Montessori experience

In my quest to find a suitable nursery for M., I have visited a few Montessori nurseries (but only a couple could be called Montessori) and I have learnt and copy a few activities to do at home without the expensive Montessori materials.
It is so frustrating visiting this so called Montessoi nurseries because, really, they are not at all following the Montessori methodology, many do not even have the materials or they keep a few hidden away. It is so bad that any nursery can call itself "Montessori" and knowing nothing about the method! This is because dr. Montessori did not make a trade mark of her name.

Anyway, myself that knows exactly what to look for to distinguish what is real from what is not, observed anything that could be done at home, and here I am telling you, I have also found other activities and inspiration in various books I have read about Montessori activities.

PEGS

Used in a Montessori nursery as "practical life activities": a part from learning to use it as an everyday skill, it also helps develop fine motor skills and a good grip for when the child will learn to hold a pen and write with it.




LOCKER AND KEY

Another "practical life activity": the child learns how to open and close a locker, also good for fine motor skills development.

NUTS AND BOLDS

"practical life activity": the child learns to screw and unscrew: fine motor skills

PUZZLES

Shapes, halves, body parts, world map




WASHING UP







SPOONING AND USING A SPONGE

Very good as every day skills, but also to improve eye-hand coordination, and develop a knowledge about volumes.









COOKING



CLASSIFICATION CARDS

Like flash cards on different environments and animals (I will explain in the next post)


WATER AND FLOATING

Put in a bowl full of water different objects and observe if they float or sink (I will explain better in the next post)

trees and roots

After a long time here we are again. it will be hard to summarize all we have done in these months, but I will try to write at least the most interesting activities.

BOTANICS
Muhajiza showed an interest in trees. I explained to her the parts of the tree and made a model for her to understand the roots and the importance of rain and sun for the tree and its fruit to grow.

First I made her put her hands and wrists on a sheet of paper and draw with a black pen around them to make the trunk and the branches of the trees; then I draw only her hands again on another paper to make roots. In this way she understood that roots are like branches but underground! I cut the around the "roots" and glued them on the wrists of the first paper.




I then I made the leaves and fruits by sticking around the branches pieces of green, pink and purple rolled paper (green for the leaves, pink for the unriped black berries and purple for the riped black berries).




To hide the roots underground, I coloured green a rectangular paper of the same lengh of the paper where the trees are. Then I put it on top of the roots and sticked it with a long piece of tape. In this way the roots are hidden and when the green paper (grass) is lifted you can see the roots.

On the left corner of the poster I cut a rectangular with an utility knife. I prepared a circle and drew on it on each side a sun and a rainy cloud. I then inserted in the rectangular hole.
Each day M. will look at the weather and turn the wheel either to show the sun or the rain, both of which are useful to the tree and the berries.

MONTESSORI EXPERIENCE

I was unable to update the blog 'cause of "techinical problems", but our activities didn't stop!
Since August I am searchind Montessori nusery for M. to stay when the time will come. I went to visit few so called "Montessori" but I was happy with only two of them and I was very impressed by one in particular...I think I now made up my mind. The fact is that Montessori is not a trade mark, so basically anyone can set up a nursery and call it "Montessori" with no knowledge and trained staff in Montessori methodology, and I found out that this is absolutely true.
From the two "good" nursery I observed and then practise at home some good "every-day life exercises", so I got the opportunity to bring some Montessori teaching in our home environment. Moreover I started reading some books about Montessori method and changed the way the furnitures were set around the house to suit M. needs in relation to the Montessori way to teach children independence.
Now M. can easily find any toy she wants and put it back in its place, she can indipendently choose what she wants to play with, without my help in getting toys for her, even pens and paper are readily available at hand whenever she fells like drawing. Only dangerous or very messy things are out of reach because they required my supervision (cutting, painting).
In her room I organized her clothes so that she can easily get a t-shirt or a pair of socks and also sort and tidy up all her cloths once washed, dried and ironed (this is a type of every-day-life exercise).
In the toilet I put a nice mirror at her height so that she can see her self and start brusshing her teeth; I also bought a better step to allow her to reach the sink and the soap dispenser and wash her hand unaided; a higher step is also available for her to reach the "big potty". She is now very confident in going to the toilet completely by her self.
In the kithchen I reserved the lowest drawer for her cups, plates, forks and spoons and also a place mat, so that she is able to set up her place on the table when asked. I have also made available for her a child-size jug to pour her own water. She was already ready to do this without mistakes because of all the exercises she had done putting rice into different size containers and pouring water into different size cups (these are Montessori exercises too in preparation to the child's independence in pouring his own cup of drink).

SPONGE

In the Montessori class-room children are taught how to use a sponge to absorbe water and then how to press it to get the water out onto a container.

