Introducing a rug

In Montessori classrooms, children are encouraged to work wherever they're the most comfortable. Maria Montessori provided child-sized tables and chairs, but observed children often choosing to work on the floor. To accommodate that, she introduced small rugs that children could lay out on the floor. This provided a way to contain their work from spreading all over the floor, and to keep other kids from stepping in the middle of the work.

Yesterday, Nugget and I made a trip to Old Time Pottery, a local overstock store. I was able to find 2 lightweight cotton rugs with an unobtrusive pattern. These will be easy for Nugget to roll up and carry around.

I introduced the rug idea this morning along with a shadow matching game. I printed these pictures from a site with story stretchers for "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?".

Nugget was able to do the work quite easily. I think the more valuable part of this was the opportunity to see what the rug is for.

Clothespins and trays

I love to watch Nugget embrace the whole procedure of doing her Montessori activities. She seems to enjoy the fetching and replacing as much as the activity itself.

For example, I recently set up a few new activities for her -- flower arranging and clothespins. For the clothespins, she gets a tray with a basket containing the pins and a small round box. She removes the box lid and places the clothespins around the edge of the box. When they're all placed, she removes the pins, replaces the lid, and returns the tray to the shelf.

The purpose of the activity is to strengthen Nugget's fingers in the writing grip. When I introduced the activity two days ago, she couldn't get the hang of using the clothespins, either by pinching them or by squeezing them in her fist. After a few tries, she returned the tray and left it alone for the next day.

She picked it out again today, though. And, to my amazement, after a failed try or two she got the hang of the pinching motion and was able to place and remove the clothespins correctly!

She seemed to get a kick out of this, too, and repeated the activity numerous times. The fun part to watch is when she finishes putting the clothespins back. She replaces everything on the tray and returns the tray to the shelf. Then she picks the tray up again and takes it back to the table! She did this probably 3 or 4 times before moving on to her trains.

She really seems to see the fetching and returning as an integral part of doing the activities. I'm really happy with that. I think part of it is that she has a neat streak and we've encouraged it -- she's taken to cleaning up on her own during her play, without being asked. But I also think part of it is the delineation that the tray gives. I think it's a brilliant part of the Montessori method.

Next steps

This blog has been quiet for a long while. Part of that is because Nugget remains very imagination-focused.

But the other reason this has been quiet is because I've been deciding what my next step was going to be. It got to the point that we had to start thinking about whether we wanted Nugget to go to a Montessori 3-6 program next year (2010). I've embraced Montessori more than Waldorf during this time of experimentation, and I wanted to continue with that. But I wasn't feeling confident about my abilities to do justice to the Montessori curriculum at home.

So, after a lot of debate, we decided that we would run as true of a Montessori school as possible out of our house for Nugget. To that end, I've started a distance education program for Montessori educators. We plan to complete that certification and then outfit ourselves with all of the supplies you'd find in a Montessori classroom.

The plan isn't cheap. But it ends up costing less than a year of tuition at the local Montessori schools, and if we have a second kid, it can all be reused.

So we've financially committed ourselves to homeschooling Nugget for 3-6. Depending on how that goes, we'll think about continuing as she gets older.

Now the question is... where can we fit a classroom in our house?

Sweet Pete

I was reading an old craft book with Nugget this afternoon ("How to Make Flibbers, etc.") when we came to instructions about putting cloves into an orange, which they called a "Sweet Pete". After I read it, it occurred to me that she might be able to do that -- and we just happened to have one about-to-be-thrown-out orange!

It's pretty simple. We used a skewer to make it easier (the book called for a toothpick), and Nugget did a fabulous job of pushing it into the orange (with me holding the orange for stability). She made a small hole, removed the skewer and placed it on the ground.


Then she picked just one clove from a bowl, turned it around so that she was holding it by the top, then pressed the pointy end into the hole.


She stuck with this for quite a long time, and covered a lot of the orange with cloves. It's sitting on our table, smelling fabulous.

I was really impressed with how Nugget handled this. She watched patiently while I demonstrated the first clove, then followed the process carefully each time. A few times she caught herself not putting the skewer down before picking up a clove, but she corrected herself. Also, there were some skills here that she's only recently mastered, like pushing the skewer into the orange in a controlled way and maneuvering the clove around in her fingers so that it was positioned correctly.

I think this was the best activity we've done in a while, and it just came out of nowhere. I'm going to keep my eyes open for more similar activities to exercise her new fine motor skills. Her ability to follow directions is also really promising for doing more complicated things in the future!

Idea stage -- Counting and sequencing cards

Wow, sorry I disappeared for so long! Nugget hasn't been interested at all in sitting down and doing activities -- when she hasn't been sick or having a dairy reaction, she's been all about imaginative play. Yesterday she pulled the lid off the game of Life, sat in it, and declared that it was her "sailing boat" and that she was off to an island. She then "landed" on the island, exited the box top, ran around the room "looking at the island", and sat back down in the box to sail off to another island. Then various friends and supplies started to come along, and there was no more room for the captain....

Anyway, I've been standing back and letting her and her imagination roam. She has plenty of toys that get used in creative ways in her various scenarios, so I've felt no need to stock up on more traditional Waldorf items. I do still long for some play silks, but I picked up some silk scarves at a thrift store and they've filled that role so far. If she starts to use them more, I may dye some of my own silks.

In the meantime, I've been doing some sewing and keeping up with the garden. But I'm starting to think about some new activities that I might try to introduce. Nugget's been doing some basic counting in her conversations -- one, two, and sometimes three -- but won't count items on demand. I thought maybe some cards with different items in various amounts to match up might be good. For instance, one shark and one elephant, two tigers and two butterflies, and three worms and three birds. Something like that, where the subjects were different but the numbers were the same.

I also would love some sequencing cards. I tried to look for some online to print out, but they looked pretty bad. I'd love to have three- or four-item sequences for her to organize. I don't think I have the straight-up artistic talent to do the drawings, so that might be something to pick up at the local teacher's store.

I'll try not to disappear for so long again, but I feel that Nugget's in a bit of a lull for the sort of things that I've been posting on here in the past. Guess I'll just have to evolve to keep up with her.

Nugget's secret garden

It's finally finished! Nugget's garden playscape is done!

I've been working on this project for many weeks now. Nugget loves to garden -- both digging in actual dirt and pretending that she's gardening. I wanted to make her a little playscape where she could garden to her heart's content.

After a few nights of drifting-off-to-sleep planning and some wandering through Joanne's, I had a general idea for a magnetic garden using an old cookie sheet. I sewed some flowers first, then added fences, little mice, a hollow log for them to play in, a watering can, seeds to plant, and topped it all off with a previously-purchased fairy.



I'm quite proud of this little plaything. I'm going to keep it in reserve for her -- maybe it'll come out at her birthday in a few weeks.

Imagination explosion

Nugget hasn't been interested at all in the various Montessori-like activities that I've got around the house. She's suddenly very into open-ended, imaginative, independent play. It's great for me -- I've had enough free time to clean the guest bath and reorganize the pantry!

We have a lot of Little People toys and a set of Winnie the Pooh figures and buildings, but she doesn't go for any sort of organized pretend play. Instead, she crawls up onto the couch with blankets and various animal figures, builds herself a mountain and declares it an "elephant party". Or she pretends the couch is her bedroom. Or asks to have a large empty box put in her crib so that it can be her "worm house".

Any interference on my part in these journeys of imagination are going to ruin it, so my role has reduced greatly recently. The best thing I can do is to keep things uncluttered and organized, and to surround her with the most open-ended toys I can. Here's my and her favorites:

• Finger puppets. I bought a pack of these at Ikea and put them in her Easter eggs. She doesn't use them as puppets past putting one on her finger and declaring, "Hi, I'm Monkey!". But they're a great, small size for her to be able to carry a bunch around at a time for various "parties", and they're nice and soft when they get left underfoot.
• Gymnastic blocks and large balls. A friend got an AMAZING deal on a set of these blocks at a local resale store. Nugget has used them in different ways over the months -- as a step stool, obstacle course, and currently as pretend roller coasters.
  
• Felt food. I made a few sets of felt picnic food a while back when I thought I was going to make and sell toys at local craft fairs. That failed, but Nugget uses her felt foods daily at her parties, to feed her rocking horse, and to make dinner.
• Beans and rice. Yes, the small box of beans still gets daily use. In fact, 2 hours a day isn't unheard of. The sandbox full of rice gets less use, but still sees activity at least every other day.

The rest of her playtime is taken up with various things found around the house. Sometimes it's actual toys -- Little People figures or pom-poms -- but more likely it's random things she finds, like plastic Easter eggs, a deck of cards, or old greeting cards. We're pretty chill about her improvising with anything she can reach, which keeps her occupied and our stress level down.

Although there's not much news now, I've got a few things coming up. That magnetic garden I've been working on is almost done, just a few more evenings. And I've got a pile of Montessori books that I'm working my way though, including the original by Maria Montessori. I'm hoping I'll come out of my reading with a clearer understanding of the purpose behind many of the activities I've had a brief exposure to, and therefore a better idea of how to integrate them into our environment.