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!

Wednesday's Website

Ooooh look what I "stumbled upon"!
KidsTuff Kids Chair!!!

What sweet little chairs...so perfect for little ones.

And, the price seems really reasonable!

LuSa's Baby Wipe Juice Contest!

Hey all you Mamas with babies! Go check out this giveaway! What a cool opportunity to give a different product a try!

Our Current Schedule

Subtitled...How we are making it all work with Little C. (That is...before we start school in a few weeks!)

8:00 Josh wakes up and C arrives (ish)

8:15 Breakfast for everyone

8:45 Playtime

10:00 C's bottle and nap

10:10 Joshua and Mommy's art/crafts time (we have painted, done fuse beads, strung cereal O's for the birds, etc...)

11:30 C wakes~~Playtime

12:30 Lunch for everyone

1:00 Playtime often outside (weather permitting)

2:00 C's bottle and both boys nap (I read to Josh while I give C his bottle)

3:30-4 C is picked up and Josh wakes

When school begins I foresee the only change being...
8:45 Shelf choice for Josh/Playtime for C (we are setting up 2 rooms that are open to each other)

10:00 Bottle/nap for C ~~ Any needed lessons for Josh and one on one time.

I think it is all going to work out, eventually. I do think the first several weeks will be most difficult for Josh who will want more of my time. He will eventually adjust and really it is not so very different than me just sitting there observing him work.

Stay tuned for rearranged classroom pictures and C's room/our rec room redo pictures.
I am also planning to post pictures of any new trays/works I have added!

Our First Week

No...we have not started back to preschool...but we did just finish our first week with our new little one (C??). (Sorry, have not come up with a bloggy name for him yet.)

Anyway, it went pretty well. I built short shelves for our family room Sunday night right before bed. I grabbed several baskets and put some of the Montessori inspired items on the shelves for his use this week. I really did not know what to expect...since I had only met the child once a few weeks ago. But honestly, everything went really smoothly.

I think, once our classroom and outer room are finished...preschool will work okay with both boys downstairs.

FYI...
On C's Shelves right now

• FP Farm (Language)
• Basket of FP Farm animals (Language)
• Basket of different textured/sized/type Balls (Sensorial)
• Stacking Rings (Practical Life)
• Basket of Musical Instruments (Sensorial)
• Basket of Stuffed friends (Language)
• Basket of Cars (Gross Motor)
• Basket of Books (Language)
• Shape sorter (Sensorial/Practical Life)
• and next to shelf is a FP walker. (Gross Motor)

Tonight, Andrew and I, finished the carpet in the outer room (new Rec room??) and moved in the futon from the classroom. Which will give me a TON more room in the classroom!!! It will also be nice to have it in the room where C's stuff will be.

I have a ton of more work to do but I will post pics of everything very soon!

Montessori for Infants 2

With a GIANT amount of help from these PLANS!, I have come up with the following...

CARE OF SELF

• Calming Self to Sleep
• Feeding Self (pincer grasp)
• Using Cup

CARE OF ENVIRONMENT

• Adult Models Cleaning Up and Proper Use of Materials
• Joshua Models Cleaning Up and Proper Use of Materials

LANGUAGE

• Wooden Puzzles
• Please, Thank You
• Be Gentle, Be Kind, Be Safe (Our Household Rules!)
• Recognition of their name
• Adults using action words to describe routines
• Discovery Basket
• Book Basket

GROUP TIME WITH JOSHUA

• Calendar
• Finger plays
• Songs
• Stories/Nursery Rhymes/Poems/Sayings (Core Knowledge)

PRACTICAL LIFE

• Rings on Pole Work
• Drop Clothespins in opening
• Supervised Large Pompoms in Egg Carton (1 to 1 Corr.)

SENSORIAL

• Musical Instruments (Shakers, clackers, etc...)
• Discovery Bottles
• Shape Sort

MANIPULATIVE (CAUSE/EFFECT)

• Pull Toys
• ??????

PRE-MATH

• Ring Stack
• Graduated Cups
• Counting, Sorting, etc...

WORK TIME

• Farm
• Zoo
• Book Basket
• Balls
• Rings

GROSS MOTOR

• Cars
• Balls
• Tunnel
• Popper
• Sandbox

Details and schedule to follow!

Montessori for Infants

So...I have been doing a bit of research for my new, young friend. He will be starting with us in a week from Monday. So I need to figure out how to balance his needs with Joshua's schooling.

My trusty friend Google has not let me down! If you are interested in doing a Montessori type atmosphere for your infant...check these out.

First, watch this fascinating video!

Check out these monthly curriculum plans!

And...of course, Michael Olaf!

I am really getting excited about this challenge. I definitely think it will be difficult but it is looking workable.

It seems with infants you mainly are letting them explore...so the key is to create a safe environment.

Now...if only we can get the rooms ready...