#montessorinz

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Viggo’s Picks (at 4 months)

Viggo is now 4 months old and for a few weeks has had a real fascination with his hands.  This fascination has led to grasping with intention, transferring and shaking his rattles for effect!  This is such a fun age where every day it feels like Viggo is changing and learning something new!  Viggo definitely has a few favourite toys at the moment which I thought I would share.

Grasping Material

This simple wooden material is designed to encourage uncomplicated swapping of the grip from left to right.  Viggo mostly likes to hold his material with one hand and chomp on it as I think he is getting a tooth, but it is the perfect material for practising his hand to hand transfers!  I love watching him concentrate so hard on getting the material from one hand to the other!

Ring with Ball

I love the size of this ring as it makes it easy for Viggo to grip on to with two hands.  He gets really fascinated by the red ball in the middle of the ring and loves to watch it slide from side to side.

Ring with Discs

This is another beautiful rattle which Viggo loves.  The three little discs make a good rattling sound together which Viggo loves to give a good shake.  Because of the interesting colours this is often the toy Viggo will roll over towards.  Once he has a good grip its back on his back for another good shake (and perhaps a wee toss!)

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5 Ways Montessori Builds Confident Little Learners

Self-confidence and self-esteem are two traits central to the Montessori philosophy.  Here are 5 ways you can guide your little ones toward a fulfilling and rewarding life:

1. Let her take the lead

While it is always tempting to encourage your child into a particular area of interest that you may have loved at her age, instead, take a step back and see what she is interested in.  Encourage her interests and be enthusiastic!  As a general rule, people who are allowed to pursue their true interests are far more likely to have a solid sense of self.

2. Teach practical skills from a young age

Life is busy and it is often a lot easier (and quicker) to do things for your child rather than letting them practice new skills for themselves.  By doing this however, you are taking from them a sense of competence.  Take a deep breath and let your child battle their own jacket zipper, tie their shoes or tidy their room. With paitience and persistence your child will learn they can do things well with enough practice.

3.  Frame failure in a positive way

Learning resilience is an important element of confidence.  By showing your child that making mistakes and being imperfect are not the end of the world, she will learn to pick herself back up and try again.  Keep offering her encouragement and help- or recruit the help of an older sibling!

4.  Maintain your boundaries

While this may not seem like an obvious way to build confidence in your child, having firm and clear boundaries in place enables your child to make good choices and feel secure in an often confusing and overwhelming world of new information.  Be kind but firm and keep the rules few but clear.

5.   Let your child see her impact 

Try to give your child regular opportunities to help others.  This can be outside the home, with peers or family or simple tasks within the home. This will enable her to see the impact she has on those around her and to see how she can make a difference.  She will feel a sense of confidence and control as well as develop empathy for others.

Self-esteem is a characteristic which needs stimulation to develop.  By guiding your child to feel good about herself will eventually lead to an adult who can achieve a lot!

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Montessori Shape Puzzles

Today I am sharing with you the Montessori shape puzzles!  These are classic materials that are affordable and suitable for the home environment.

I introduced shape puzzles to my children at or around 18 months to two years of age.  If you find them too difficult for your child or if the child isn’t interested, put the puzzle away and introduce a few weeks later.  As with all infant/toddler materials, use a wordless demonstration with slow and deliberate movements.

 *      If possible start with single shape puzzles.                                                     *      Start with a circle as it can fit in any direction.                                                 *      Secondly, introduce the square.                                                                       *      Thirdly, introduce the triangle.

Once the child has mastered the puzzle, introduce the language component and name the shape “circle”, “square” and “triangle”.  Later you can introduce the colour and shape, “red square”.

With the Three Circle Puzzle, you can introduce language such as “big”, “bigger” and “biggest” or “small”, “medium” and “large”,  This puzzle is fabulous for teaching sequencing.

The knobs encourage the use of the pincer grip, which is really important in preparing the hand for writing.

Not only is the child learning shapes and colours, they are developing their concentration, coordination and visual perception.  They are learning problem-solving skills and persistence- if the shape doesn’t fit at first the child knows they need to move it around until it does fit!

The puzzles have a built in control of error, the child can determine for themselves if it has been completed accurately.  The child will feel a sense of accomplishment and self-satisfaction when successfully completing each puzzle!

