Nurture for the Future

Practicing Practical Life Skills

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When G2 was younger, I made him a set of dressing frames so he could practice some Practical Life Skills. Despite the effort and care I put into making these, G2 didn’t really care to practice these skills.

Dressing frames for life skills

Until I made him the vest for his Frodo costume:

Dressing frames for life skills

He couldn’t stop putting it on so he could practice doing the buttons on his own.

And when I got him a raincoat for school, he would insist on putting it on and pressing the snap buttons on his own every time the sky was overcast and there was a possibility of rain – just in case, because you never know if it might rain during the short walk from the school to the car.

Photo Credit: Westbourne Academy

Sometimes it depends on how you present the materials to your child. A dressing frame, detached from any meaning, held no interest. A vest and a coat that he could wear – that was worth practicing his skills for…

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Early Childhood Learning: Sensitive Periods

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The Sensitive Periods

A child passes through special times in his life when he easily incorporates a particular ability into his schema if allowed to practice it exhaustively during this time. Maria Montessori referred to it as, “. . . a passing impulse or potency.” These sensitive periods are critical to the child’s self development. He unconsciously knows that the time to learn a specific skill is now. The child’s intensity reflects his need for that particular acquisition in order to live. However, once the period passes, he’ll have to learn the skill with much more difficulty at a subsequent time. – Donohue Shortridge

It used to be a concern for me when G2 appeared disinterested in developing his fine-motor skills. He didn’t want to handle a writing implement – not even to colour or even to scribble, well, not for long anyway. The only thing he would do was Play Doh and Lego so I tried to encourage those activities as much as I could. Perhaps I was needlessly anxious because it finally happened without any nudging or encouragement on my part…

Recently, G2 picked up a pair of scissors (the safety ones for kids, of course) and cut his way through his brother’s Kumon Cutting book. He tirelessly went through page after page after page without any prompting from me whatsoever. I guess he’s found his sensitive period for developing his fine-motor skills…

sensitive periods

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Montessori Materials: The 100 Board

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Since he was little, Hercules has had a thing for numbers. So when I introduced the Hundred Board App by Rantek (they have some really cool Montessori Apps), he really enjoyed playing with it.

I have been meaning to make him a physical hundred board but never quite got to it until recently. In my typical lazy-Mom fashion, I went for the easiest way…

Photo Apr 03, 1 08 57 AM

All it is is a magnetic whiteboard which I got from Borders (something like this works pretty well, too) and magnetic buttons that I bought from Daiso (or something like this would work, too). I drew up a grid with 100 squares on the white board with a permanent marker pen and wrote the numbers from 1-100 on the backs of the magnetic buttons. Since it is magnetic, you can play it on the go. Yes. It doesn’t get easier than this.

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Books: The Montessori Method by Maria Montessori

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The Montessori Method by Maria Montessori

If you want to learn a subject, there’s nothing like hearing it straight from the horse’s mouth. Read about The Montessori Method translated from the original manuscript written by Maria Montessori herself.

What’s in it…

CHAPTER I- A CRITICAL CONSIDERATION OF THE NEW PEDAGOGY IN ITS RELATION TO MODERN SCIENCE

  • Influence of Modern Science upon Pedagogy 1
  • Italy’s part in the development of Scientific Pedagogy 4
  • Difference between scientific technique and the scientific spirit 7
  • Direction of the preparation should be toward the spirit rather than toward the mechanism 9
  • The master to study man in the awakening of his intellectual life 12
  • Attitude of the teacher in the light of another example 13
  • The school must permit the free natural manifestations of the child if in the school Scientific Pedagogy is to be born 15
  • Stationary desks and chairs proof that the principle of slavery still informs the school 16
  • Conquest of liberty, what the school needs 19
  • What may happen to the spirit 20
  • Prizes and punishments, the bench of the soul 21
  • All human victories, all human progress, stand upon the inner force 24

CHAPTER II – HISTORY OF METHODS

  • Necessity of establishing the method peculiar to Scientific Pedagogy 28
  • Origin of educational system in use in the “Children’s Houses” 31
  • Practical application of the methods of Itard and Séguin in the Orthophrenic School at Rome 32
  • Origin of the methods for the education of deficients 33
  • Application of the methods in Germany and France 35
  • Séguin’s first didactic material was spiritual 37
  • Methods for deficients applied to the education of normal children 42
  • Social and pedagogical importance of the “Children’s Houses” 44

