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Saturday, December 10, 2022
Toddler Montessori Gifts
Tuesday, December 6, 2022
Use This! Not That!
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Sunday, January 26, 2020
Young Infant "Toys"
Reposted from my Moonlight Blog: March 30, 2017
Hi Tammy!
I’m looking for some recommendations from a Montessori perspective of fun activities and play time to do with an infant. She is 6 weeks old and I want to keep her appropriately stimulated (not over or under stimulated) with things that her brain can actually process at this age and the coming weeks. Do you have any tips?
Hello!
For six week old, a generally recommend a soft, but firm place to lay on her back and observe. A futon mattress works well. I like to place it in a place where she can have one nice view (like where she could see out a bank of windows to outside), and if she turned her head the other way it is a blank wall. This will provide her with a self-selected break if she chooses.
In the first 3 months we use the mobile series. I have linked to the DIY versions (thank you, to Rachael at Little Red Farm and Meg from Sew Liberated). You can also buy either assembled or unassembled versions on Etsy. They are not very commercially available, we make them in teacher training.
For six week old, a generally recommend a soft, but firm place to lay on her back and observe. A futon mattress works well. I like to place it in a place where she can have one nice view (like where she could see out a bank of windows to outside), and if she turned her head the other way it is a blank wall. This will provide her with a self-selected break if she chooses.
In the first 3 months we use the mobile series. I have linked to the DIY versions (thank you, to Rachael at Little Red Farm and Meg from Sew Liberated). You can also buy either assembled or unassembled versions on Etsy. They are not very commercially available, we make them in teacher training.
The Visual Mobile Series (these are used for baby to look at, and should always be kept out of reach):
Black and white pictures (0-4 weeks)
Munari Mobile (3-6 weeks)
Octahedron Mobile (5-8 weeks)
The Gobbi mobile (7-10 weeks)
Dancers Mobile (8-12 weeks)
Flowing Rhythm Mobile (8-12 weeks)
Butterflies (10-16 weeks)
Hummingbirds (10-16 weeks)
Mother and baby whales (10-16 weeks)
The Tactile Mobile Series
Tripod mobile hanger (can be used with or without mat, also available to purchase)
Bell on a Ribbon (12-16 weeks)
Wooden ring on elastic (12-16 weeks)
Primary colours mobile (12-18 weeks)
Wooden musical mobile (16-20 weeks)
Then I also use a tented cloth on her side (the side that is more “stimulating”). She can reach for it and eventually work on grabbing it. That is basically a cloth of firmish material (a washcloth works) that you pull up in the center so it looks like pyramid).
I HIGHLY recommend the book The Joyful Child, by Susan Stephenson. Her website is also a wealth of information.
Wednesday, January 8, 2020
Natural Consequences and Toddler Clean-up Expectations
Reposted from my Moonlight Blog: April 12, 2017
Question from FaceBook: How do you handle when toddlers refuse to put things away? Mine just turned two and we are trying to get her to put her toys away when she’s done with them. Sometime she does it really really well, and other times she just refuses. The natural consequence I’ve been using is that she doesn’t get to play with those toys anymore and they go away in the closet and she says bye-bye. But that doesn’t seem to be making too much of an impact. What do you guys suggest for this?
Answer: This expectation would not be developmentally appropriate. They will not begin doing this consistently until much later (in school, this is one of the signs that they are ready for the 3-6 classroom). I model cleanup, invite them to join me, but it is not an expectation. At home we would encourage families to keep the toys out to a minimum (between 9 and 12 activities). Try to not have big buckets of toys, such as giant buckets of blocks. With those toys have 10 or so pieces out only. Taking the toys away would be considered a punishment, which we try to avoid. In this situation, the natural consequence is to have a mess to look at, a toy that gets stepped on and hurts someone, or gets stepped on and broken. As I am modeling clean up, I mention these consequences as the reason I am cleaning up.
The adult keeps the order, the child internalizes it, then they begin to keep the order themselves eventually.
Q: Thanks so much for this clarification. One of the problem is that toys are indeed a big bag of blocks. She loves to dump them all out and then sort of organize them, but then it’s always a struggle to put them away. I will try giving her just 10 pieces. So in that case, does that count as one toy and then she can also have a handful of other choices? Right now we’re doing a lot of puzzles and sets of things like animals that are magnetic. So each toy has a lot of little parts. What should I do in terms of how many of those to have out at a time?
A: The group of ten counts as one one activity. For animals I keep 5 or 6 out as one activity. One puzzle is out. One or two books (and I count that in my nine). If most things have multiple pieces I try to stay closer to the 9 mark than 12.
Q: Thank you so much! It makes total sense, now that you pointed it out, that taking the toy away was not a natural consequence. That feels much better to me to just ask her to clean up and do it for her for now. We are also struggling with the obedience aspect. I know that cooperation not obedience is the goal, and I love that. But at what point does it become not OK for your child to flat out disobey you? Only in issues of safety? What do I say if she says no when I ask her to do something?
A: I actually don’t even think cooperation is a goal. It is nice when it happens, but it also isn’t a developmentally appropriate expectation at this age. Try to reframe your thinking from disobedience, to “acting in ways that are age appropriate”. They cannot really disobey at this age, they are acting in large part on impulse. Even if they “know” a rule, even can repeat it back, they often cannot help themselves from not following the rule to satisfy curiosity or another internal need. As they develop this impulse control they may start “disobeying”, but this typically happens around three or so and is another sign that they are ready to move from a toddler environment to a 3-6 environment. It shows that they are leaving the unconscious absorbent mind period and are entering the conscious absorbent mind period.
In my classroom, I stop a child from doing something that falls into the category of the four Ds.
The Four Ds
Destruction When something could be broken or pieces lost.