The Montessori shape puzzles are complete wooden and painted in bright and attractive colours.

- Words and images by Kylie D’Alton.

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5 Fast Facts About Froebel

1. Friedrich Froebel was the first person to emphasise the importance of play, and from there he invented the Kindergarten in 1837. Prior to this there had been no educational training for children under the age of seven. There was no recognition that young children were capable of learning social and intellectual skills!

2.  Froebel’s Kindergarten (translated to Children’s Garden) had indoor and outdoor spaces to play, where every child could also grow his own plants. Froebel himself had an unhappy childhood after his mother died when he was very young.  This led him to care for himself a lot of the time and as a result he spent his time alone playing in the gardens and forests around his home.  His childhood led to a love and respect of nature that remained throughout his lifetime.

3.  Froebel suggested that play is a necessary element in educating the “whole” child allowing him to use all his imaginative powers and physical movements to explore his interests. Froebel stated, “Play is the highest expression of human development in childhood, for it alone is the free expression of what is in a child’s soul.”

4.  Based on this theory of harnessing a child’s imagination and learning through play, Froebel created a series of toys, which he called ‘Gifts’.  These Gifts are still used by children around the world today! The Gifts are organised by numbers for the order in which they should be given to the child as they grow and develop - starting with Gift 1 - The Yarn Balls.

5.  Maria Montessori (1870-1952) was inspired by Friedrich Froebel (1782-1852) and his radical approach to supporting a child’s freedom and growth, which led her to develop the Montessori method of working with children.

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Sale starts this Friday!! What will you choose? xx

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5 Tips for Designing Children’s Spaces

Published in Natural Parent Magazine

Throw away the toy box

Toy boxes are great for storing Lego or blocks, but not for storing all of your child’s toys. It might be an easy method tidying up quickly/hiding the mess, but your child will never be able to find what he needs when he needs it, creating frustration – and quite possibly meaning you will end up wasting money buying the same toy twice! Invest in a set of shelves and collect baskets and trays that suit your taste and use these to display toys, books and activities.

Follow the child

By having a ‘less is more approach’ you will be in a better situation to follow the interests of your child as he develops. If your child is currently into art – create an organised space that has all of the materials he needs to develop his creativity. Is it all about dinosaurs? Start with investing in some dinosaur figurines (I love Schliech) and get out some dinosaur books from the library and see where his interest leads you!

Make the home accessible

Young children love to ‘do it themselves.’ Make your home accessible to your child so he can practice those essential practical life skills! Use temporary hooks to hang your child’s coat, dressing gown, hand towel etc so he can get himself ready in the morning. Have a mirror in his room so he can take pride in his appearance. Have a basket and stool next to the front door where he can store and take on and off his own shoes. Have a water decanter and some glasses in the kitchen at your child’s height so he can get himself a drink of water when he is thirsty.

Incorporate a pot plant

Having a bit of greenery inside is not only beautiful, but plants filter the air and also bring a sense of calm into the room. If you have an inquisitive toddler…consider keeping the plants out of reach by using macramé hangers.

Hang art at the child’s height

We often set up our children’s spaces without actually considering what the space looks like to the child. Hang some framed art at your child’s height so he can appreciate it too! Get down to your child’s height and look around the room to consider how the space looks to your child – perhaps there are more things you can bring down to his level?

Interested in learning more about the Montessori Method? Visit The Montessori Shop for all things Montessori!

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Numerals and Counters

Numerals and counters are one of the first math materials introduced in the Montessori classroom. I recently added a set of numerals and counters to our shelves and straight away it has been a hit!

Arlo is proficient at counting to 10 but every now and then a number gets left out and I wanted to help Arlo with careful counting and reinforce the number sequencing, which this material does.  

The activity also encourages orderliness with the layout of the counters under each of the numerals. A written lesson on the way to correctly introduce this activity is available here.

After a bit of practice, Arlo is now getting up to around number 7 with his counters before his concentration wanes and we still have some work to do on placing the counters in the correct layout before we can move on to talking about odd and even numbers.  But once we have achieved that Arlo will get a visual impression of odd vs. even numbers and quantities.

