Montessori: Teaching a Child to Listen

Thank you to those of you who took the time to email me privately regarding your own little "hummers"! I found a great article to help me with Mr. C and I wanted to share it with all of you. I believe the suggestions for listening games can help to raise Mr. C's awareness of his own voice and noise levels. Check out the article by Jocelyn Scotty over at the Chicago Examiner: Montessori: Teaching a child to listen

Do you already implement listening games in your home or classroom? After reading the article, what activities would you try?

Whistle While You Work: My Happy Little Hummer

Video of Mr. C humming during school today.

Did you hear the "Nutcracker March" (in the form of "bloops"!), evolve into "On the Good Ship Lollipop"? Bet Tchaikovsky, never imagined that!

This my darling little 4 year old. We'll call him Mr. C for the blog. Good gracious, he is a sweetie and loves to help his Mami. He has the cutest dimple and little eyes... but boy can he be loud! He's a very happy little guy, and in fact most of my children usually hum or sing while they do housework and even school work.  Even my husband who works from home during most days definitely sings a lot around the house (he's a full time musician!). We are definitely a musical home and I love it! So what to do when  little Mr. C becomes too loud when the older children are trying to concentrate on their work?

We have this Zenergy Chime from Montessori Services to help us remember to keep low voices while working, or sometimes just to help when the children want to create silence. It can really help and it is nice when the children proactively seek to create silence, but with Mr. C we'd probably be ringing it about every 5 minutes!:)

What tips could you share for those times when that happy little hum turns into that BIG LOUD overture? I would love to hear from both Montessori school teachers and Montessori homeschoolers alike. What do you think? Do you have a "happy little hummer" in your home or classroom?

Montessori No, No: When Helping Hurts

"The teacher's skill in not interfering comes with practice, like everything else, but it never comes easily. It means rising to spiritual heights. True spirituality realizes that even to help can be a source of pride."

- The Absorbent Mind, Dell Publishing, 1984, p. 274

As a Montessori teacher/parent, what advice can you give regarding
"not interfering" with the learning process?

If you are new to Montessori or even if it has been part of your family's life, think about the quote above and let me know what you think. Does it, or has it had relevance in your homeschooling endeavors?

Home Birth: I'm Amost Due!

My husband took my "pregnancy picture" on a family visit to our local Botanic Gardens almost 2 weeks ago.

I am so excited to be so close to having the new baby! I've really been nesting and thought I'd share a little of what I've been up to in regards to preparing for our home birth. This link on home birth preparation given at the Mothering.com forums really helped me a lot. This is baby #6, home birth #5, and water birth attempt #2.. This is the first time I actually feel really prepared! I've always left things for the last minute in the past and have hated that. Especially with a growing family, I wanted to feel more prepared and not leave things so chaotic. I will be taking 2 weeks bed rest (as best as possible) after the baby is born, so a bit of preparation is important. I'm 37 1/2 weeks and here are a few things I've done and still need to do: (I post this for myself as a checklist, but also to share ideas if you want them too)

Done:
-Got a special mothers blessing from my priest for a safe labor and delivery.
-My husband took my "pregnancy picture" for our new baby's keepsake.
-Did some mental preparation for labor by watching some home water birth videos, re-watched "The Business of Being Born" on Netflix, read certain parts of the book "Birthing from Within (the parts on laboring because some of the other stuff is a little too"out there" for me!), praying and asking God for strength during labor and for a smooth delivery of a healthy baby, and giving myself a little "speech" I can tell myself during labor: " I CAN do it, I WILL do it, I AM doing it" and then looking forward to saying, "I DID it!"
-Finally bought a co-sleeper! This is child #6, I wish I would have done it before!
-Collected all necessary birthing supplies (pool, liner, chux, towels, trash bags, Smooth Transitions herbal tincture by Wish Garden Herbs etc..)
-Made a basket with the first items necessary for the baby (clothes, diapers, etc..)
-Have a basket in the fridge and in the pantry with items I can drink and snack on during birth and labor (In the fridge: Cheese sticks, yogurt, etc. In the pantry: Protein Bars, Smart water, trail mix, Boxed soups, etc..), plus my lavender essential oil and organza bag of loose lavender buds to help me during labor!
-Have a basket with peri squirt bottle, maternity cotton pads to put in the Depends for post partum.
-Have my "laboring outfit" hanging and ready, which is just a wrap around towel cover with straps and Velcro opening/closure.
-Have my post partum cotton nursing gowns ready and hanging.
-Made a "Post-Partum" basket for myself. I lined a pretty box with tissue paper and filled it with Mothers Milk tea, Sitz bath and muslin bags, a bag of yummy Sundrops, a box of thank you cards and a pen, lanolin, and a Catholic mothering book called Grace Cafe. It was fun doing this as a little post-partum gift to myself.
-Wrapped a little gift of tea, chocolate, and bath salts for my midwife, and a little gift of chocolate for her apprentice, each with a Thank you note ready to be filled out.
-Bought ingredients and disposable baking pans for making meals to freeze.
-Have a box with organic instant oatmeal containers as a quick breakfast for everyone at home at the time of birth. Have a basket with bagels, English muffins, and cream cheese in the fridge for this purpose as well.
-Went over to a my comadre's house to learn about cloth diapering.
-Scrubbed and cleaned the fridge and put everything in containers and baskets. Have you figured out that I am a container/basket freak?!
-Have done a lot of de-cluttering in the home.

Still Need to Do:
-Still more de-cluttering! Mary and Joseph lived simply and we try to strive for that as well. It is so much more peaceful that way, and I believe we can just enjoy life and the children more without worrying so much about STUFF! This is an ongoing task in our lives!
-Finish making and freezing meals.
-Set up the home school classroom so the children can know follow the idea of "a place for everything, and everything in its place", even while I'm on bed rest. Set up a guide for some work they can do during this time as well.
-Mop the house, set up the laundry room with labels and baskets for everyone so as to make my bed rest time easier on everyone.
-Hopefully my husband will be done remodeling our main bathroom by the time baby is here! It's hard just having one available toilet with a family of 7 going on 8!

There are lots of other little things I'd love to get done, but alas, I am very satisfied having gotten all of the things above done, with not too much more I feel is necessary to do. In the end, the baby will come whether or not the laundry room is organized and I will just say, "The heck with it!". We are blessed to have a new life joining us, and I will try to enjoy every minute of my new baby's presence within our family. It all goes by too quick to worry about other detail.

Have any of you had a home or birth center birth? How did you like it? Is there anything special you did to prepare?

Are Montessori Organizations Excluding Homeschoolers?

With so many parents choosing to home school their children nowadays, and the numbers growing, do you think that AMI, AMS, and CGS should try and provide information, training opportunities, albums, manuals, etc.. that cater to Montessori or Catechesis of the Good Shepherd being implemented in the home?

I know that actual training in person is very crucial to these methods, but the reality is that many of us homeschooling our children cannot afford, or do not have the time for these trainings. Many of us are already well into the "ballgame" and try to implement Montessori and CGS in the home as best as possible. I can truly say that so far, I've seen great results. Are they the results that would be achieved if my children attended an actual Montessori school or Atrium? Maybe not. Maybe they'd be doing and learning even more! I personally, cannot afford to send all my children to a Montessori school, nor do I have the time to or money for full training. There is a local Montessori charter school, free of cost, however their emphasis on certain areas conflict with what I would like to emphasize in my child's education and with some of my beliefs. As far as an Atrium goes, we have none in our state, and we also attend the Tridentine Mass, so I would want the lessons to reflect the "Extraordinary" rite of the Mass.

For the sake of prompting discussion, I offer the following for consideration and discussion:

In her book, The Child in the Church, Maria Montessori states her wishes for there to be a "Montessori Order", with a "large part to be played by lay people, who would dedicate themselves to the work in a manner similar to that of members of Third Orders in the Dominican, Fransiscan and Carmelite movements, and in the same spirit."

Regarding this "Montessori Order", this is what it says in the book about Montessori in the home:
"A Second "arm" of the Montessori Order would be directed toward the helping of parents in their dealings with their own children in the home. Since Montessori's definition of education is an aid to life, it is clear that it begins at birth. In fact it begins before birth; and prior to her death Montessori founded a special kind of maternity home in Rome- which still functions. Its aim is to instruct expectant mothers, not only how to take care of their newly-born physically but also mentally, from the moment of their arrival into this most puzzling world.
Incidentally, it is interesting to note that parents are much quicker to appreciate the value of Montessori ideas than are many teachers and professors. This is no doubt because- as was the case with Montessori's first assistants in Rome- parents have not been trained as teachers have, along the old lines and methods. The parental instinct quickens their whole mental attitude toward infantile psychology and toward anything else which bears on the life of their newly-arrived offspring. There is an immense scope for the dissemination of Montessori's principles in the home, a work which has never been fully written up and properly organized, through already much has, and is being done in this sphere, in connection with many Montessori schools.
The more Montessori principles are practiced in the homes the less deviated would the under-five children become before they came to their first class, and the quicker wold be their process of normalization through work when they did come to school. "

The book goes on to say this:
"The Training of Montessori Teachers- The third branch of a Montessori Order would be the setting up and operating of training colleges for the formation of Montessori directresses. This would be a necessity, for, just as it is true to say, "No Prepared Environment, no Montessori School", so it is equally true to say, "No trained Montessori directress, no Montessori School." This is because there exists in the Montessori system a trinity, which is one and undivided, made up of (I) the children, (II) the Prepared Environment, and (III) the Montessori directress; and if anything goes amiss in the proper functioning of any one of these three something invariably goes wrong with the whole. As an essential part of this third 'arm', the training of teachers, would be the formation of a sort of vigilance committee f experts, which would include all la people, and no-Catholics also, of long Montessori experience. The aim of this committee of experts would be to guard the name Montessori and the movement that goes under it from the encroachment of other and alien educational ideas and practices which would undermine the fundamental principles on which the Montessori Method is based. This would not mean, of course, that such a committee would act in any way as a brake upon the true and genuine development of Montessori principles and techniques in new and fresh spheres of influence and practice; but it would make sure that these were "true and genuine developments in the sense that Newman uses the phrase in his famous classic, An Essay on The Development of Christian Doctrine."

With so many parents opting to home school, are AMI, AMS, and CGS working toward "the true and genuine development of Montessori principles and techniques in new and fresh spheres of influence and practice"? Homeschooling has been around for years, with more and more parents jumping on the bandwagon. I can't even keep up with all the wonderful Montessori homeschooling blogs around and popping up!

What are these Montessori organizations doing to meet the needs of these parents?

Let me know your thoughts on this, I'd love to hear them!