“Each class was like opening a new world of knowledge, (it) also motivated and inspired us to start from wherever we are/were and start putting things in place. I would say the course left me very enlightened and prepared” – Obiamaka (Nigeria) COURSE CONTENT Week 1: Understanding Montessori – Your child’s Read more…
Handling With this series, I hope to highlight some of the philosophical applications of Montessori that are often ignored while people focus mostly on the materials. One of them is the attitude to the child especially during handling. In her book Understanding the human being, Silvana Montanaro defines handling as Read more…
Wow! I am humbled by all the attention the last post seems to have gotten, and excited to be somehow helpful to new parents. My dreams are coming true. Thank you for reading and sharing… and subscribing. I hope you continue to find this series helpful and also look around, Read more…
I frequently get asked about materials and activities for each month of the child’s life. I have decided to answer these questions by going back to our pictures and doing posts on what we found useful for each month. This is the first post. A place for everything: We created the Read more…
“The tiny child’s absorbent mind finds all its nutriment in its surrounding. Here it has to locate itself and build itself from what it takes in. Especially at the beginning of life must we therefore make the environment as interesting and attractive as we can. “ – Maria Montessori (The Absorbent Mind)
We set up Montessori spaces for our son from birth. He has also been given a lot of freedom of movement from birth and the result has been very good gross motor skills, body awareness, confidence and independence. He is very aware of his capabilities and doesn’t take uncalculated risks. I really believe these have been largely due to the environment. I have shown his spaces during the symbiotic period. Those spaces were temporary. Because we were not in our home for the first 7 weeks of his life, we created small but temporary spaces to meet his needs. Once home, he spent most of his time in his room, and because it was prepared for him, he had freedom to move. I just observed and made simple modifications to the room when needed but never really got in his way or tried to help him and he figured it out. So let me show you his room!
Welcome to our Montessori Infant room. I wanted to put a book shelf in the room but didnt want to take up space so I used this wall space behind the door. He is now able to reach the lowest shelf at 10 months.
While reading a report for me today, my sister asked me “why does a non-mobile child need a movement area?” It was a great question and a reminder to continue my series on the symbiotic period. Calling a newborn a non-mobile child is actually a misnomer because from birth, a Read more…
Yesterday’s post talked about the symbiotic period and the support needed by the mother. Today’s post takes off where we left off and discusses the support needed by the child The first and most important need of the child during the symbiotic period is LOVE in the form of acceptance. The goal Read more…
The last post talked about pregnancy, today I would like to talk about the symbiotic period, which is the first two months of the child’s life. During this time, the child need his mother and the mother needs her child. They have a symbiotic relationship. He needs her for nutrition Read more…