I really do love Montessori math materials! They are such a fun way for us to learn together! 

xx

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The Sibling Juggle

Florence is now of an age (2.4 years), where she wants to be involved in all of the activities that Arlo (3.8 years) is doing - and she feels that she is completely capable as well.  However, because of the age difference, Florence’s concentration levels and physical abilities aren’t the same as Arlo’s and in her frustration, Florence has taken to making sabotage attempts on Arlo’s work.  As I’m sure you can imagine, the end result is not pretty!

So I have been thinking about ways to mitigate these situations for next time and find ways to have both children happily engaged in their work, with minimal rivalry while at the same time following the interests of each child.

Arlo and Florence do play together a lot.  They have a lot of common interests such as dressing up, playing with farm, trains etc.  Arlo has also been a great teacher to Florence, helping her with her art and other little skills, which Florence is very receptive to.  However, Arlo is very creative and yesterday he decided he would like to make a globe, so I decided to introduce him to paper mache.

It was during this process, as well as baking a cake later in the day that the sibling rivalry monster really reared its ugly head.   

A couple of lessons I have learnt from yesterdays disasters:

1.   Know each child’s strengths and abilities and create aligned work that fits within those parameters.   

Instead of attempting to make two paper mache globes with the children yesterday, I should have just given Florence a pasting brush, her own little dish of paint and some newspaper strips to glue on to paper or card and she would have been just as happy.  Glueing the strips on to a balloon was too messy, slippery and frustrating for her.

2.   Establish the feeling of being on a team.  

Arlo and Florence love to work together and I really want to harness that sense of team work.  These opportunities seem to come together the best when I have done the job a few times (eg. loading the washing machine), with each child individually.  Then they know the steps involved in the process and are happy to share the work by taking one step each.

3.   Learn and then teach effective ways of communicating.  

This is an ongoing learning curve as (embarrassingly) refraining from jumping in like a wounded bull does not come easily for me.  However, knowing this over-the-top reaction is not effective I am trying to listen and empathise with each child before finding a solution.   I also ask the children to talk to each other about the issue instead of coming running straight to me, which seems to work quite well.

If you have any tips and tricks I would really love to hear them!  I did find an article by Simone Davis which includes a  Cheat sheet Siblings without Rivalry which you may find useful.

xxx

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Montessori Stacking Materials

I love the Montessori stacking materials as they are so good for the child’s developing hand eye coordination.  They allow the child to build their concentration, cross the midline and they are also affordable!

They are fantastic materials for developing fine and gross motor skills.  The child uses their fine motor skills of the fingers and hand to hold and grip the discs and cubes.  They use their gross motor skills of the arm, back and torso (core muscles) as they move to put the discs or cubes onto the dowel.

These are classic Montessori materials that are present in Montessori infant/toddler (0-3) environments.  They are suitable for the home, preschool and daycare.

The stacking materials are generally introduced from around 10-12 months of age.  If you find them too difficult for your child put them away and try again in a couple of weeks or possibly a month or so.  As with most materials at this age, it’s best to provide wordless demonstration using slow and deliberate movements.

Once the child is using the materials be sure not to interrupt and allow the child to repeat the movements as much as they like.  Repetition is the key in the child mastering the material.

Each of these stacking materials has its own benefits, a different grasp, a different hand motion or wrist rotation.  Start with the discs on a vertical dowel, next move to the cubes on a vertical dowel, it may be many months later before your child will master the horizontal dowel.

These materials are preferred over other commercial type stacking toys as they have been designed to the correct dimensions for the child’s hands, there are only three discs or cubes, which is not overwhelming for the child at this age. The discs and cubes are all the same shape and colour, meaning there is no distraction for the child and the child only has to master the actual stacking, not sorting or discriminating by shape or size.

Montessori Shop has a good range of stacking materials including the Discs on Vertical Dowel, Cubes on Vertical Dowel and Discs on Horizontal Dowel.

- Text and images courtesy of Kylie D’Alton from How We Montessori.

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Activities for 1-3 Year Olds

I recently had an article published in Montessori Voices (a magazine published by Montessori Aotearoa New Zealand), which I thought I might re-publish on my blog incase you don’t get Montessori Voices where you are!

