Creating Montessori at Home

As a Montessori credentialed stay at home mom, it is hard to not bring in Montessori philosophy into our day to day lives.  I decided to go a step further and create some of the materials that are in a Montessori classroom to have in our home.  Many of the materials are too expensive for me to buy, and since we are sending Cora to ChildLight Montessori School next year, there really isn't a point to invest in them.  So I am doing homemade versions.  There are so many resources out there for homeschool Montessori (I follow this blog on Facebook) and many of the materials in a Montessori classroom are easily made with common items. 

Although I think Cora is ready for a few sandpaper letters, I started with homemade "metal" insets.  Metal insets are a series of ten shapes that include the (usually) pink frame and blue inset.  The shapes are: square, circle, triangle, oval, ellipse, rectangle, trapezoid, pentagon, curvilinear triangle, and quatrefoil (the one that looks like a flower).

An artsy shot

In the classroom, the child chooses one frame or inset at a time.  There is special paper cut to the exact size of the frame, 5 1/2 inches square.  There are so many lessons that are a part of the metal insets.  The child's sense of order is refined because the shape (frame or inset) is placed on a special tray with the paper and a certain number of colored pencils, in my old classroom it was a limit of three.  Once the child is done with a certain shape they must return it to the shelf before choosing another inset.  This material can be used to help the child learn and remember shapes by making a shapes book.  It is in the Language area of the classroom because it is a pre-writing activity.  The child is encouraged to form the shapes in a counter clockwise motion - as you form your letters in handwriting.

For my project, I saved enough cereal boxes to create 10 frames and cut out 5 1/2 inch squares.   Then I found this website with templates for cutting out the shapes.  I was glad I didn't have to free-hand it. 

I used the examples in my Language Curriculum Album to make sure the templates were the right size.

After drawing the shapes on my squares I used a craft knife to cut out the shapes.  I realized as I was cutting the cereal box may not hold up for very long, depending on how much they are used.  If I wanted them to last longer I might use a thin plastic, a quilting store usually has thin plastic for template making that would work perfectly.
Overall I am pleased with how they came out.  For Cora, they will be stencils to use during art time.

Giving Concentration Room to Grow

Despite being a 'stay-at-home' mom we spend surprisingly few days completely at home.  Usually we run errands or see friends, and there is our weekly trip to the library.  But today we stayed home.  All day.  It was a nice break from running around, but I also noticed how differently Cora's played today than on days when a trip to the store breaks up the morning.

Her favorite question these days is: "What can I do Mommy?"  She will ask it as soon as I get her down from breakfast.  Often it is when I'm making a meal and I'll try to direct her to play by herself.

Today, I barely heard it.  After getting dressed said she wanted to do buttons.  (One of her new fascinations.)  So we pulled out her sweater with big buttons.  She stood with the sweater resting on a chair and carefully pushed the three buttons through the buttonholes.  She proudly showed me what she had done, then promptly unbuttoned the sweater and started again.  Nearly twenty minutes later she was still buttoning.  Eventually she lost interest and the sweater sat on the couch until the evening when she again stood with the sweater and carefully buttoned and unbuttoned it many times over.

It reminded me of the time we dressed and undressed her baby doll 6 or 7 times in a row.  We carefully lined up each of the eight snaps and after the last one was snapped she pulled them all apart and asked to do it again.  And when Cora was finished, Baby still didn't have her jammies on.

Why?  Why do children do that?  Repetition.  Dr. Montessori said the hand teaches the mind.  All the ideas and philosophy floating around in my head becomes reality when I watch my daughter.  Repetition and concentration.  How do you build your child's concentration?  Don't interrupt them.  I'm not saying the child rules the roost.  But if they are engaged in an activity (especially by themselves) and it is not harming anyone or anything, there is no emergency and you aren't trying to get out the door to a doctors appointment - leave them alone.

When I was a newbie teacher I would walk around the classroom touching the children's shoulders, 'checking in', asking how they were doing.  I thought I was being a great teacher.  Finally I realized I was interrupting them.  The child who is working hard to count beads to find out how much 8 + 5 equals will be thrown off by a touch on the shoulder.  He will forget where he was, perhaps have to start counting all over again and could become frustrated.

How will a child learn to concentrate if we (the adult, parent or teacher in their life) don't allow them time to work uninterrupted?  Even by the video camera to capture the cuteness.

There is another confession: I have interrupted Cora because I wanted to save the adorable.  It wasn't on purpose.  I try to be discreet, but as soon as she realizes I'm there and sees the camera her concentration is broken.

Today was a good reminder.
To step back, to just watch, just listen as she 'reads' to her Baby, to let her be.

New School Year

The pencils are sharpened and the materials in place.  This year I'm still technically an intern (hopefully earning my Montessori Credentials by the spring) and my head teacher has assigned Practical Life and Sensorial as my responsibility.  Since I am a forgetful person, I am taking pictures of the shelves each time I put work on them.  These will go in my albums as a reference for when I have my own classroom someday and can't remember what to put on the shelves in September.  It's not a requirement of the albums (they've already been graded) but I think having a full year's sequence including holiday ideas will be really helpful.
Here are the shelves I put together for the first day of school:

Practical Life

Care of Environment and Care of Self

Sensorial Shelf 1

Sensorial Shelf 2

School starts next Wednesday and we have seven new 3 year olds starting this year.  Maybe I should take pictures of what the shelves look like after the first day - that way I remember that part of September too.