In the past week, Sam did more polishing and cutting, and did the metal insets one time.  (I’m shocked that she isn’t working with those more often.)  We added a few new activities.  Since she can’t use the hole punch yet, I punched a row of holes in a small piece of paper and showed her how to hold it on top of another piece of paper and fill in the holes with a felt-tip marker to make rows of holes.  She liked that, but only for about 5 minutes.

I also made my own version of the spindle box.  I wanted to do the number rods first, but I hadn’t figured out how to make them.  Luckily, Sam seems to be doing well with the spindle box, which in my case, is an egg carton and macaroni:

You just dump out all the macaroni and then put the right number of pieces back in each cup.  The first time Sam tried it she was all over the map, but today she got them all right except for 8 and 9.  It’s fun to watch her progress.

We also did some non-Montessori games that were fun and educational.  I had brought home some dice for her from Las Vegas, so we played “highest wins.”  We each rolled one die and then figured out who had the higher number.  Sam liked that a lot except that we had some bad luck and I won much too often for her taste.  (She is just beginning to want to win games.)

Then we played with a game called First Words Puzzle Set which is just a huge set of cardboard cards, each with a picture and a word, and each of which is split into two puzzles pieces.  If we only use about 5 cards, Sam can put the puzzle pieces together and she can read some of the words.  She likes to do that kind of game with me but occasionally she will play it by herself.  This video is from a few weeks ago, but it shows her playing Zingo by herself, and how pleased she is when she “wins:”

I had intended to start out in a formal, Montessori way: a dedicated time for school, starting with circle time; a separate space for the Montessori materials, away from toys and other distractions; and me 100% prepared to give proper demonstrations for everything.

Not!

I didn’t have time to do any work on this project at OCON as I had intended.  We got home and I was totally swamped but I knew that if I didn’t get started right away, the whole summer might pass us by.  I wanted to jump right in, but I only had a few things set up, and some were only half-ready, and I didn’t know the proper way to do anything much at all.  I guess “prepared environment” really means a lot of prep work, huh?    

I did have a few things ready, so I decided to just allow Sam to work on them during the normal course of the day.  This destroys any ambition of having her concentrate for long periods of time or being totally free to choose any work that she is interested in.  I’d like to move towards that goal, but for now, at least she spends some time doing structured activities independently. 

Here is what our little homeschool looks like:

I don’t have enough open shelving, so the drawers have to suffice.  Some of them contain Montessori work and some contain other toys.  Not ideal.  The colored bins on the right hold regular toys and you can see a doll-house on the floor right next to the table. 

I had to put the metal insets in a different room because they took up so much space:

We have two mostly unused bedrooms in this house, either of which could serve as a dedicated school room and solve these problems, but they are being used for storage now, so it would be an enormous effort to clean them out.  Also, they are not on the main level of the house where my computer is, and where the kitchen is.  I have a feeling that Sam would not take well to working in an isolated room like that, and I would have nothing to do.  I do plan to use one of those bedrooms for homeschooling when it’s a full-time thing, at which time I’ll move my office into the same room.

For our work, we started with polishing pennies, the metal insets, and cutting along a line.  For the pennies, I set up all the needed items on a tray:

I demonstrated how to place one penny on a napkin (which she has to get from her kitchen cabinet), to take a Q-Tip, dip it in the lemon juice and roll it on the side of the glass to avoid drips, and to rub the penny.  We had a few shiny, clean pennies, so I showed her what the penny should look like.  When she is satisfied (and I leave this up to her), she puts the shiny pennies in the other cup.  (For all of you die-hards out there, yes I do put the dirty pennies on the left and the clean ones on the right – always left-to-right!  This was how the tray looked after she finished.)  As soon as I can remember to buy actual lemons at the store, we’ll add squeezing the lemons as part of the process.  For now, I refill the little cup with bottled lemon juice every night.

I set up the metal insets for her and reviewed for myself how they are to be used.  So I’m prepared to demonstrate, but she hasn’t used them yet.  As part of the set-up, I had to cut a lot of paper into squares the same size as the metal insets, and I ended up with a lot of small pieces of paper.  I decided to use it for “cutting along the line.”  This is exactly what it sounds like: the child uses scissors to cut along a line drawn on paper.  I created a series of paper with lines and Sam spent about an hour working on this on Friday, so I suspect I’m going to have to make a new set of paper with lines every night for a while.  Here is a video of what I made for this exercise:

After I took the video I decided to eliminate the papers with more than one line.  I didn’t do that in the first go-around and now I’m thinking it was a bad idea.  Another part of this exercise that Sammy really likes is that when she cuts the squiggles, she ends up with two pieces of paper that look a bit like jigsaw puzzle pieces.  She enjoys putting them back together again.  The paper and a pair of scissors are on a tray just like the one for the pennies, and she can bring it to her table to work on any time she chooses.