CHAPTER III – INAUGURAL ADDRESS DELIVERED ON THE OCCASION O F THE OPENING OF ONE OF THE “CHILDREN’S HOUSES”

  • The Quarter of San Lorenzo before and since the establishment of the “Children’s Houses” 48
  • Evil of subletting the most cruel form of usury 60
  • The problem of life more profound than that of the Intellectual elevation of the poor 52
  • Isolation of the masses of the poor, unknown to past centuries 53
  • Work of the Roman Association of Good Building and the moral importance of their reforms 56
  • The “Children’s House” earned by the parents through their care of the building 60
  • Pedagogical organization of the “Children’s House” 62
  • The “Children’s House” the first step toward the socialization of the house 65
  • The communised house in its relation to the home and to the spiritual evolution of women 66
  • Rules and regulations of the “Children’s Houses” 70

CHAPTER IV – PEDAGOGICAL METHODS USED IN THE “CHILDREN’S HOUSES”

  • Child psychology can be established only through the method of external observation 72
  • Anthropological consideration 73
  • Anthropological notes 77
  • Environment and schoolroom furnishings 80

CHAPTER V – DISCIPLINE

  • Discipline through liberty 86
  • Independence 95
  • Abolition of prizes and external forms of punishment 101
  • Biological concept of liberty in pedagogy 104

CHAPTER VI – HOW THE LESSON SHOULD BE GIVEN

  • Characteristics of the individual lessons 107
  • Method of observation the fundamental guide 108
  • Difference between the scientific and unscientific methods illustrated 109
  • First task of educators to stimulate life, leaving it then free to develop 115

CHAPTER VII – EXERCISES OF PRACTICAL LIFE

  • Suggested schedule for the “Children’s Houses” 119
  • The child must be prepared for the forms of social life and his attention attracted to these forms 121
  • Cleanlinss, order, poise, conversation 122

CHAPTER VIII – REFECTION–THE CHILD’S DIET

  • Diet must be adapted to the child’s physical nature 125
  • Foods and their preparation 126
  • Drinks 132
  • Distribution of meals 133

CHAPTER IX – MUSCULAR EDUCATION–GYMNASTICS

  • Generally accepted idea of gymnastics is inadequate 137
  • The special gymnastics necessary for little children 138
  • Other pieces of gymnastic apparatus 141
  • Free gymnastics 144
  • Educational gymnastics 144
  • Respiratory gymnastics, and labial, dental, and lingual gymnastics 147

CHAPTER X – NATURE IN EDUCATION–AGRICULTURAL LABOUR; CULTURE OF PLANTS AND ANIMALS

  • The savage of the Aveyron 149
  • Itard’s educative drama repeated in the education of little children 153
  • Gardening and horticulture basis of a method for education of children 155
  • The child initiated into observation of the phenomena of life and into foresight by way of auto-education 156
  • Children are initiated into the virtue of patience and into confident expectation, and are inspired with a feeling for nature 159
  • The child follows the natural way of development of the human race 160

CHAPTER XI – MANUAL LABOUR–THE POTTER’S ART, AND BUILDING

  • Difference between manual labour and manual gymnastics 162
  • The School of Educative Art 163
  • Archæological, historical, and artistic importance of the vase 164
  • Manufacture of diminutive bricks and construction of diminutive walls and houses 165

CHAPTER XII – EDUCATION OF THE SENSES

  • Aim of education to develop the energies 168
  • Difference in the reaction between deficient and normal children in the presentation of didactic material made up of graded stimuli 169
  • Education of the senses has as its aim the refinement of the differential perception of stimuli by means of repeated exercises 173
  • Three periods of Séguin 177

CHAPTER XIII – EDUCATION OF THE SENSES AND ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE DIDACTIC MATERIAL: GENERAL SENSIBILITY: THE TACTILE, THERMIC, BARIC AND STEREOGNOSTIC SENSES

  • Education of the tactile, thermic and baric senses 185
  • Education of the stereognostic sense 188
  • Education of the senses of taste and smell 190
  • Education of the sense of vision 191
  • Exercises with the three series of cards 199
  • Education of the chromatic sense 200
  • Exercise for the discrimination of sounds 203
  • Musical education 206
  • Tests for acuteness of hearing 209
  • A lesson in silence 212

CHAPTER XIV – GENERAL NOTES ON THE EDUCATION OF THE SENSES

  • Aim in education biological and social 215
  • Education of the senses makes men observers and prepares them directly for practical life 218

