People often ask me if I can recommend any Montessori books. Here they are:
Infant/Montessori at home:
1. How to Raise an Amazing Child the Montessori Way - Tim Seldin
2. Montessori from the Start: The Child at Home, from Birth to Age Three - Paula Polk Lillard and Lynn Lillard Jessen
3. The Absorbent Mind - Maria Montessori
4. Teaching Montessori in the Home - the Preschool Years
- the School Years - both by Elizabeth Hainstock
Montessori theory books:
1. The Montessori Method - Maria Montessori
2. The Discovery of the Child - Maria Montessori
3. The Secret of Childhood - Maria Montessori
Sunday 27 November 2011
Gift Receiving Made Light
We are a super lucky family and have the best support system ever. When I was pregnant with C I did not want to have a baby shower -- mostly because I did not want people to have to buy me things, and I had also been to a few really bad showers -- and would have rather had a celebration of his birth so he could meet all the special people in our lives. But I ended up succumbing to the pressure from my side and hubby's side and figured, if it makes them happy then all will be well. And it was. The baby shower they threw was so beautiful and thoughful. It was wonderful to see most of the females I love all together, and there is something really energizing about a bunch of women and no men in one space. Of course people brought gifts, and I was thoroughly touched by the thoughfulness of the things C received that day. Everything had a purpose, and the toys and such were beautiful -- mostly wooden, or organic, and essentially, all very Montessori-esque. It was very special to me that my friends and family cared about my beliefs in terms of children's toys. It means they listen to me!
Fast forward five years, and it makes me wonder what will happen as C gets older and desires the inevitable birthday parties (shudder). What will happen then? You know - you've been there!! The piles and piles of beautifully wrapped gifts, too much sugar, a gazillion dollar party palace rental, and a bunch of 5 year olds that will not calm down for three days post birthday bash. I am assuming I will be able to convince C to do something different, like take a few close friends to a clay-making shop? But will this suffice for years? Won't he at some point be desperate to have 30 of his closest friends eat pizza and drink Coke in my living room with a bouncy castle in the backyard? And then, what will happen with all the gifts??
I am fairly certain that there is another way of doing these things. Gifts are great, I loved them as a child, and still do. I would never begrudge C of that joy. But too much is too much, and there MUST be a way of including charity or something in the giving of gifts without telling people what to do with their money. ANY IDEAS???
Fast forward five years, and it makes me wonder what will happen as C gets older and desires the inevitable birthday parties (shudder). What will happen then? You know - you've been there!! The piles and piles of beautifully wrapped gifts, too much sugar, a gazillion dollar party palace rental, and a bunch of 5 year olds that will not calm down for three days post birthday bash. I am assuming I will be able to convince C to do something different, like take a few close friends to a clay-making shop? But will this suffice for years? Won't he at some point be desperate to have 30 of his closest friends eat pizza and drink Coke in my living room with a bouncy castle in the backyard? And then, what will happen with all the gifts??
I am fairly certain that there is another way of doing these things. Gifts are great, I loved them as a child, and still do. I would never begrudge C of that joy. But too much is too much, and there MUST be a way of including charity or something in the giving of gifts without telling people what to do with their money. ANY IDEAS???
Saturday 26 November 2011
NO MORE PLASTIC TOYS!!!!
One of the other important ideas I came across in a book I have by Tim Seldin called "How to Raise an Amazing Child the Montessori Way" is what I fondly refer to as the magic box. We are lucky enough to have a calm and easy going baby who has, since the day we brought him home from the hospital, played nicely by himself for 20 or 30 minute sessions several times a day. In fact, when I was pregnant I made him a stationary mobile with a dowling cut in half and glued together to make an X and 10 4-inch soccer balls hanging from it with fishing line at different lengths. (Most mobiles for infants are too colourful - useless - and too fast for their little eyes to track. The soccer ball idea was NOT a gender-based one but because babies see best in shades of black and white when they are tiny. I looked for orcas but to no avail. In fact, C is still quite taken by black and white patterns.) Anyway, he would stare at this mobile for EVER and very quickly learned how to bat the ball with his fist. (He was very young, maybe 6 or 8 weeks old, and it was clear he wasn't sure HOW he made the ball move, but if he got riled up enough it surely would. This was amazing to witness -- how he (and I read this somewhere) would literally CHANGE HIS WORLD by moving the ball. Pretty cool!!) If one of us were so presumptuous as to assume he was bored or finished playing with the mobile and picked him up to complete some mundane task...oh, say, changing his diaper, he would fuss to be put back in his little cosleeper to continue his very important work, which clearly he was not yet finished.
