The beginning of the year is a good time to reflect on how you want to parent. I have chosen to parent my children the Montessori way and maybe you have too, but what does that even mean? There is so much interest and so much more information available and Read more…
If your children are relatively close in age like mine, then you know how they always want to do what the other one is doing. One way that I have found to deal with this is to offer similar activities or variations of the same activity at each one’s ability 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 second interview in the Exploring the Essence of Montessori series. If you missed it, you can read the first interview with Paije. Today I would like to introduce you to Kaitlin Luksa! I connected with Kaitlin over Social media and have enjoyed following her parenting journey. Tell Read more…
The title of this post is “helping your baby learn how to walk” instead of “teaching your baby to walk” because contrary to what most of us think, you can’t actually teach a child to walk. He teaches himself. A lot of adults do try to teach the child by holding Read more…
One of the best tools that I acquired from my Montessori training is Observation. I now love observing children and find myself doing just that wherever I go. It teaches me so much and usually provides me what direction and answers when needed. Most especially it helps me apply my 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…
“Impressions pour into us (adults) and we store them in our minds; but we ourselves remain apart from them, just as a vase keeps separate from the water it contains. Instead, the child undergoes a transformation. Impressions do not merely enter the mind; they form it” -Maria Montessori I love Read more…
” The greatness of the human personality begins at the hour of birth” – M. Montessori
This is another favorite quote of mine. Montessori believed that education must begin from birth since the child begins the work of constructing his intellect and personality the moment he is born. I actually think the greatness of the human personality begins at conception but that’s another story. Today’s post is going to talk about brain formation and why I agree with the thought that education should begin at birth. This topic is a little scientific but I’ll try to make it as simple as I can.
The Short and Simple Version
A large part of brain development (which is linked to intelligence) happens between birth and the second year of life. Brain development slows down significantly after the second year. Therefore, education is very important in the first two years of life. The education that I refer to here is not necessarily putting the child in school i.e. education as we know it. The next post in this series will discuss the practical side of education from birth.