With Montessori, we try to support the child’s development of independence from infancy. We often address movement, toileting, care of self and the environment. What about communication? Can we support independence with communication from infancy? Can we help our babies tell us what they are thinking? Yes! One of the Read more…
“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…
Month 4 = weeks 14 to 18 This is the 6th post in this series where I am attempting to share some of the ways that we applied the Montessori principles from birth. Month 1 Month 2 Month 3 Observations at 15 weeks Handling the Child I’m sorry it has 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…
This is a preview to Month 4. I typed up this observations at 15 weeks. Hopefully this gives you some ideas on how I observed and what I looked for. From birth, I spent most of my time observing him. It guided me on how to prepare and modify his environment 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.
Materials at about 4 months
“Children are the constructors of men whom they build, taking from the environment language, religions, customs, and the peculiarities not only of race, not only of nation, but even of a special district in which they develop.”
How do you decide on what toys/materials and activities to set up or make available to your child? Do you have a method? Here’s how I decide.
I consider three major things
This is the third part of the supporting development for months 4-7 series. read about gross movement and fine movement.
Development in the first year
In the first two months, the child’s primary language is crying! He uses this to inform you of hunger, tiredness or any discomfort. By the end of the second month/beginning third month however, the child will start cooing. Cooing sounds are vowel sounds like “aaaa”, “oooo” etc. After this stage and around 5-6 months and after a couple of months of watching your mouth speak to him, he will progress to his first syllable which will now include consonant sounds. So sounds like “ma… ma…”, “da… da…”, “pa… pa…”, “ne… ne…”. Sorry to disappoint you but he is probably not calling you even though it will sound like “mama” and “papa” and “dada”but just following the normal language development process.
You can support the proper development of language at this stage by:
Hello! I know it’s been a while but we’ve had some changes here at Nduoma.com and I am trying balance it all and continue to write these posts which I really enjoy.
Ok! Back to the topic at hand. If you haven’t read them already, you can read about brain development and why you need to support it in the early stages. If your baby is younger than 4 months then read the previous post for birth to 3 months.
To remind you of where we left off… in the first three months, your baby could hold his head up and then turn from side to side and then lift it up. He also started off seeing only black and white and then other colors and then started perceiving depths. All of these you supported by giving him interesting mobiles that supported every stage. Your baby was born with a reflexive grasp and by the third to fourth month, he started getting interested in his hands and you might have even noticed him observing them. This is where we stopped at the last post and where we will pick up today.