I also tried to teach her how to use a hole-punch to make rows of holes, but she didn’t have the hand strength to use it.  I have another, similar exercise dealing with rows that I’ll set up this week, though.  I’m really glad that I wrote up my earlier blog post detailing all of the activities I wanted to do – I’ve been referring to it often.

So far, this is going really well!  It’s low-pressure and we both are having fun.  If it continues to work well, I might not ever make it more formal.  Thank god she has her real Montessori school nine months out of the year.  I think it would be really, really hard, if not impossible (without other children) to create the same kind of environment at home.  But I must say, this is an auspicious beginning for both of us!

The thing that I was mulling over this time was how I’m going to manage the transition from school to home learning.  Sam is going to be in Montessori for at least three years, and I’m considering keeping her there for first and second grade, too.  Especially if she stays in school through second grade, I worry about that transition.  Knowing what I know about her personality, I don’t think she will simply accept the idea of school at home, especially with mom as the teacher.  I started thinking about ways that I could ease that transition.

And suddenly it hit me – I can homeschool her each summer!  I don’t know why this didn’t occur to me before, but it really addresses four issues: it will help get Sam used to school at home, it will give me practice at this teaching thing without much pressure, it will keep the continuity of her education going year-round, and it will fill up some of that scary empty space during the summer that I’ve been dreading.  (I plan to homeschool year-round, too.)

So for the past week or so I’ve been planning.  I’m going to stick with the Montessori method and materials for the most part because it is what both Sam and I know and because, obviously, I think it is the best kind of pre-school education.  Along with advice from a few friends, I’m working almost exclusively from Elizabeth Hainstock’s Teaching Montessori in the Home: The Pre-school Years.  I also plan to use some activities from June R. Oberlander’s Slow and Steady, Get Me Ready.  (Both are indispensible books for educational activities from 0-5 years old.)   Please don’t hesitate to give me any suggestions or pointers in the comments, if you have experience.

I’m going to try a two hour work cycle, three days a week to start, but we’ll back off of that if it is too much in the beginning.  If it goes well, we might increase the amount of school, but this is supposed to be fun and low-pressure.  However, school time is going to be clearly defined; we will start right after breakfast, we will be dressed, and we will have a dedicated school area in the house.  I have plans for a special (kid-sized) table and chairs, a few bookshelves for the materials which will be closed off during the rest of the day, and a rug for working on the floor.  We’ll start with circle time (15 minutes?), which I hope will put us both in the right mind-set.  Some activities I’m considering for circle time are:

• Reading (will try non-fiction, descriptive library books instead of her usual fiction)
• The silence game
• Days of the week (memorization through song or rhyme)
• Months of the year (memorization through song or rhyme)
• Counting (memorization)
• Other, new songs
• Walking the line
• Walking with a bell without ringing it (one of my most distinct memories from my own Montessori education)

Then we’ll spend the balance of the time on independent work.  When Sam doesn’t need me, I plan to read a book on the sofa nearby and watch her out of the corner of my eye.  Here is the menu of activities that I’ve come up with so far, with links to descriptions of the work in many cases.  (The page numbers are all from Hainstock, except for SAS which refers to the Oberlander book – they are descriptions of how to demonstrate the task to the child.)

• Cutting paper along a line (pre-prepared paper with various types of lines)
• The hole punch row (SAS, pg 192)
• Polishing pennies with lemon juice.  Include squeezing the lemons into the water. (Come up with my own demonstration by practicing myself first)
• Phonetic object box
• Pouring (pg 24, and try it with a funnel into a slim vase)
• Scooping (Need to find or come up with a specific process)
• Gluing (Need to find or come up with a process)
• Washing doll clothes (Need to find or come up with a process)
• Washing baby doll (Need to find or come up with a process)
• Largest to smallest 
• Dressing frames (pg 23)
• Metal insets (pg 64)
• Washing dishes (use her tea set, pg 30)
• Sweeping the floor (try the basement or living room, pg 34)
• Bead stringing (use set she already has, pg 39)
• Using a dropper (pg 41)
• Puzzles (do it once myself then allow her to do it herself)
• Instead of the Pink Tower, use stacking cups (pg 49)
• Sandpaper letters (pg 70 and 74 when more advanced)
• Number rods (pg 80)
• Home made spindle box  (AFTER number rods, pg 81)

We may not need all of these, or we may need a lot more for the summer, but this is what I’ll start with.  Most of these activities are things that I know she is already doing in school, but which will probably still challenge and interest her.

I’m not much of a make-it-yourself kind of person, so I had to buy some of the materials.  I bought the metal insets, the sandpaper letters, a puzzle, and the dressing frames.  Everything else uses materials that I already have or can be fashioned from other, common household objects.  (I’ll make my own spindle box and spindles from an egg carton and marbles or pasta or something, but that’s about the extent of my craftiness.) 

