HappyMama

Here’s an example of a Yahoo group where you “donate” $30 for 4 months of downloads from the albums of an experienced Montessori teacher. Albums are books/binders full of descriptions of all the presentations a Montessori teacher would use in the school room. The language album I have is full of pre-reading & writing activities, learning to read, write, and spell activities, plus dozens of grammar lessons. I’ve been doing the pre-reading activities with our 2-year-old, and the grammar activites with my 4-year-old. We both really enjoy them.

I’ve added a new category to my sidebar - Montessori & Catechesis of the Good Shepherd Materials. Today I’ll add a few pics of a simple grammar presentation: introduction to singular vs. plural. In a traditional classroom, such a lesson would begin with a lecture by the teacher, while the kiddos sit in their desks trying to pay attention. A Montessori lesson would work like this:

1. Teacher chooses a time when child is peaceful & alert, and the environment is peaceful. [In our home, we do new presentations when at least one younger child is sleeping and the other younger child is preoccupied.] Teacher asks child if he would like to see something new. [Answer has never been No!]

2. Teacher leads child to a container/tray/drawer containing the new materials and wordlessly demonstrates how to carry them to a workspace. This could be a desk or a rug on the floor, wherever the child chooses. Teacher opens the container and takes out two large labels and reads them to the child while pointing to the words: “singular”, “plural”, and lays them out at the top of a workspace. [Working on a mat is a highly effective way of improving concentration by clearly defining where the child's materials, hands, and eyes should be.]

3. One object & label at a time, teacher sets out all of the materials, reading the labels as they are placed (or having the child read them if they want to), then carefully and gently puts everything away back on the shelf. The child is now free to do this work by himself, whenever he chooses. Without fail, he will want to do it immediately, and then will return to the work some other day. The teacher can present the material a second time after a few days or weeks if she thinks it would be of benefit to the child.

Notice that the teacher never explains anything to the child. The child discovers for himself what the two new words mean. He discovers for himself that by adding an “s” to a word it signifies more than one of the object. While at first this may not seem important, it is because when we discover something all on our own, there’s an Aha! moment that occurs in our brain, and the impression of the moment in our memory is more intense and lasting. It would be easy for me to sit down with a child, a piece of paper, and a pencil, and do this lesson with him in the “traditional” way of simply telling him the grammatical rules. And if he was in a good mood, he’d sit there obediently and nod his head yes, and he’d be able to rattle back to me what he had learned. But would it stick with him? The Montessori materials do.

A young child’s mind absorbs so much information. We can help them by showing them ways to classify what they’re learning. I’ve wanted to do some classification materials for a while, but didn’t want to pay for them, or print out a bunch of color prints. Finally yesterday I stumbled upon an excellent sticker book at Target and was able to put together something my 4-year-old enjoyed very much today. I’ll try to show a couple pictures.

We began by talking about the difference between the “natural world” - everything that God has made - versus man-made things, and then looked at how we classify the natural world. In the end, he sorted dozens of flashcards showing vertebrate animals into the categories mammal, fish, bird, amphibian, & reptile. Afterwards he said, “mom, also make me some cards of the invertebrate animals. Okay?”

You betchya.

This pdf file was helpful.

After 50 days of celebrating the Easter season, the Church has returned to Ordinary Time. And, as the saying goes, there’s nothin’ ordinary about Ordinary time! In our classroom, it is time to put away the white tablecloth on the prayer table. I explained to my 4-year-old that Ordinary time is a time for growth in our faith. “What color is a good color for things that are growing?” I asked him, and he responded with the “correct” answer - green! Our tablecloth will be green until Advent. (Unless I find the time to celebrate a few martyrs with some red along the way!)

I will put away our baptism materials until next Easter, excepting the Paschal candle. Our little doll has been baptized aplenty for now! (Yes, we do have one doll in our house!) Baptism teaches us about the basics of life. It’s 2 major symbols are light and water - exactly what is needed for little plants to grow. “I am the vine, you are the branches.” May this “ordinary” time be one of growing in your faith, illumined by the Son and quenched by the water of His love.

We have here a picture of all the cousins at grandma’s birthday party, a picture of pouring activities in the kitchen, and one of my little guy trying to watch his big brothers. Yes, he pulled himself up all by himself. Last week the sneaker crawled up the entire staircase from our basement up!

Our 2-year-old can count to about 16, but doesn’t have any concept of what the numbers signify. Shortly after Easter, I had this conversation with him:

him: “Mommy, I want some jelly beans.”

me: “Okay. How about 5?”

him: “No. I want 2!”

I realized he was ready for the next Montessori math material, “spindles”. Click here to see a “real” spindle box, plus the $65 price tag! I spent roughly $5 on mine. The child simply puts one spindle (or pencil, in my case,) in the cup marked 1, and so on up to 9. The direct purposes of this exercise are to give the child a concept of what the numerals signify, and in particular, to introduce the concept of zero.

I introduced this material to my 2-year-old by setting out the cups marked 0, 1, 2, and 3, plus the cup with 6 spindles. I silently demonstrated how to set the cups out in order, and how to fill them with the appropriate number of pencils. I put the materials away, then asked him if he wanted a turn. He did, but he didn’t put the cups in the correct order, or put the correct number of pencils in the cups. I may have jumped the gun on this material by a couple months. I bet ya, though, that from watching his older brother use these materials, the day will come sooner than I think that he will figure them out all on his own. Every month or so, I will just sit down with him and demonstrate it correctly again.

You may be thinking, why go to the trouble of all this with a 2 or 3 year old? He’s going to learn this stuff in school some day anyway. True enough.

There are purposes to the materials which go way beyond learning simple math. A typical 3 year old is more than capable of learning these concepts, so why not teach him? A 3 year old looks at these materials with great interest, and completely enjoys working with them at his own pace, at his own leisure, and effortlessly. My son is going to teach himself what “3″ means, and the day that he discovers it, he will be filled with joy & confidence. It builds self-esteem. This type of learning is not tedious, and fosters a love of learning that will hopefully stay with him all his life. This material will teach him how to concentrate, and will be an exercise in dexterity & gross motor control, and when I make sure he always puts it away when he’s finished, respect for and care of the learning environment.