Happy reading :) xx

“We must help the child act for himself, will for himself, think for himself; this is the art of those who aspire to serve the spirit.” (Maria Montessori - Education for a New World, p.69)

I have two children, aged two and three years old, which means I have been fully immersed in the ‘first phase of development’ for the last three years.  While having two children so close in age has brought its challenges, it has also been a beautiful period full of wonderful learning’s.  Here are my favourite four!

1.   Independendence & the prepared environment.

“I do it!” was pretty much my childrens’ first and forever favourite phrase.  Maria Montessori talked about the “conquest of independence” (The Absorbent Mind, p.76) and young children certainly do see independence as a conquest.  Their drive to do it themselves is very strong - and frustration follows closely behind.

A well-prepared home environment is key.  But don’t try to do everything at once...focus on the areas your children are showing an interest.  For example my daughter is all about putting her own shoes on, so we have a little stool just for her and a basket for her shoes by the front door so she has what she needs to get the job done.  Tip: Set the clock 5 minutes ahead of the actual time so you’ve always got a couple of minutes up your sleeve.  Activity idea: Make a game out of the washing - starting with asking her to sort her dirty clothes into lights and darks and take her right through the process, letting her do as much as possible on her own, to the point she is putting her own clean clothes back into her drawers.

2.   Make learning a part of everyday activities.

“Not only does he create his language, but he shapes the organs that enable him to frame the words.  He has to make the physical basis of every moment, all the elements of our intellect, everything the human being is blessed with.” (Maria Montessori - The Absorbent Mind, p.22)

Young children are active both in body and mind.  Keeping up with them makes for a busy day, but is also so much fun!  Incorporating simple learning games into everyday activities gives children the ability to learn in a meaningful way.  Activity ideas: When driving, play i-spy - start with phonetics (the sound a letter makes) before using letters.  Count, having an abacus or number puzzle on the shelves at home can make counting fun.  Turn moments into projects - take note of a subject your child keeps mentioning and turn it into an opportunity to learn more about it.  For us it is currently rockets so we have made rockets from lego, borrowed a couple of books from the library, made a paper telescope and even managed a trip to the Star Dome!

3.   Get outside.

It is a well-known fact that getting outside can be just the tonic for mothers and children!  It is a Danish saying that there is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing choices.  Try to get outside with your children every day, even if it is just a walk around the garden or to the mailbox.  Let them forage, collect natural materials (or worms and slugs), let their imaginations run free and let them guide you.  It is amazing what can be accomplished in 30 minutes of fresh air.  Activity ideas: Collect as many different leaves as possible and thread them into garlands, use them for crayon etches or even turn them into a pretty leaf arrangement when you get home.  Collect rocks and pebbles and other treasure to make a habitat of your favourite animal figurine.  Let your child pack their bug collector (or ice cream container) and a magnifying glass for closer examination of everything and anything!

4.   Cooking.

Pre-schoolers love to help.  They often want to do what you are doing, especially when you are busy trying to get something done!  These two factors, combined with a love of food, means that it’s not unusual to feel some very enthusiastic pulls on your apron strings while you are preparing meals.  While sometimes it is necessary to distract them with another activity outside of the kitchen (they don’t call it the ‘witching hour’ for no reason), there are times when you’re possibly able to set up a food-related activity for your child at a low bench, their own table set or even on a mat on the floor.  Letting your child help in the kitchen means they are learning what goes in to preparing their meals - and they will often enjoy the meal more as a result.  Bonus!  Tip: Set up activities with foods you don’t mind them eating before dinner!  Use child-size materials where possible to avoid accidents and unnecessary frustrations. Activity Ideas: Sorting the peas from the corn, scrubbing the potatoes or carrots, grating cheese, crumbing fish, whisking or beating eggs, sifting flour. All of these activities are also fantastic for small motor skill development.

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On Our Shelves: Wild Animals

I have been so inspired by some of the other Montessori mums I follow on Facebook and the way they prepare the work on their children’s shelves at home on one subject that they have picked up their child is interested in.  Being a Montessori mum is so creative and it is so fun preparing beautiful trays full of educational activities for your children.  But the key, is definitely being organised (Isn’t it always?!) and in my case finding a mix of activities that suit siblings of different ages!

