A list of activities to help parents of toddlers understand how to do Montessori style education at home.
Firstly I just want to say a huge thank you to all the people who took part in the Montessori a Day May Challenge. It's pretty exciting to put something out there and have it embraced. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I have had so much fun on Instagram checking out all your little people doing stuff for them self. Just follow my Montessori_at_home profile or the #pcmontessoriaday hashtag if you want to check it out too.
How To Play Along.
All you need to do is snap a picture of your little one taking part in the daily Montessori task and share it on Instagram, twitter or Facebook. Instagram works best but whatever you want to do is cool. You will (hopefully) find lots of others playing along so make sure you pop around and get some ideas or start some conversations.
It's hard to get some of these things done, trying a new form of transport for example or smelling flowers are things that you may end up doing on different days. Feel free to mix it up. If you're making something fun for dinner or washing the windows on a different day than the prompt, just do it and share anyway. It is not set in stone. The main point is to introduce different activities that help your child develop skills and independence.
The June Challenge
Last month we focused a lot on looking after our environment (meaning home and garden) so this month I thought we could go on from that and also look after ourselves and practice grace and courtesy.
Grace and courtesy is a huge part of the 3-6 year old Montessori curriculum. But you can start much earlier. Basically it about teaching children manners, saying please and thank you, waiting their turn, respecting personal space along with listening and responding. Just talk about and teach the qualities that little people need in the big world…simple. We have a bit of an issue with keeping feet and hands to ourselves around here right now so that it what I'm focusing on.
When it comes to hand-washing and face-washing it's all about the process. If you have a little table handy, think about setting up a wash stand complete with plastic tub, soap holder, jug, face cloth and towel. It also helps if there is a little mirror in front of it. This way your toddler can pour some water into the tub, wash their hands or face, dry up and check out their handy work in the mirror.
If you are interested in making your home more Montessori friendly, here is a great article on designing a Montessori home and here is a fantastic blog called How We Montessori.
If you want to make your outings more Montessori, just remember, it's pretty easy to let the kids out of the pram to walk and explore, it takes longer but the trip to the park can be just as fun for them as the park itself.
And if that's not enough here are some other Montessori related posts I have written. I hope you play along this month!
xoxox Babs
If you enjoyed this tutorial and want to give me a virtual fist bump you can follow me on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest or Twitter. You can also 'pin', 'share', 'tweet' or 'like' this tutorial using the buttons at the bottom of the post, xoxo babs
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