CHAPTER XV – INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION

  • Sense exercises a species of auto-education 224
  • Importance of an exact nomenclature, and how to teach it 225
  • Spontaneous progress of the child the greatest triumph of Scientific Pedagogy 228
  • Games of the blind 231
  • Application of the visual sense to the observation of environment 232
  • Method of using didactic material: dimensions, form, design 233
  • Free plastic work 241
  • Geometric analysis of figures 243
  • Exercises in the chromatic sense 244

CHAPTER XVI – METHOD FOR THE TEACHING OF READING AND WRITING

  • Spontaneous development of graphic language: Séguin and Itard 246
  • Necessity of a special education that shall fit man for objective observation and direct logical thought 252
  • Results of objective observation and logical thought 253
  • Not necessary to begin teaching writing with vertical strokes 257
  • Spontaneous drawing of normal children 258
  • Use of Froebel mats in teaching children sewing 260
  • Children should be taught how before they are made to execute a task 261
  • Two diverse forms of movement made in writing 262
  • Experiments made with normal children 267
  • Origin of alphabets in present use 269

CHAPTER XVII – DESCRIPTION OF THE METHOD AND DIDACTIC MATERIAL USED

  • Exercise tending to develop the muscular mechanism necessary in holding and using the instrument in writing 271
  • Didactic material for writing 271
  • Exercise tending to establish the visual-muscular imageof the alphabetic signs, and to establish the muscular memory of the movements necessary to writing 275
  • Exercises for the composition of words 281
  • Reading, the interpretation of an idea from written signs 296
  • Games for the reading of words 299
  • Games for the reading of phrases 303
  • Point education has reached in the “Children’s Houses” 307

CHAPTER XVIII – LANGUAGE IN CHILDHOOD

  • Physiological importance of graphic language 310
  • Two periods in the development of language 312
  • Analysis of speech necessary 319
  • Defects of language due to education 322

CHAPTER XIX – TEACHING OF NUMERATION: INTRODUCTION TO ARITHMETIC

  • Numbers as represented by graphic signs 328
  • Exercises for the memory of numbers 330
  • Addition and subtraction from one to twenty: multiplication and division 332
  • Lessons on decimals: arithmetic calculations beyond ten 335

CHAPTER XX – SEQUENCE OF EXERCISES

  • Sequence and grades in the presentation of material and in the exercises 338
  • First grade 338
  • Second grade 339
  • Third grade 342
  • Fourth grade 343
  • Fifth grade 345

CHAPTER XXI – GENERAL REVIEW OF DISCIPLINE

  • Discipline better than in ordinary schools 346
  • First dawning of discipline comes through work 350
  • Orderly action is the true rest for muscles intended by nature for action 354
  • The exercise that develops life consists in the repetition, not in the mere grasp of the idea 358
  • Aim of repetition that the child shall refine his senses through the exercise of attention, of comparison, of judgment 360
  • Obedience is naturally sacrifice 363
  • Obedience develops will-power and the capacity to perform the act it becomes necessary to obey 367

CHAPTER XXII – CONCLUSIONS AND IMPRESSIONS

  • The teacher has become the director of spontaneous work in the “Children’s Houses” 371
  • The problems of religious education should be solved by positive pedagogy 372
  • Spiritual influence of the “Children’s Houses” 376

Read it online for free.

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Montessori Activities for Toddlers

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Recently, I have been trying to gradually introduce a series of Montessori activities to Hercules. He recently turned 2.5 years so I thought it was a good age to start. I cleared out the toy room (except for the books) with the intention of slowly filling his cubby holes with new Montessori materials.

Here are the contents for the first cubby:

  • A felt mat for his “workspace”
  • Coloured buttons
  • Coloured Lego blocks (yes, I’ve been trying to be economical with materials by using what we already have)
  • Coloured plates (from IKEA)

Montessori Materials

We used the buttons for counting. Although Hercules knows his numbers up to 100, I thought this physical exercise was good for him to cement the concept of physical quantity rather than abstract quantity which was how I had been teaching it previously. Maria Montessori said that young children needed to learn the physical before they could comprehend the abstract. Hercules knows that “36” is thirty-six, but I wanted to make sure he understood what that meant in a physical sense with physical objects.

Counting 1

We only had 40 coloured buttons, so I added some Lego blocks. We ran into some problems because Hercules only likes red and didn’t want me to use them. He kept taking my red buttons and bricks.