The work we have had on our shelves for the last couple of weeks has been all about wild animals! Here are the trays I included:

Language

I prepared one tray with small sandpaper letters (ours are velvet letters on laminated card) and had a wild animal figurine to correspond with each of the letters such as A - Alligator, P - Panda etc. Because Arlo (3.5 years) is still just learning the letters and their sounds, I didn’t include the entire alphabet, only about 10 letters so that I didn’t overwhelm him!  Each ‘lesson’ we ended up just focussing on one or maybe two letters.  Arlo was most interested in the letters (and animals) that belonged in his name, so we went with that.  

Matching

Florence really loves her babies, so I found a great free printable online (try Living Montessori Now or Montessori Nature) which matched three animal families together (eg. Lion, Lioness, Cub), which she really loved.  

I also found a set of free printable cards where one card had a picture of the animal and the other had a picture of it’s paw prints.  Florence and Arlo worked a lot together on this one, matching the animals with their paws.  We even took this outside matching other paw prints to their rightful owners (mostly our own foot prints and the cat and dogs prints!)

So that Florence could check her own work, I stuck matching coloured dots on the back of each of the family/paw print groups.

Animals of the Continents

Arlo has been learning about the different continents of the world at his preschool and bringing home some great flags he has coloured in.  So I did another online search and found some great printables at the Montessori Print Shop. There was a bit of work involved in printing, laminating and cutting out the continents maps, control maps and the corresponding animals for each map, but we had a lot of fun with the material once it was done.  

Also from the Montessori Print Shop were some little colouring in booklets which included the Continent on the front and inside were some animals that live on that Continent.

Arlo loved using his Continent Globe for both of these activities.  He became really confident using the globe and knew each of the continents surprisingly quickly.  Using the same colours on the globe in the colouring activities is very important to create this quick recognition and association.

Land and Water

While Arlo really enjoyed working on the continents, Florence spent a lot of time establishing which animals lived on land and which lived in the ocean.  We worked together putting the different animals into different groups while looking at the globe of Land and Water.

Creating Animal Habitats

The last tray we had on our shelf was with different coloured paper (green for grass, yellow for sand, blue for water etc) and some animal stickers.  This was a super popular tray with both of the children and they made some really great animal habitat collages.  

Good Reads

The Atlas of Animal Adventures by Rachel Williams and Emily Hawkins is a fantastic book we always enjoy reading as well.  Beautifully presented to enjoy in bite-size pieces.

I hope you find some of these ideas useful! xx

[montessorishop]

You Do What?!

People often look at me sideways when I explain that I spend an hour driving my kids to and from their Montessori preschool instead of taking them to one of the local mainstream alternatives up the road.  But to me, it’s a no-brainer.  My children get so much out of their Montessori preschool.

I know this, not because the teachers tell me that these learning opportunities are there or because the set-up inside the centre is so well laid out, but because on a daily basis my son will stop me to show me something he has learnt that he is proud of.  

Today I was about to pull the arm of his rain coat through from being inside out and Arlo said “I can do that, Matua showed me.  I will show you mum” and off he goes, finding the armhole, pushing his arm through and expertly pulling the sleeve back out.  He goes on to lie the jacket flat on the ground and doing a tricky trick he has been shown on how to get the jacket on himself.

While it does make my life easier, not needing to do these little jobs for him, that’s not what its all about for me.  It is the look on his face when he has his jacket on - the sleeves fixed, the zip fastened, his hood on...and that face! He is stoked!  But that is not where it stops...because he knows how to complete the job he wants to teach his little sister.  And she wants to learn! From him!

While I sit there and watch them, all I can think is how content they are...and that is what makes my heart sing.

It’s this Montessori philosophy, which is the foundation of his preschool that is teaching him that he can care for himself and in doing that he can care for others and for his environment - and it’s all of this that makes me that bit further for him.

xxx

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Egg & Cup + Box & Cube

The Egg and Cup are know as the child’s first puzzle as it may be the first time the child puts two items together, matching two items that fit together.  The Egg and Cup with the Box and Cube can be presented to the child once they are sitting independently and unaided at or around eight to nine months.  At this age the child is often looking for work that requires both hands to work together.