In any case, I read in the aforementioned book about getting a basket and gathering 50-100 household objects and letting the baby (of sitting up age and beyond, even toddlers) investigate the basket and its contents. So I did, and he did!! Our basket (actually a nice fabric covered box, with a lid) currently contains things like a toothbrush (new), an old wallet, a glass apple I received as a gift from a student, a piece of tulle, a nailfile (clean, wooden), a hairband, a spoon, a hockey puck, a little clear glass bottle with black-eyed peas inside, a glass coaster thing that you put under the legs of dressers to not make marks in the carpet, a bandanna, a baby hairbrush and a clothespin. Other things too, but they have escaped me at this time. The point is to find things that are of different textures. The glass is cold to the touch, and hard and smooth, and so on. He LOVES this activity. He will play with the contents, then the box itself, FOREVER. The toothbrush is by far his current favourite.
It makes this MontessoriMom a happy one, since the box is neither plastic or electronic. It doesn't make noise, and it doesn't mindlessly entertain my baby while he sits there. He learns and explores of his own VOLITION. It is a magic box.
In any case, I read in the aforementioned book about getting a basket and gathering 50-100 household objects and letting the baby (of sitting up age and beyond, even toddlers) investigate the basket and its contents. So I did, and he did!! Our basket (actually a nice fabric covered box, with a lid) currently contains things like a toothbrush (new), an old wallet, a glass apple I received as a gift from a student, a piece of tulle, a nailfile (clean, wooden), a hairband, a spoon, a hockey puck, a little clear glass bottle with black-eyed peas inside, a glass coaster thing that you put under the legs of dressers to not make marks in the carpet, a bandanna, a baby hairbrush and a clothespin. Other things too, but they have escaped me at this time. The point is to find things that are of different textures. The glass is cold to the touch, and hard and smooth, and so on. He LOVES this activity. He will play with the contents, then the box itself, FOREVER. The toothbrush is by far his current favourite.
It makes this MontessoriMom a happy one, since the box is neither plastic or electronic. It doesn't make noise, and it doesn't mindlessly entertain my baby while he sits there. He learns and explores of his own VOLITION. It is a magic box.
Friday 25 November 2011
Baby-Led Weaning and Lovin' It!
Copied from LWAB forum (written by ME 13 Oct 11)
I have been using baby-led weaning (www.babyledweaning.com) with my son and had to share since we are loving it!! BLW is basically introducing babies to actual solid food at the age of 6 months, and skipping purees and spoon feeding entirely.
I began rice cereal at 5 months with my son, as advised by my pediatrician, since he was spitting up a lot. I have always for some reason felt uncomfortable about the whole cereal thing in general. We tried, he hated the spoon, but didn't seem to mind the cereal. But I am a firm believer in "help me to do it myself' and so the spoon-feeding, although cute and of course, a major milestone complete with video footage, was something that did not quite seem right to me. Why couldn't we figure out a way for my fully capable child to ENJOY mealtimes, and be treated like one of the rest of us at the table, instead of having a spoon full of unidentifiable food put in his mouth for him and the excess wiped off his face with said spoon? Enter - BLW. It just makes sense. Read the book - it's about 11 bucks on e-readers and is available at amazon.ca or chapters. It is a super quick and easy read, and I promise you too will see that this method of feeding your child just makes sense.
So far, after about a week and a half of BLW, my son has had chunks of turkey, green beans, cucumber, apple slices, sweet potato, pita bread, toast fingers, celery, broccoli, cauliflower, cheese, and chicken. Maybe a few I am forgetting. He LOVES it. At this stage not a lot actually goes down his throat but he is learning quickly and it is really a very fascinating learning processes to witness.
I have been using baby-led weaning (www.babyledweaning.com) with my son and had to share since we are loving it!! BLW is basically introducing babies to actual solid food at the age of 6 months, and skipping purees and spoon feeding entirely.