In doing this research, I came across this lovely video that explains the idea behind the “practical life” exercises in a Montessori school.  (Oh my god, what a beautiful environment in this school!)  It also includes a detailed demonstration of the bow tying dressing board, which I think shows how Montessori is fundamentally different from so many other pre-schools.  From what I gather, many pre-schools teach practical skills.  But in Montessori, each skill is isolated and then placed into a specific order, each movement is precise, time is allowed for as much practice as the child needs, and, of course, the child can work independently after a few demonstrations.  Montessori is not all about “freedom” and self-expression.  I believe the Montessori Method does foster independence and creative thinking, but only by means of teaching a child how to master himself and his environment.  And there are specific, objective ways to accomplish this.

She seemed to be stuck on the isolation of the sounds in words.  She was able to identify the first letter of any particular word back in the fall, but moving on to the last sound or the middle sound has been a challenge.  She’d occasionally spell a word, but it was never consistent.  One word she has spelled quite a few times is “red.”  I was never sure why.

I actually haven’t been working on it much with her; she has been doing a lot of work with letters and sounds at school to keep up what she already knows, and if she wasn’t ready to move on, I wasn’t going to push it.  Her brain probably just couldn’t isolate those sound yet, or maybe she was just adjusting to the way they teach her in school.  Her progress stopped right around that same time.  None of this ever concerned me – it’s just something I noted.

She’s recently started making progress again.  She has started telling me the first letters of words more often and without prompting, so I know her interest is high again.  (No matter how many times I correct her, she likes to tell me B STARTS WITH BALL and C STARTS WITH CAT.)  When we play our games (from Montessori Read and Write: A Parent’s Guide to Literacy for Children
by Lynn Lawrence), she now seems to be able to identify more of the sounds.  She might get them in the wrong order, and she still needs a lot of help, but I can see that she is able to recognize that there are multiple sounds in words.  She has also become very excited to learn that double-e says “eeeee” as in pee, and double-o says “ooooo” as in poo.

Sidewalk chalk has always been a great way for us to sound out words.  I’ll pick a word and she’ll tell me what letters to write.  Yesterday, she spelled “grass” (G-R-A-S) and “green” (spelled correctly) and “shoe” (S-H-O-O).  I picked the words with the double e’s and o’s on purpose since she likes them so much.

I felt so good about this phonetic approach when I found today, in Sammy’s school folder, her moveable alphabet book (the teacher writes out the words that the child spells with wood cut-out letters) containing:

• yelo
• bloo
• red
• green
• pinc
• gold

It’s pretty funny because the colors were some of her first spoken words, and now they are becoming some of her first read/written words.  I swear, this kid already has a hierarchy of values and she acts on it!

As always happens when visiting a Montessori classroom, I was struck most by the way the children interacted with each other.  The atmosphere in that classroom was one of benevolence and cooperation, which is exactly the opposite of what we are all taught to expect from children.  Children are supposed to be little “selfish” heathens who need to be tamed.  They are expected to treat others badly until we pound it into them that they must share and be polite.  The children in Sammy’s class were not perfect.  There were times when others encroached on Sammy’s work, or something was grabbed at, but these were the exceptions.  The teacher had to step in once that I noticed, to remind the children not to touch another’s work.  (“Work” is what the Montessori materials are called.) 

I also noticed that most of the children were smiling and friendly to each other, and to me.  One boy asked if I remembered his name, since we had met before.  He beamed when I did, indeed.  (The children addressed each other by name quite often.)  Other children told me how Sammy needed help carrying the biggest blocks, or how they liked to have a snack with her.  Since I did not know how to help Sammy do her work in the proper way, I was instructed by the children not to sit on the rug, but next to it, and that the rods needed to be aligned vertically on the rug, not horizontally.  These instructions were not the bossy behavior you sometimes see with children (including my own) but sincere help and assistance.  I love the Montessori combination of great freedom for the children, but with instruction and expectations for the proper way to use things.  It is not the freedom of subjectivism, but the freedom of trust and respect.

Sammy and I arrived early so I saw how the children filtered in.  The teachers greeted the newcomers, but there was no need for them to get up to tell the children what to do.  The kids just hung up their coats and went right to work.  Some worked independently; others worked in groups.  The teachers gave lessons or read books to small groups that formed organically.  I didn’t stay for “circle time” which is when the whole class does some kind of activity together.  I might want to go again in the later part of the morning to observe that.

One final thing I noted was how big and clumsy I felt in that classroom, with all of its child-sized things.  It made me realize concretely how uncomfortable and frustrated children must feel with all of the adult-sized things that surround them.  I don’t believe in turning one’s home into a full Montessori environment, but it must be such a wonderful relief for the kids to enter that world designed for them each day.