Disruption Such that it is truly bothering another, rather than something could potentially bother someone.
Disrespect Being unkind
Danger Being unsafe for oneself or another. I do make a distinction between safety like you might have to go to a hospital or could die , which I always stop, and minor injuries, like you could fall or pinch fingers, etc. I will often allow those types of “risky” behavior.
Saturday, January 4, 2020
The Bird Takes Flight
{Reposted from my Moonlight Blog, 8/28/2017}
Today is my son’s first day of school away from me. He is three, and I have had a classroom at our home for him for the last year and we are raising him in a Montessori home. I am not saddened by this transition, or worried that he is too young or will not be able to handle being away from me. Rather, I am excited for his future. I am excited for him to become attached to another caregiver, an adult that he can trust and learn from. I am excited for him to make friends, and I am even excited for him to have arguments with other children and the resulting lessons he will learn from those interactions. We dropped him off and then we left. We did not linger, we are not spending our time watching him through the observation windows.
The most important thing when your child starts school is TRUST. I was deliberate in my choice of his school. I researched, I visited, asked important questions about how the classrooms ran and the certifications of the teachers. I talked to past parents at the school.So now I trust that they will do what is in his best interest and in the best interest of the community of learners.
As a school owner, I have seen that families often cause unwitting stress on the school relationship. This in turn puts stress on the child and inhibits the child’s growth. The two issues I come across most often is 1) The families do not want their child to be growing up and see the child as still a baby and incapable and 2) The families do not trust that someone else will do things like they do it.
One of the primary differences between Montessori and other philosophies of education is that we start from the place that a child is inherently capable. From the time of birth the child has within him all he needs to construct himself.
“At birth, the child leaves a person- his mother’s womb- and this makes him independent of her bodily functions. The baby is next endowed with an urge, or need, to face the out world and to absorb it. We might say that he is born with the ‘psychology of world conquest’. By absorbing what he finds about him, he forms his own personality.” (The Absorbent Mind, Chapter 7, p. 88).
This child is not ours to mold into who we want him or her to be. Rather, the child MUST construct himself as he is. And to do this the child needs rich experiences.
No, no other person will care for your child like you do. Not even your partner. Part of the rich experiences a child needs are allowing other caregivers to be a part of our children’s lives. Research has shown that children do well with more than one caregiver: “In the Study of Early Child Care, when quality and type of care were controlled for along with family background, children exposed to large amounts of care were at increased risk for attachment insecurity only if their mothers were highly insensitive.” (Retrieved from: http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/570794). Throughout a child’s life they will have to learn how to deal with all sorts of people. Through our carefully chosen network of people we allow into our children’s lives, we can give our children practice in this. And there are many positives besides experiences. Try as we might, we are not impartial observers of our own children. We have biases, both positive and negative, that can blind us to some of the realities of our children. We need outside sources to push past these biases to allow our child to reach their full potential. As parents, we have strengths and weaknesses that affect how and what we can teach our children. Having a bigger variety of caregivers will allow our children to capitalize on other adults’ knowledge and experiences.
So fly my little bird. The sky is the limit for you and I am so excited to be a witness to your journey.
Friday, October 18, 2019
Last week was...interesting...
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| Our new cleaning fish rocks work! |
Monday, January 28, 2019
My Monthly Art Gallery
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| Haddon Sundblom, "Fireside Santa", 1930s |
For my classroom, I also try make the decor in the classroom meaningful, a reflection of what the children are seeing in the world around them, as well as a way to introduce art and famous artists. In my Montessori training I remember a story about a child looking at a famous painting with Dr. Montessori. Dr. Montessori was looking at it as most adults do, but the child saw minute, seemingly insignificant, details (a mouse in the corner) because they looked at it with different eyes.
Admittedly, this is a new area for me, as I am not well versed in the area of art and art appreciation. So, I am constantly learning. And I look forward to being able to offer my students other art outside of paintings. But I am starting where I know a little (December was my first month of trying this art gallery).
December Art Gallery
I am starting with the painting above, as it was the students' favorite in the gallery this month. Really, the only one that they took notice of. This is the Coca Cola Santa, created in the 1930s that everyone has adopted as the look of Santa (red coat and hat, rosy cheeks, etc). Sundblom said he based the look on the 1823 poem "A Visit From Saint Nicholas" (what we now call "'Twas the Night Before Christmas"), and used his neighbor, a postal worker, as the model. The children definitely noticed his shoes were off and all of their questions had to do with that.
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| "The Christmas Tree", Alexei Mikhailovich, 1910 |
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| "Santa with Elves", Norman Rockwell, 1922 |
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| "Christmas in the Brothel", Edvard Munch, 1903-4 |
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| "Christmas Night (The Blessing of the Oxen)", Paul Gauguin, 1902-3 |
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| "Adoration of the Shepherds", Caravaggio, 1609 |
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| "The Adoration of the Magi", Leonardo da Vinci, 1481 |
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| "The Mystical Nativity", Sandro Botticelli, 1500 |
January Art Gallery
Interestingly, many of the pieces in January have similar names and are from a similar time period. Apparently, the Northern Hemisphere was under a deep freeze at that time, they called it a mini-ice age.
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| "Winter Landscape", Wassily Kandinsky, 1909 |
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| "The Magpie", Claude Monet, 1868-9 |
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| "Landscape in the Snow", Vincent Van Gogh, 1888 |
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| "Drum Bridge and Setting Sun Hill at Meguro", Utagawa or Ando Hiroshige, 1857 |
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| "Snowy Landscape", Pierre Auguste Renoir, 1875 |
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| "Hunters in the Snow", Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1565 |
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| "Winter", Caspar David Friedrich, 1811 |
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| "Winter Landscape", Grandma Moses, 1940s |
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