When I first heard about Montessori education, I was looking for ideas to improve and implement independent play in my 8 months old daughters everyday life!
I was aware how important these skills were, and how they’d affect her future, the ability to learn in School, the creativity, the patience, the independence... all depend on this ability!
The Waldorf school hol system was something I already was familiar with, I had several friends and even close family members, who attended Waldorf school, and as you could expect they grew up to become teachers, musicians, some became journalists and others photographers, but almost all of these people are working independently and in a very creative branch.
The term Montessori, comes from dr. Maria Montessori, the first Italian Woman who became a dr! She was born in 1870, august the 31.
She has degrees in Antropology Philosophy, children pedagogy, and psychology, among others, she was also a university professor, and worked with children whit special needs! ( I may dedicate an entire blogpost for her life, and career in the future. )
She opened a children’s house, where she treated children with respect, and allowed them to have their opinion, which at that time was considered very controversial. She noticed that children started to respond positively to her approaches.
Montessori is a philosophy that feeds children’s curiosity and will to learn in a very natural way, and helps parents to guide their children very carefully through this process.
If you’re so lucky and are able to send your child to a Montessori school than do so, but if there’s no such school in your neighborhood or even town, don’t give up , ( specially if that school would be to far away, like in my case-
I would have to drive her 30 km every day to kindergarten,) you can do Montessori at home as well, Montessori homes are not so different from the Montessori classroom itself.
This doesn’t mean that you have to run and buy everything labeled Montessori! This principle is about mutual respect and love, not about materials, so don’t break the bank, look around your house and you’ll surely fine the way to implement Montessori in your home without spending your money.
How does a Montessori hone look like ?
A Montessori home is basically every Home with a loving family, in my opinion!
The children have to be surrendered by a clean, organized environment. To implement independent play and independence in every aspect in their life, aim for child sized furnitures, high quality toys( they also should be durable and open ended so they can be played in many different ways), natural, non toxic materials!
The first thing I did after I learned about Montessori was, that I donated the self entertaining toys, everything to flashy and noisy had to go, the majority of the plastic toys as well! If you consider doing Montessori, than your goal is encouraging your child to play independently with open ended toys and activities, and spend as much time as possible exploring the nature.
Why you should practice Montessori?
A Montessori child, grows up to be independent, confident, respectful and the desire to learn and immense curiosity is growing with them!
Imagine a morning routine where your toddler wakes up, puts their clothes on, and eat breakfast independently. That is something to achieve with the Montessori approach. ( Don’t misunderstand this statement!! It doesn’t mean you get to sleep, while your 3 year old gets ready for school. You should never leave your child alone, in any circumstances! )
What about bed time ? Did your child learn how to fall asleep by themselves, or you have to help them every night? If that’s what you want is totally fine, every family has their own little routine, but if you’d like your child to fall asleep after tuck in time, than consider to implement Montessori in your everyday life. There are many different types of advices of how to get your child to sleep, ( you just have to use the good old Google) Maria Montessori encourages parents to let their children sleep on floor beds, right from birth. I personally had her next to me the first few months, and than transferred her to her own room, in a crib, we purchased her Montessori floor bed for her third birthday, but that’s my kind of Montessori, everyone is free to have a their kind of Montessori! ( in case of babies definitely put pool noodles under their sheets to avoid rolling over)
Good night stories definitely need a whole chapter for themselves, lately I realized that the Montessori approach is the best thing I have ever done! My daughter gets scared of good night stories and can’t sleep through the night, as I reduced our home library to Montessori appropriate books, we don’t have this problem anymore! I didn’t believe first that children under six years should not be read fantasy based stories, I was like- I’ll skip this part of Montessori education, because I want my girl to know fairytales, about big wolfs and little girls who get rescued from the hunter 😉.
This is my kind of Montessori I want to introduce you to, I don’t strictly follow all the rules of Montessori, I take only what fits into our life, and what I’m comfortable doing, and I’m happy I started this journey. The best gift I can give my baby is love respect and curiosity, and through Montessori I can guide her gentle while she’s growing, and learning!
These few lines are meant to introduce you to the Montessori education I definitely will write about different aspects of it, including the main topics new parents are interested in, like:
- independent sleep,
- Independent play time
- Quiet time
- Cooking with children, cooking for children
- Baby lead weaning
- Positive parenting
- Activities and toys
- And many more
Glad to have you as a reader, welcome to the Montessori family!
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