If you have ever had a young child then you have probably experienced it before, an unrolled roll of toilet paper. Sometimes you find it in a long strip or other times in heap. Sometimes it was a mistake and other times, not so much. What if instead of an Read more…
This is the fourth interview in the Exploring the Essence of Montessori Parenting Series. You can read the past interviews here. Today’s interview is with Mary Deans-Romero. I connected with Mary via the Facebook Montessori Teacher’s group. I am always interested so see how parents with multiple young children are Read more…
This is the third interview in the Exploring the Essence of Montessori Parenting series. Today’s interview is with a dear friend and someone I consider my Montessori godmother. I first got in contact with Pilar when I discovered Montessori and was trying to figure out my training options. She guided Read more…
I am so so excited about this series! I will be introducing you to Montessori parents from around the world at different stages of their journeys. They will be keeping it real, and sharing with us honestly their thoughts and experiences with parenting the Montessori way. The stories I have collected so Read more…
I wrote posts about Solu’s activities at different ages and it has helped me to look back on them. Unfortunately, I have not written much about Metu’s activities because life has been so much busier with two children and we have been traveling a lot since he was born. He 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.
Slithering out of his room to find me
Around this time, we started the weaning process and he was also sitting comfortably. We would put him in front of the shelf and let him play. There were usually two to three items in the cubbies. A treasure basket and another one or two items. The red ball stayed on top of the shelf.
New areas created in the living room. You can see the independence in these pictures. Moved from the blanket to the shelf and when he was done he came to us. These pictures were taken over 47 minutes.
Note: Once he started pulling up (same week) he never went back to the blanket and preferred to stay by his shelf so that area was removed.
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…