WATER POURING

Using different tools the child puts the water into different containers

PEGS

The child learns how to coordinate the movement of two fingers to press the peg to open it

WASHING AND HANGING CLOTHES

BAKING

EVERY THING BEAUTIFUL

Oh lovely summer is here...we have been on holiday back to our origins. M. learnt so much there about where the fruit and vegetable come from. She became independent on picking strawberries, basil leaves, berries and helped me with other vegetables such as courgettes, aubergines, green beans. We ate so much fresh picked fruit, and M loved it so much. Back in London we kept the good habits and went to the country park to pick some black berries and we also discovered trees of sweet cherries and even peas!
We ate lots of berries and cherries and I also made jam, which she still enjoyes on a melba toast for breakfast.
I have also bought a basil plant and made pesto with the leaves M. picked for me, she also helped me prepare it. It is very good that she understand how fruit and vegetable grow and how we can make delicious things from them in a very simple way.
She is also developing a better understanding of how nature works (the plant needs sun and water and the fruit will ripe with time and with a good deal of sunshine), and grow an emphaty for our world.















We are also enjoying parks very much. Our bourogh is organizing various activities for children around the local parks, and even if there isn't much sunshine, we are having lots of days out, we even watched a puppet show, have face painting and made lots of art and craft, all of this for free!





Oh yes, I forgot! M. became so good with her potty traing that she was keeping herself 90% dry in matter of 2 weeks from the start of the training. After 1 month and half (cause of timeing issues) she got her scooter. She now keeps dry even at night!

Mudchute farm

Summer is her at last!

We made a trip at Mudchute farm where M. can see farm animals, feed them and even touch them and run after them. It is a lovely place where you can really feel like in the country-side.
M. had lots of fun! There were small lambs free on the meadow and she was running after them to stoke them, eventually she cracked the tecnique and managed to successfully touch quite a few of them.
It was a really sunny and hot day. We had a pic-nic with our friends and then a little stroll to make all the little ones sleep.
There is also a small play-ground where they had time to play when they woke up from their nap.






MESSY PLAY

I put some rice on a oven dish and gave M. some containers and spoons to play with it. She put the rice in and out the containers, she tried all the different size spoons and enjoyed this activity for quite a long time.

POTTY TRAINING

M. is now 2 and 3 months, the season is getting warmer and I think she is ready to make the big step from baby to little girl.
I am expecting her to understand exactly where she needs to make a wee and poo and why, and I am also expecting lots of mess and accident for the first week, getting better and better as the days pass.

To make the all process rewarding, and hopefully quicker, I have introduced a reward chart, similar to the ones I made previously. We chose to have Meg and Mog on it, her favourite book characters, and every time she makes wee in the potty she will get a sticker, sometimes even only the effort to sit and try will award her a sticker (at least for the first couple of days).



The first day (friday, 4 days ago)was quite disappointing for me, because M. made a couple of wees on the floor and didn't even care or have any feelings for it, she just moved away from her puddle and kept on being busy with her toys. I didn't expect that she wouldn't even tell me that she has done it!
I felt that I was up to a difficult and long task.

I then introduced to the chart a final prize she would get if she could collect lots of stickers and become really good at using the potty. This prize is something that she wants from long time: a scooter.
I cut a picture of it from the Argos' catalogue and I sticked it to the chart, so every time she goes to put a sticker she is reminded of her prize.
To make her successful efforts even more rewarding troughtout the potty training I told her I will reward her from time to time with a clog-charm for her clogs; since she is into the little mermaid at the moment, I bought from e-bay 4 charms with different characters from the walt-disney animation. Today she got Sebastian because she made a wee on the grass in the park, and when we arrived home I gave her the Ariel one because again she made wee on her own, today she never wet herself.

Now our chart looks like this: stickers that she got for using the potty, on the left the photos of her future scooter and hung on Meg's hat the bag with the clog-charms.



I am really proud of her to have progressed so quickly! Of course I am expecting more mess and accidents, but the important thing is that she is getting in the habit to use the potty.

BACK TO WORK

It has been a long time since I last updated the blog. I have been feeling less energetic and recently the weather didn't help. Nonetheless we have done some interesting activities and outings.
M. kept on colouring, drawing and playing with the play-dough and make believe, we went often to the library and to the children's centres. M. is learning to recognise the colours and she learnt to count to 10. In April, during the warm weather we went to the Mudchute farm, the Lady Diana's memorial play-ground and we had a couple of pic-nics in the park. When the weather worsened we went to the Childhood Museum and the London Aquarium.

Today I set few activities for her to do at home.

MAKE-BELIEVE

We played with the play-dough and we pretended to make spaghetti, pizza, eggs and cakes.





We pressed the playdough onto the plastic food and felt the different impressions that were coming out.




ANIMALS PROJECT.

M. coloured in a ladybird, a squirell and a bunny.

MESSY PLAY




M. played with water, from the aquarium visit she learnt that fish can't walk and that to survive they need to stay in the water. She often repeats this when she plays with her fish, octopus and wale toys.



ART and CRAFT

M. glued some pasta shapes, rise and lentils to a paper.