Counting 2

We used the same buttons and Lego blocks for colour sorting. Again, he wouldn’t let me sort the red objects because he wanted them for himself. He also seems to get the idea for sorting, but he’ll only do the colours he likes and ignores the rest. Recently, I got him to sort coloured pompoms into coloured IKEA bowls and he only does the orange and green but not the rest. When I try to show him the rest need to go into their respective bowls, he gets cross. Yes, I’m still working out how to get his full cooperation.

Sorting

We also used the same buttons for the threading game to improve fine-motor skills in preparation for writing.

Threading

Aristotle found a new use for the materials and turned it into a picnic for Mickey, Donald and Pluto.

Picnic

Yes, it seems a contradiction to what we wrote recently on quality materials to be using plastics and cheap materials. These were all materials we already owned or recycled from way back – the Duplo pieces and plastic buttons were Aristotle’s toys from when he was Hercules’ age, the IKEA plates we bought for the kids to play pretend cooking, the plastic jars are actually my breastmilk containers that I no longer use, and the felt mat is the RM5 felt sheets from Daiso (which Aristotle has been using as a Superman cape recently). Since we already had the materials, I thought it was a good lesson on recycling. I also like to encourage Aristotle’s creative and imaginative use of the materials.

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Toys: Quality vs Quantity

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In “How to Raise an Amazing Child the Montessori Way“, Tim Seldin wrote that it was better to have a few high quality wooden toys rather than lots of cheap plastic toys so that children will learn to appreciate beauty and they will learn to look after their belongings. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but after having a child like Hercules, I am beginning to see where he is coming from.

In the age that we live in, there are cheap plastic toys abound and the message they send to children is not a good one. For instance, a McDonald’s Happy Meal comes with a free toy – one of those cheap plastic toys that you don’t really value. They are great for distracting the kids for a little while and if it gets lost or broken, nobody cares because you can always get another one with another Happy Meal. Imagine the kind of message that gives our children – don’t worry if you break or lose your toys because you can always get another one.

Tim Seldin talked about the increasing popularity of plastic toys because they are harder to break and they are cheaper to replace compared to wooden toys. However, a wooden toy that will get damaged conveys a stronger message to a child learning to value and appreciate his toys – e.g. “You threw your toy and it broke.” Perhaps it can be mended, perhaps not. Regardless, the mark will remain and the child will remember. As parents, we would also react more strongly to the damage when we know that the toy was costly. This difference in behaviour speaks volumes to a child about our expectations.

Of course, children will be children and there will inevitably be broken toys and lost belongings. Even the most careful child will slip up. Individual differences will mean that for some children there will be more loss (children like Hercules) and for others, less (children like Aristotle). However, if we are going to teach our children to value their belongings, we have to let them feel the pain and loss of breaking or losing their toys. They will feel the pain more readily if they don’t have so many toys that the loss becomes meaningless. They will also react more appropriately if Mum and Dad react appropriately when a toy is lost or broken (monkey see, monkey do).

From this respect, it makes sense to avoid the cheap plastic toys and to go for quality rather than quantity. What do you think?

Up until now I’ve been struggling to deal with Hercules’ lack of value for personal belongings – books, toys, Daddy’s remote control, etc. No matter how many times we talk about playing nicely with toys and being gentle with books, it feels as if I might as well be talking to a brick wall. It’s been a frustrating journey and I sometimes wish he could be a little more like Aristotle in this respect.

When I reflect back on how differently I handled both boys, I realise that I have allowed Hercules to have “sacrificial” books that he can destroy. Aristotle would never have been afforded such luxury because all the books I bought for him were “beautiful” books and when he was rough with them, I came down hard. Of course, with a child like Aristotle, it wasn’t really necessary to repeat the lesson over and over because he just “gets it” very quickly.

For instance, Aristotle was very little (still crawling), he slipped on a mat, fell down and hit his chin on the floor. After that one incident, it never happened again. The next time he came across another mat, he would fling it aside and continue crawling. Hercules, on the other hand, will climb onto a stool, fall off, bump his head, cry a little and then climb back onto the same stool and repeat again. Even if he fell off 5 or 6 times, he would still get back onto the stool and repeat it all over again.

But I digress… When it came to toys, I made sure that Hercules only got to play with toys that were either “indestructible” or cheap, free toys that didn’t matter to us. Of course, when he did play with the “nice” toys, I’d be getting hoarse telling him to “play nice” which must be confusing – “Mummy didn’t mind when I throw my toys before, why is she complaining now?”

So now that the damage has been done, how do we go back to undo it?

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