My 5 Tips for A New Montessori Mom!

Jo recently left me a quick request,
I have recently been asked by a new-to-Montessori mom of a toddler, where to start? She is overwhelmed by the amount of equipment and information available...as you are a Montessori mother I would love it if you could share your top tips too.

Here are my top 5...

1. Focus on Practical Life! Little ones need lots of PL activities. The good part of that is PL activities are the easiest to make yourself...so, cheap and easy! Some great ideas for these activities can be found here!
2. The Child is likely to find a favorite activity and do it over and over and over. That is OKAY and actually wonderful. This type of behavior helps little ones focus and become peaceful. (My Josh made bead necklaces everyday for months, he did eventually pick other activities...I worried he never would!)
3. You, and your child will be okay if you do not have every activity available in a traditional Montessori environment. They will still learn all they need to know. Do what you can and make do when you can not! (We never did get Josh to do anything with the beads or the base 10 blocks for that matter...but he still learned to add at age 4!)
4. FOLLOW THE CHILD! Even if you planned to present say uh farms, if he wants to learn about bugs...Go with it! He will learn more if he is interested and your stuff will wait.
5. Finally, find support. Even if it is through an online community, you need to have someone to bounce ideas off of and vent to. I am so very grateful to all the moms who I have met through my blog and through reading theirs. Leave comments, ask questions. We all really want to help each other and a lot of these women have such amazing knowledge to share!

Here are a couple entries I wrote when planning to work with a toddler using Montessori:
Ideas
More ideas

Check out Jennifer's Blog
http://spiralmontessorimama.blogspot.com/
She teaches in a Toddler classroom and is an AMAZING Monte mom herself!

Good luck and feel free to always ask anything!