I like to keep these materials in a low basket or on a small tray on the child’s work shelves.  I also like to present this work to a child while they are seated at their work table, I find this slightly easier than working seated on the floor.

These materials offer the child the opportunity to refine their hand and arm movements.  The child will begin to use two hands together, one as a dominant hand and the other as a supporting hand.

Fitting the two pieces together (fitting the Egg into the Cup or Cube into the Box) not only appeals to the child’s desire to ‘fit things together’ but also allows for increasing hand-eye coordination and will be repeated over and over.  The child will find it very satisfying to complete this work.

Present these to the child with a wordless demonstration, using very slow and deliberate movements so your child can watch your hands in action.  Present the Egg and Cup first as this is much easier for the child to master.

Once the child is able to complete the work you can offer the words “in” and “out” adding the dimension of language.

The Egg and Cup are in total 11cm high.  The Cup is very stable and unlike many other products I’ve seen, this Egg fits in the Cup, not just balances on top of the cup, which is so very important.

The Box and Cube are approximately 4.5cm x 4.5cm’s.  The Cube fits comfortably in the box, it slides easily in and out.  The Cube fits no matter which way it goes into the box, they are both perfectly square.  The Box and Cube is more challenging than the Egg and Cup and may take more time to master.

Both the Egg and Cup and the Box and Cube are entirely wooden and are incredibly smooth and nice to touch.  The Egg and Cup and the Box and Cube are available at Montessori Shop here.

- Words and images by Kylie D’Alton.

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4 Ways to Celebrate Te Reo!

This week is Maori Language Week, where all New Zealanders can have some fun learning more Te Reo, taking part in events and taking the time to learn a little bit more about our second official language.

Here are 4 fun ways you can celebrate Te Reo at home or in the classroom!

1.  Pick 5 words and use them all week, such as:

Kia ora – Hello

Kapai – Good

Whare – House

Kai – Food

Whanau – Family

Puku – Tummy

Korero – Talk, speak, have a conversation

Moe – Sleep

Waiata – Song, to sing

Karakia – Prayer, pray

2.  Download the Te Reo Activity Book from the Te Papa website and have some word finding, colouring and pronunciation fun!

3.  Purchase a beautiful New Zealand Map in Maori Language such Josh Morgan’s Poster Map and use it learn the place names of Aotearoa in Te Reo.

4. Have some fun with arts and crafts and make some Poi and then learn how to use them!  Challenge yourself with this lesson from Migoto!

Whai i te wiki nui!  Have a great week!

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10 Reasons Why Geography Rocks!

Geography is often considered to be a subject that is of less importance or of less interest in the preschool classroom than some of the big-wigs like Language and Maths.  But here are 10 reasons why Geography rocks!

1.  Geography helps children to understand where they are and what is out there - giving them a sense of location.

2.  Geography is centred around the interconnectedness of human beings and life.  Establishing a love and respect for our planet in the early years.

3.  Geography presents the whole story of the universe and its creation to children - igniting their imagination, wonder and curiosity.

4.  Geography provides children with a vocabulary to describe the features of the environment and the processes that shape it.

5.  Geography teaches children about similarities, difference, diversity and how we live in an interdependent world.

6.  Geography supports children to develop an understanding of ‘place,’ their own place in the world and that of other people.

7.  Through geography, children learn about climate change, food, water and energy - all of which require an understanding of interdependence.

8.  Geography gives children a sense of ‘scale’ (eg.  my local area and how it fits in New Zealand, the world, etc).

9.  Geography is brought alive for children when they investigate and ask questions about their own world.

10.  Geography develop’s children’s understanding of the environment, the natural world, modified landscapes and the social environment.

Children are naturally intrigued about the world they live in.  We are so lucky in New Zealand to have such a beautiful natural environment and that we are rich in diverse culture.  What’s not to love?!  

Looking for some Geography materials to further inspire and learn?  Look no further than Montessori Shop’s Geography Materials!

Psst...we are having a Spend and Save Sale on all Geography products until this Sunday (13th May).  Spend $100 and save 20% (Use Discount Code GEO20), Spend $200 and save 30% (GEO30) and spend $300 or more and save 40%! (GEO40).  Don’t miss out! Shop Now!