I began rice cereal at 5 months with my son, as advised by my pediatrician, since he was spitting up a lot. I have always for some reason felt uncomfortable about the whole cereal thing in general. We tried, he hated the spoon, but didn't seem to mind the cereal. But I am a firm believer in "help me to do it myself' and so the spoon-feeding, although cute and of course, a major milestone complete with video footage, was something that did not quite seem right to me. Why couldn't we figure out a way for my fully capable child to ENJOY mealtimes, and be treated like one of the rest of us at the table, instead of having a spoon full of unidentifiable food put in his mouth for him and the excess wiped off his face with said spoon? Enter - BLW. It just makes sense. Read the book - it's about 11 bucks on e-readers and is available at amazon.ca or chapters. It is a super quick and easy read, and I promise you too will see that this method of feeding your child just makes sense.
So far, after about a week and a half of BLW, my son has had chunks of turkey, green beans, cucumber, apple slices, sweet potato, pita bread, toast fingers, celery, broccoli, cauliflower, cheese, and chicken. Maybe a few I am forgetting. He LOVES it. At this stage not a lot actually goes down his throat but he is learning quickly and it is really a very fascinating learning processes to witness.
Co-sleeping / Montessori Floor Bed
One of the most obvious 'Montessori' choices we have made with C is his bedroom. I arranged his room carefully and with a lot of thought for the future, and what kind of experience I wanted him to have. The result is a room that is much more 'toddler' than 'infant' -- but essentially it is stripped of the common nursery furniture designed, of course, for adult ease of use. This is not a criticism. Traditional nurseries are beautiful and functional, and I get it. I understand the reasons for the change table and rocking chair and crib etc. It just wasn't for me. (Note: My husband decided a change table was a good idea. He was committed to, and still is, lugging C upstairs for every single change. I am much more lazy :-), and change him wherever there is a flat surface -- providing it is only a #1. So, we use an old desk with a second hand change pad on top. And no need to gasp -- although there is no ledge to stop him from falling off...we are aware of this and are very careful.) Once he begins his twist-and-turn-and-squirm-so-much-you-need-octopus-arms-to-change-my-diaper phase, we will remove the change table and use the floor.
In C's room currently there is a low bookshelf with a few baskets containing (mostly wooden) toys, some books and blocks, a small dresser, a small table and child-sized chair, the change table/desk, and his bed -- a double sized mattress on the floor.
When he was a newborn we had a beautiful Arms Reach co-sleeper attached to our bed in which he slept for exactly four half-nights. From then on he slept in between my husband and I in our queen-sized bed. (I know, you're gasping again. But he was three weeks early, and little, and he shivered! It was unseasonably cool. Besides, he was nursing every thirty seconds, so no chance of either of us falling asleep to roll on him, and then hubby went and bought one of those sleep positioners. So all was great - you needn't worry!) This worked well for the three of us (well four, really, since the Westie made his way under the covers at our feet each night, somehow) for a long time. Until C began to roll over, actually, and the timing worked well for us - we had a trip to Jamaica a week before a trip to Ottawa just as C began to roll unstoppably, so it was time for him to leave our 25 feet off the ground high bed. Sob. It really is sad how quickly they grow! In any case, we transitioned him at that time to his Montessori bed in his own room. That was a Monday. By Thursday he would not sleep anywhere else!
I am now the most relaxed I have been since having him. I have gone to bed with C since the day he was born, since he is a stomach sleeper (I know, GASP) and has been since he was about 4 weeks old. All the SIDS warnings, and it of course is no joke and is very scary, made me committed to staying near him most of the time when he was asleep. Now, in his own bed, he sleeps on his back or stomach, but somehow I am no longer worried and can actually spend some time with hubby in the evenings.
Since C is not yet sleeping through the night, I moved with him into his room, and he seems to have begun weaning himself off the night time feeds. He will either go 7 or 8 hours without eating or has been eating less and less each feed. This makes it clear to me that given the opportunity one really can 'follow the child' as he has always regulated his own eating very well and created his own schedule. Amazing!! (Note re: sleeping through the night -- this has also been met with a lot of criticism from well-intentioned parents who are sure he is learning to 'manipulate' me. The truth is that I have never been comfortable with the idea of letting him go 10-12 hours without eating. Especially since he is not a particularly big eater. Also, I am not planning on going back to work at one year, so I am lucky enough to be able to nap should I need it during the day. For these reasons, I have never felt the need to sleep train him.)
