Monday, February 11, 2013

Montessori intro


Oh the world of Montessori!  Call me weird but I get a rush of excitement of all the things I can do to teach my baby new things.  I felt the same way with my oldest and still do!  I always seem to gravitate to the world of Montessori learning.  This is a philosophy that fosters independence in a child.  It allows the child to grow and learn at their own pace while challenging themselves.  The teacher (or parent) just guides them and introduces things for them.  This belief fosters the idea that a child is a self-motivated learner and they will gravitate to learning new things.  I don’t know about you guys but to me that is a fascinating thing to promote for the real world. 

I am going to start trying to set up a Montessori area in our home.  I would like get Austin to engage in an activity about 2 times a day for maybe 10-15 minutes.  I will try while we are alone in the morning and then again in the afternoon while the older kids are working on homework.  This has been a challenging time for me since, the older ones not only need help while they are doing homework but I like to teach them a little extra while their minds are still in the learning setting.  However, the baby also needs my attention during this time.  I am hoping that doing Montessori activities with him that I can do both at the same time.  (Wish me luck!) 

The first activity I will be doing is good for fine motor skills, picking up items with a pointer grip, inserting items into a container… Within a small little DIY toy a child learns so much!  It can even be used as a musical instrument by shaking it.  Also, this activity can be used for harder things in the future like taking things out of the container.  I got the idea from Pinterest, the link is below:
Putting straws in a container

I will be tracking my experience with this here on the blog!  Please let me know if you have any ideas for a 14 month old.

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