home

A few tips about reinforcing your child’s

Montessori education at home

A word of warning: purchasing the same Montessori materials that you child has at school for your home can, and most likely will, cause your child to become bored with the materials and reject the materials in both locations.  Montessori specific materials are also used in very specific ways to promote learning and also care of those materials.  Letting a child misuse Montessori materials will also adversely affect the child’s school experience and education.

Practical life activities are perhaps the most effortlessly integrated into daily life at home. Here are some activities your child can help with around the house but keep in mind- they will not do it perfectly, they are learning and will make mistakes and messes, they also may not follow through and finish an in depth activity.

• Sorting laundry
• Matching socks, etc.
• Folding/rolling towels-Montessori children practice rolling rugs daily & are inclined towards rolling towels too. A basket of hand towels rolled in the bathroom can be space for them to practice this inclination.
• Feeding pets-Getting a simple container with a scoop/cup so your child can scoop food and pour it into the bowl on their own.
• Giving pets water/watering plants. Get a small pitcher for children to use and fill 1/3 of the way at first for minimal chance of spills.
• Washing the table/other surfaces
• Dusting
• Setting the table-Silverware and napkins are easy for children to put out on the table and are unbreakable.You can print out an image of a table setting for your child to look at and follow.
• Passing/serving food-Even something as simple as sprinkling Parmesan cheese on their own pizza (and yours too) or spooning out vegetables.
• Mixing, measuring, stirring, etc. in food prep. Mashing potatoes or avocado for guacamole.

Adding Parmesan cheese to pasta.

Flower arranging for the living room.

Sensorial activities at home are generally incorporated with blocks, stackers, matching games, and other great educational toys available in stores.  Check out U.S. Toy Store at 103rd and State Line (Kansas City, MO) for great educational toys and materials.

Language is a very important area.  Putting your child’s coloring pages, a coloring page you print off, a letter handwritten on a piece of paper on the refrigerator is a great way to reinforce the letter of the week.  You can discuss the letter while cooking meals/eating breakfast.  enchantedlearning.com has some great free printouts.  You can always check Alpha’s main bulletin board or calendar (available on the website) about which letter we are studying.  Be careful of the resources you choose- children need to learn the lowercase letters because those are more common but many learning activities/toys have only upper case.  Just try to make sure you are going over the lower case as much as possible with your child.  Also make sure if your child is old enough to start writing activities that they are practicing with the first letter capitalized and the subsequent letters lower case, this is VERY hard to “unlearn” once learned incorrectly.  Here are some more early language activities to do at home:

• Flashcards are great for some kids, try to make it fun and not a "drill".
• Scavenger hunt things that begin with a certain letter.  Either have the child find the items on their own or suggest items ("b"- "lets find bear") for younger children.
• Get/make a name tag for your child's room or door- even for younger children.  If they see their name on the door ("Ryan", not "RYAN"- not in all caps!) they will get used to the way their name looks.  Later you can work on the first letter and then the subsequent letters.
• Do table setting name tags and have your child match the name to that person's spot.
• Make a matching letters work for younger children like below. You can use laminated paper with magnets glued on the back like this one or just cardstock/thick material so it's easy to pick up.

Children learn language by listening. When you are talking they are listening.  Use proper grammar and manners to help your child learn them his/herself. Children will more easily pick up “please” and “thank you” when they hear you use the words regularly, especially when you are talking to them.  Read, read, read and let the child look at the words as you read.  Limit or cut out television entirely.  The American Academy of Pediatrics (see /www.healthychildren.org) “recommends limited television for children- and discourages it altogether for children under age 2” (Some-TV-Shows-are-Bad-for-Their-Brains)  “No more than one to two hours per day of educational, nonviolent programs...” (Where-We-Stand-TV-Viewing-Time) are the current recommendation but they are also finding that certain cartoons “fast-paced” cartoons (see first link) are seen to adversely effect children’s cognitive abilities.  The less children watch television and instead play, color, help out around the house the more they are actively developing their brains.

Math can be incorporated throughout your daily activities.  Count everything you can- if you can touch it as you count to show the relationship between physical objects and the numbers that great!  Or just count the train cars, the number of grocery bags, the number of eggs you add to the cookies, etc.  Start simple with whatever your child knows, most children by age two will know 1 & 2.  Add in 3 and when they can count 3 items move onto 4, so on. You can make things like below that the child can do:

     

I have been teaching various ages of montessori for almost half my life.  My mother has been a montessori teacher since I was in 1st grade and I grew up helping out at her school as a general assistant, then assistant teacher progressing to lead teacher at schools in Indianapolis and Kansas City.  For ten years of working in a montessori environment I went through ages; infant, one-year, preschool, kindergarten and lower elementary and had more than one opportunity to move into a two year old classroom but always passed.  Last fall I was offered a toddler room at a school very close to my house where my daughter was already attending.  I accepted with a smile on my face and terror in my gut.  I had a few months to get used to the idea before I started and came to the conclusion of how closed-minded I was being and worked to change my uneasiness and apprehension into an open-minded optimism of a new challenge.

My issues with two a two year old classroom was not just the awful "terrible twos" stereotype it was that I had seen two year old classes in a few montessori schools and they were terrifying.  Red rods brandished as billy clubs, pink towers with chew marks, practical life all but thrown aside for risk of choking and replaced by a colored on, naked baby doll in a tub that is never filled with water and contains no scrub brush (twinge).  For me, being raised in montessori the disrespect shown to the classroom, its materials and the montessori curriculum that was shown by the students and teachers in these classrooms was abhorrent.  Upon further analysis I found what I had missed (ashamedly) all those years; The classroom is a direct result of the teacher.  The classroom's functionality or dysfunctionality is a direct result of the teacher and his/her willingness to set up a clean and orderly prepared environment, have a consistent routine and prepared lessons which will engage (not a complete list but the three glaring points omitted from the classrooms I had previously observed).

Here I'm documenting what I'm learning about teaching toddlers in a montessori environment in the hopes that I can show others what amazing things these developing people are capable of.  To start with, here's a photo of my fantastic two year old doing a plant watering work in class last year: