Ridge Reading (age 3)

we have not fully started the kids homeschool yet but have taken advantage of real life education or whatever you would like to call it. the twins are really into reading and read very well. they love reading to their little brother and he sits in on any language, reading, writing activities we do. really he participates in EVERYTHING in hopes of keeping up with the twins.... and at times to bug them =) what do you expect from a 3 year old right! well this last month he has gone from reciting his words to their sounds to reading words and now full sentences. the twins started at around this age so i would say he is keeping up just fine!

here is a video and as soon as i know how to make my video files smaller i will upload one of him read a whole book.

hope you enjoy =)

Math

Math

Children have a natural curiosity about numbers and quantity, and the Montessori math curriculum helps them explore their interest in a concrete manner.

Without math people could not invent, create, discover or construct. Whether they are traveling into space or composing a symphony, people need to calculate and measure to succeed.  It is really important for me to show the kids that math is not just for grand works, that people use mathematics every day.

-A pharmacist measures medicine.

-A farmer calculates how much fertilizer they need for their crops.

-A child estimates how much time he has to play before dinner.

-grandpa divides a pie for the kids.

Math this year will consist of,

-Addition

-Subtraction

-Multiplication

-Division

Later on in the school year (or as they see fit) they will learn arithmitics like,

-Factors and Multiples

-Hierarchies of Numbers

-Long division

Montessori Math  is all hands on, not out of a book. here are a few materials that we will be working with this year to give you an idea of what i mean when i say "hands on". keep in mind these are just a few there a lot more and tons of DIY materials that i will blog as we go.

Addition Strip Board


decimals


Snake Game


Subtraction Strip Board


Multiplication Bead Board


Unit Division Board

Just a little more

I have a link that goes with my last blog but for some reason BlogSpot won’t let me cut and paste a link, or let people comment along with a few other things. Be patient please while I figure all this out because this BlogSpot set up is a lot different then my other BlogSpot set up.  Thehomeschoolmom.com is where one of my recourses for my last blog and my NAMC certified teaching guides that I was lucky enough to get my hand on *I might add that I saved $800.00 bucks on them, talk about lucky*!

After re reading my blog my Aunt brought it to my attention that I didn’t mention who the actual inventor of the Montessori Method was. I guess I forget sometimes that not everyone that reads my blogs know anything about Montessori and I just assume everyone knows who the inventor was.

Maria Montessori was from Italy, born in Ancona to be specific. Her father was in the military in his youth, and then worked as what would now be called a civil servant. Her mother came from an academic family and was well educated for a women living in the 19^th century Europe. As a child Maria attended a typical school where children received rudimentary training in reading, writing, arithmetic’s, and natural sciences up until the third grade. Many rural schools then stopped at the third grade. The children who continued after the third grade would study history, geography, and geometry. Most young women who pursued a secondary education chose what was called classical education which focused on the study of literature history, languages of Ancient Greece and Rome. Maria at the age of 12 had intentions to attend a technical school for her secondary education. For the first three years students studied history, geography, French, Mathematics and bookkeeping and some science. Then for the next 4 years they studied modern languages, mathematics, physics and chemistry and business subjects. Marias decision to attend a technical school did not favor with her father who believed that the education of females should be restricted to certain subjects but Montessori mother had more liberal ideas.

While attending technical school she became interested in engineering but by the time she graduated she became more interested in medicine. After graduation she applied for a university in Rome. After two years at the University she applied and got accepted into the Collage of Medicine at the University of Rome. Long story short they think the reason why she got excepted was because the mixed up her name thinking it was Mario not Maria. Fast-forward. She became the first women in Italy to be certified as a medical doctor. Fast-forward a little more she started working with children that then after sometime lead her to work with children with mental and physical disabilities. Back then children were kept in the same Asylums as adults with major psychiatric disorders. Now fast-forward a lot, she then developed the Montessori Method for those children and after she saw unbelievable progress allowing for many of those children to attend regular schools in caught the attention of many others. 

Maria learned that children learned best,

-by receiving neither reward or punishment

-by having the opportunity to correct their own mistakes

-by having freedom to choose what work to do or what materials to work with

-by doing things themselves

  And SHABAM! Welcome Montessori method.

Okay, so there is way more to it. Maria was born in 1870 and died in 1952 and in that whole time period she stayed active within her method, doing lectures and so on but if you want to know the whole story I suggest you read a book because it is way to long to type here! But it really is a very interesting story and totally worth the read.

also wanted to share a wonderful site that offers a lot of inexpensive and free printable that coordinate with the Montessori Method. 

http://www.montessoriprintshop.com/  <- look at that, i can now cut and paste! WOOT WOOT!

 as I blog more i will also show you how we DIY a lot of our materials.

A Better Look

We have been busy, busy, busy with spring cleaning, STILL getting the kids classroom together and planning the twins 6th birthday party. Homeschool will officially start after the kids birthday but that’s not to say that we still don’t participate in teaching activities, after all real life provides the best learning experiences!

When I first decided to homeschool, and friends, family, and acquaintances found out, it was amazing how often and quickly the question"You can't seriously be thinking of homeschooling" is posed. In many cases, before I could even try to formulate an answer, I was usually smacked with a barrage of warnings and cautions, or had my questioner simply shake their head and smile condescendingly. It was maddening!

300 years ago, there were two choices: a) walk 17 miles through the snow to the one-room schoolhouse or, b) have your mother and father teach you at home.

Yes, believe it or not, children all throughout history were homeschooled. Alas, the poor, misfortunate, odd little child of the 1700's. How ever did they keep from falling behind? How possibly could they have learned social skills if not from being tossed into a group of fellow nine-year-olds to teach them? How could they learn independence without being smothered by a peer group? Where did they learn the necessary skills and receive the self-esteem lessons that are found on the playground? Could sibling rivalry at home ever measure up to the greater scale of cruelty, and sometimes deadly, violence we now have in abundance in some public schools?

For the child of the 1700's, homeschooling was the norm. It was not some nutty, new-age experiment that was just introduced to society. Homeschooling was how things had always been done - and quite successfully, too! Strong, brilliant men and women who were trained as children by their mothers grew up to build the great nation that we live in today. Their mothers were moms just like us; they were willing to teach. And, they knew back then that social skills were learned and practiced in the home. Kindness, patience, tolerance for siblings, perseverance, and the hard work of daily chores were learned alongside Mom and Dad, and within the family structure.

While many parents are content to hand over the responsibilities of education, influence and inadvertent character and values training to the government for 7 hours a day, I am not. The choice to homeschool my family was not necessarily easy, but crucial for us. The fact that there is a whole history that consistently demonstrates and proves the successful methods of homeschooling is a comfort to me. And frankly, the 200-year government run, public learning experiment has not impressed me at all. Ironically, despite the low statistics and depressing national test scores, as well as the rampant playground torments, school shootings, and prejudiced curricula filled with values and philosophies in direct conflict with my own, it is I who gets the bewildered looks from other parents when they learn I am a homschooling mommy.

On an ending note, I must emphatically add that I do not "condemn" all public schools or view them as an enemy. Nor would I ever dream of judging - in any way at all - parents, who, after consideration, prayer and/or much thought, choose public, private, charter, or any other educational way or system. We all want what is best for our families, and being vastly different, it would be tremendously egotistical to believe that our way is the best for all families. Rather, "Who are you to judge another man? To his own master he stands or falls. And he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand - Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind." Read Romans 14.

Continue to research; and my respect to all parents who refuse to be blindly led or forced into any system, based upon peer pressure, social trends, or simply because it is the direction the stampeding masses are charging into.

Our little ones are too precious for us to let go without first being confident of the hands, hearts, and minds of those they will come under.

There are so many type of homeschooling curriculums out there but we have chose a Montessori, child-led, unschooling approach to our teaching methods.

The Montessori method has been around for over 100 years and some of the most famous people have taught, founded and graduated from Montessori schools.

What do Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com, Prince William and Harry of the British Royal family, Sergey Brin the co-founder of Google.com, Peter Drucker, Jackie Kennedy Onassis, and Julia Child have in common?  They are all Montessori graduates! 

Famous people that adopted Montessori teachings for their children includes;

• Stephen J. Cannell, TV Writer-Producer-Director
• Patty Duke Austin, Actress
• Cher Bono, Singer and Actress
• John Bradshaw, Psychologist and Author
• Yul Brynner, Actor
• Marcy Carcy, TV Producer
• Bill and Harry Clinton, Former President and NY Senator
• Michael Douglas, Actor
• Yo Yo Ma, Cellist
• Jennifer and Daniel Mulhern, Governor of Michigan

The pioneers of Montessori curriculum teachings include list of names such as;

• Alexander Graham Bell (inventor) and his wife Mabel founded the Montessori Education Association in 1913.  They also helped establish the first Montessori curriculum class in Canada and one of the first in the United States.
• Thomas Edison, scientist and inventor, helped found a Montessori school.
• President Wilson's daughter trained as a Montessori curriculum teacher.  There was a Montessori classroom in the basement of the White House during Wilson's presidency.
• Jean Piaget, noted Swiss psychologist, made his first observations of children in a Montessori school.  He was also head of the Swiss Montessori Society for many years.

I love how this method pays such attention to details regarding learning that most people don’t think about, the use child size furniture so the children can have full mobility of the class room, after all the class room is their and the teacher is only there to observe not dominate.

 Montessori materials are designed to be self correcting allowing the children to teach themselves. if givien the opportunity, training and experience children can learn to be self reliant, correcting themselves rather than looking to an adult for correction and approval. Instead of control being applied by the teacher through instructions or reward and punishment, control of error is built into the Montessori classroom and into the approach the teacher takes.

The classroom is set up to teach the students control of error using glass that can break, paint that can stain, hard floors that can be noisy if furniture isn’t moved on it properly.

Walking into a Montessori class you will see every student working on something different and students are allowed to do their “work” wherever they see fit, on the floor with a mat, a table, outside the room if they fell it helps them concentrate better or outside.

As I blog more it will be easier to understand the method.

Child-led learning is allowing the children to learn what they show interest in. just like the Montessori method it doesn’t force the children to learn according to what grade they are in or according to what the other students are learning it allows the students to carry out their own work according to the child’s interest. I have always done child-led play meaning I follow the child’s lead and don’t make them follow mine. If Jayvin is in the room playing Legos and he invites me to play I will follow his lead I won’t assume that he is building people, or cities or whatever it LOOKS like he is building, I feel that hinders his imagination. Instead I will ask. How simple of a concept but believe me most parents forget! So I figure using this concept in education is a great fit for us.

Unschooling is not easily defined. The range of homeschoolers claiming the unschool label vary from "radical unschoolers" who disdain any form of curricula or textbooks to those who prefer child-led learning but might also be called eclectic. All homeschooling was originally called unschooling by John Holt, one of the pioneers of the movement. Gradually the term has come to mean those who use no formal curricula but make liberal use of the learning opportunities that present themselves in daily life. Without outside intervention in the form of forced teaching, learning naturally happens. Unschoolers attempt to provide the best environment to allow that natural learning to take place. It is often called child-led learning.

The children have 12 subjects that they will be participating in.

-History

-Science Experiments

-Matter and Astronomy

-Introduction to Health Science, Art and Music

-Math

-Botany

-Zoology

-Practical Life

-Cultural Geography

-Physical Geography

-Language Arts

-Five Great Lessons/Cosmic Education and Peace

The next several blogs will be explaining more about each individual subject and by then the class should be set up for me to take some pictures and start blogging about our school days.

Montessori education vs. Traditional education

This weekend/week we will be finishing our makeshift classroom that we have designated in our home (pictures to follow). We felt it was important to designate a room strictly for school activities that way the kids understand can really get in the mood when its time for school.

We don’t designate a specific time for school since its child led education. We let them choose what they want to do within reason of course and I like to take real life and turn it into a learning experience… it doesn’t get more hands on then that!

My next few blogs I will explain what subjects we will be participating in and why we chose those subjects. For now I wanted to share with you a Montessori vs. Traditional education table to help you better understand the differences between the two.

The following table shows the differences between Montessori and traditional schools.

MONTESSORI

TRADITIONAL

1)    Three-year age span 2)   Motivated by self-development 3)   Self-correcting materials 4)   Hands on learning manipulating objects 5)   Individual learning 6)   Teacher is observer and directress 7)   Cycles of activity completed within child’s time 8)   Few interruptions 9)   Freedom to move and work 10) Materials used in sequence with presentations 11)  Work for joy and sense of discovery 12) Environment provides discipline 13) Encouraged to help each other 14) Child chooses materials  15) Child sets own pace 16) Emphasis on concrete 17) Reality oriented 18) Recognition of individual sensitive periods 19) Child free to discover alone 20)Carefully organized environment 21) Multisensory materials to develop specific skills 22)Self education through self correcting materials 23)- Respect of child foremost

1)    All one age 2)   Teacher motivated 3)   Teacher corrects errors 4)   Teacher lectures 5)   Group learning 6)   Teacher is the focal point and dominant influence 7)   Activity cycles determined by set time 8)   Frequent interruptions 9)   Assigned specific class periods 10) Materials are used with no prior instructions 11)  Work because you have to complete task 12) Teacher provides discipline 13) Seek help from teacher 14) Teacher sets curriculum 15) Teacher sets pace 16) Emphasis on abstract 17) Much role playing and fantasy 18) All children are treated alike 19) Teacher continuously guides child 20)Materials placed at random 21) Play materials for non-specific skills 22)Use of reward and punishment in motivation 23)- Community needs take precedence

Why we chose Homeschool

When the kids started to approach school age my hubby and I started to talk about what we wanted to do as far as education. We knew we didn’t want to just put them in a school simply because we lived in that school district. It was important to both of us to really put thought into what suited our kids personalities and learning styles best.

 Growing up I moved around so often sometimes attending 3 or 4 different schools in a year. Not only was it difficult for me to make friends but I also found it hard to learn. Schools learn different curriculums at different times from city to city and state to state. I remember in 4^th grade going to one school where they were starting to learn their times tables and then several months later moving to a different school where they just finished their times tables leaving me not knowing any of them. I didn’t learn them till 7^th grade. Even though going to live with my dad from m7th grade to 12^th grade gave me more stability in my education and I went on to do very well in school, I feel I missed out on some of the most important parts of my education, the foundation for the Jr. High and High School years.

My hubby’s education was much more stable but he told me he still found himself bored by the 11^th grade. Because of his boredom he was starting to hang out with the wrong crowd, started doing poorly in school leading him to fail in the end. He later got his GED but to this day he still regrets not getting his diploma.

With such different education styles I thought for sure we would have different ideas as to where the kids would end up in school. It seems that somehow we learned the same lesson and agreed on and education style very quickly.

We had never heard of Montessori until we visited a friend who had a little girl who was getting ready to attend a Montessori school. She had a brochure on her counter and after I went through it and showed it to Nathan we knew we wanted to research more. Needless to say we researched our bums off; we visited countless Montessori schools and even hired a Montessori tutor to come into our home 3 days a week to see how the kids took to the Montessori style. I noticed that many Montessori schools were different since the majority of them in Arizona are privately owned and I didn’t like that. We want to have full control of their learning environment and we want them to have more one on one contact with the teacher but mostly we want to be as involved as we possibly can in their education. The best way for us to do that is to home school. So we now home school with a Montessori and child led learning curriculum.

WHAT IS MONTESSORI?

"I have studied the child. I have taken what the child has given me and expressed it and that is what is called the Montessori Method." Dr. Maria Montessori.

The Montessori Method is a way about thinking about who children are. It is a philosophy that respects the unique individuality of each child. Dr. Montessori believed in the worthiness, value and importance of children. Her method does not compare a child to norms or standards that are measured by traditional educational systems. It is founded on the belief that children should be free to succeed and learn without restriction or criticism.

It is also an approach to education that takes to heart the needs, talents, gifts, and special individuality of each child. It is a process that helps children learn in their own way at their own pace. The main concept of Montessori is to promote the joy of learning. This joy of learning develops a well adjusted person who has a purpose and direction in his or her life. Children, who experience the joy of learning, are happy, confident, fulfilled children. In essence, Montessori helps bring forth the gift of each child.

Another important skill it teaches is self-reliance and independence. It helps a child to become independent by teaching him or her life skills, which is called practical life. Montessori children learn to dress themselves, help cook, put their toys and clothes away and take an active part of their household, neighborhood and school.

Montessori works in a methodical way. Each step in the process leads to the next level of learning. When a child plays, he or she is learning concepts for abstract learning. Repetition of activities is an integral part of this learning process.

For young children Montessori is a hand on approach to learning. It encourages children to develop their observation skills by doing many types of activities. These activities include use of the five senses, kinetic movement, spatial refinement, small and large motor skill coordination, and concrete knowledge that lead to later abstraction.

For a grade school child, Montessori encourages a child to proceed at his or her own pace onto abstract thinking, writing, reading, science, mathematics and most importantly, to absorb his or her culture and environment. Culture includes interaction with nature, art, music, religion, societal organizations and customs.

A Montessori teacher or instructor observes each child like a scientist, providing every child with an individual program for learning. Phoebe Child (Head of the Montessori trust in London) said "we must be prepared to wait patiently like a servant, to watch carefully like a scientist, and to understand through love and wonder like a saint."

Most of all, Montessori wanted to help free a child's mind to be unfettered to learn without any negative input. It is success oriented in that almost everything is self-teaching and self-correcting. The children learn by doing and by experimentation. The environment is specifically prepared for the children to allow them to interact with it freely and unfettered, everything is child sized, and safe for children to touch and use. In fact, Dr. Montessori called her center "The Children's House".

The main goal of Montessori is to provide a stimulating, child oriented environment that children can explore, touch, and learn without fear. An understanding parent or teacher is a large part of this child's world. The end result is to encourage life long learning, the joy of learning, and happiness about one's path and purpose in life.

Montessori education is characterized by an emphasis on independence, freedom within limits, and respect for a child’s natural physiological development. Although a range of practices exists under the name "Montessori", the Association Montessori International (AMI) and the American Montessori Society (AMS) cite these elements as essential:

§  Mixed age classrooms, with classrooms for children aged 2½ or 3 to 6 years old by far the most common

§  Student choice of activity from within a prescribed range of options

§  Uninterrupted blocks of work time

§  A  Constructivism or "discovery" model, where students learn concepts from working with materials, rather than by direct instruction

§  Specialized educational materials developed by Montessori and her collaborators

In addition, many Montessori schools design their programs with reference to Montessori’s model of human development from her published works, and use pedagogy, lessons, and materials introduced in teacher training derived from courses presented by Montessori during her lifetime

Human tendencies

Montessori saw universal, innate characteristics in human psychology which her son and collaborator Mario Montessori identified as "human tendencies" in 1957. There is some debate about the exact list, but the following are clearly identified

§  Self-preservation

§  Orientation to the environment

§  Order

§  Exploration

§  Communication

§  Work, also described as "purposeful activity"

§  Manipulation of the environment

§  Exactness

§  Repetition

§  Abstraction

§  Self-perfection

§  The "mathematical mind"

In the Montessori approach, these human tendencies are seen as driving behavior in every stage of development, and education should respond to and facilitate their expression.

Prepared environment

Montessori's education method called for free activity within a "prepared environment", meaning an educational environment tailored to basic human characteristics and to the specific characteristics of children at different ages. The function of the environment is to allow the child to develop independence in all areas according to his or her inner psychological directives. In addition to offering access to the Montessori materials appropriate to the age of the children, the environment should exhibit the following characteristics

§  Construction in proportion to the child and his/her needs

§  Beauty and harmony, cleanliness of environment

§  Order

§  An arrangement that facilitates movement and activity

§  Limitation of materials, so that only material that supports the child's development is included

Throughout this blog I will be sharing any ideas, DIY education tools, crafts that we do, recipes, field trips and how we have set up our home to suit our kids Montessori needs.