So far so good with the floor bed. I love it -- he loves it -- and hubby and puppy love it too.
In C's room currently there is a low bookshelf with a few baskets containing (mostly wooden) toys, some books and blocks, a small dresser, a small table and child-sized chair, the change table/desk, and his bed -- a double sized mattress on the floor.
When he was a newborn we had a beautiful Arms Reach co-sleeper attached to our bed in which he slept for exactly four half-nights. From then on he slept in between my husband and I in our queen-sized bed. (I know, you're gasping again. But he was three weeks early, and little, and he shivered! It was unseasonably cool. Besides, he was nursing every thirty seconds, so no chance of either of us falling asleep to roll on him, and then hubby went and bought one of those sleep positioners. So all was great - you needn't worry!) This worked well for the three of us (well four, really, since the Westie made his way under the covers at our feet each night, somehow) for a long time. Until C began to roll over, actually, and the timing worked well for us - we had a trip to Jamaica a week before a trip to Ottawa just as C began to roll unstoppably, so it was time for him to leave our 25 feet off the ground high bed. Sob. It really is sad how quickly they grow! In any case, we transitioned him at that time to his Montessori bed in his own room. That was a Monday. By Thursday he would not sleep anywhere else!
I am now the most relaxed I have been since having him. I have gone to bed with C since the day he was born, since he is a stomach sleeper (I know, GASP) and has been since he was about 4 weeks old. All the SIDS warnings, and it of course is no joke and is very scary, made me committed to staying near him most of the time when he was asleep. Now, in his own bed, he sleeps on his back or stomach, but somehow I am no longer worried and can actually spend some time with hubby in the evenings.
Since C is not yet sleeping through the night, I moved with him into his room, and he seems to have begun weaning himself off the night time feeds. He will either go 7 or 8 hours without eating or has been eating less and less each feed. This makes it clear to me that given the opportunity one really can 'follow the child' as he has always regulated his own eating very well and created his own schedule. Amazing!! (Note re: sleeping through the night -- this has also been met with a lot of criticism from well-intentioned parents who are sure he is learning to 'manipulate' me. The truth is that I have never been comfortable with the idea of letting him go 10-12 hours without eating. Especially since he is not a particularly big eater. Also, I am not planning on going back to work at one year, so I am lucky enough to be able to nap should I need it during the day. For these reasons, I have never felt the need to sleep train him.)
First Post
So I guess the first thing in order is an introduction. I have been a Montessori teacher for about 11 years, am happily married, and the mother of a 7 month old little boy named Cameron. We also have a four year old West Highland White Terrier, who is currently the most exciting thing in my son's life, and he is DYING to get his hands on him. Needless to say, the dog makes haste when little C is near.
The purpose of writing this blog, primarily, is my experience in Montessori, both in terms of a classroom and now, although limited to 7 months, at home with an infant. We are raising C the best way we know how of course, and for me, most of that draws from my experience teaching. So, when I was pregnant and researching all the fantastic and ideal things to do with my child once he had made an entrance (which we all know often just turn to crap once real life actually happens..!) I came across a few blogs and websites that really inspired or educated me in different ways, and this is really just my way of giving back. Pay it forward, as they say. I find with the Montessori theory of education in particular, everyone always has a ton of questions. So here's hoping I am able to help answer a few.
The purpose of writing this blog, primarily, is my experience in Montessori, both in terms of a classroom and now, although limited to 7 months, at home with an infant. We are raising C the best way we know how of course, and for me, most of that draws from my experience teaching. So, when I was pregnant and researching all the fantastic and ideal things to do with my child once he had made an entrance (which we all know often just turn to crap once real life actually happens..!) I came across a few blogs and websites that really inspired or educated me in different ways, and this is really just my way of giving back. Pay it forward, as they say. I find with the Montessori theory of education in particular, everyone always has a ton of questions. So here's hoping I am able to help answer a few.
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