Thou shalt prepare a banquet for me
Amidst them that trouble me...
And I will dwell in the house of the Lord
Forever.
-Psalm 23
This week I am going to take you through my main living area (no, I did not clean it first)
and show you how our learning materials are set up. I am an extremely visual person; if it's outta sight, then it's outta my mind. My children seem to be pretty visual, too. They rarely get bored, and I think the way our toys and materials are set up helps with that. I keep things where we can all see them, which makes things get used a lot more than they would otherwise.
I spread the banquet, but each child fills his or her plate.
(Math shelves: Miquon math workbooks and cuisenaire rods, origami and tangram supplies, rulers and measuring tape, subtraction machine, cuties box of fill-able geometric solids, teaching clock, number balance, pattern blocks. Shelf below holds loops for fingerweaving- yep, that's a math activity! We also have tons of math-ish games like SET, Quirkle, Farkle, Connect 4, etc.)
They way I set up, operate, and record-keep in our homeschool reflects my basic philosophies about education:
"What we want is to see the child in pursuit of knowledge, and not knowledge in pursuit of the child."
~George Bernard Shaw
and the quotation I intended to put here in the first place:
"Education is not the filling of a pail but the lighting of a fire."
~William Butler Yeats
(Math shelves on right, history and geography shelves on left. Atlases, history and geography story books/ fun facts books, unbreakable stuffed globe- finest $19 you'll ever spend, unceremonious stacks of random books we've read recently. The Infant of Prague, in appropriate colored vestments, watches over from above.)
Perhaps the most pervasive influence on how we do things around here is Mari Montessori. She was my original inspiration to homeschool. Although I find that many things about a Montessori classroom do not translate well into a home setting (at least not my home), much of her philosophy can be applied to whatever material or situation is at hand.
(Science shelves: my resource books on top shelf, next shelf has picture books, flash cards, bug catcher, leaf press, rock and bark specimens, flashlight, nature journals, next has more books, nature guides, experiment kits- storebought and homemade, next shelf holds fish box- books, models, shells, puzzle, books, magnetic rod with fish magnets, etc, sink or float experiment, lacing cards, next shelf dinosaur and rock collection box, rice play box for toddler.)
My children are not required to work with their 'school things.' They choose them. If Isaiah wants to play math games for days on end, fine. If he wants to draw for a whole week, fine. Over the course of a month or two, like a toddler with his food, I find him to be balanced in his choices.
It's been a long process to let go of the mental picture of more traditional schooling, and it's been quite an effort. But the joy and self-motivation I see in my oldest, at the time when many of his peers are losing these very qualities, is satisfying.
The little booklet I used as an inspiration to gather all our materials together is "How to Set Up Learning Centers in your Home" by Mary Hood, author of "The Relaxed Homeschool." It's available from Rainbow Resource for about $5 and $1.50 shipping. It has checklists of items you could include in your centers.
We also have an art center and a music center, but those are ever changing and never, um, presentable. I am blessed right now to have room for all these centers in my home, but for less visual families with limited space, a (well-organized) tub holding the same sorts of materials could be just as fun and effective.
"Can you do Division? Divide a loaf by a knife - what's the answer to that?"
~Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass
Today I'm going to show you some of our Montessori-style activities. I keep a big tub in a closet and when I come across interesting boottles, boxes, jars, corks, boucy balls, beads, spools... you get the idea- I toss them in there. Then, when I have a chance, maybe once or twice a year, I go through and put together a few new activities.
There are many books about Montessori and the Montessori method. Many are stuffy and want to make sure that you walk away feeling that only a professionally trained individual can successfully teach Montessori-style. But many are good. I can't really begin to make recommendations here, though, or this post would never end.
Here's what's important with these activities:
-the child can do them on her own after being shown how;
-the activity has natural control-of-error (i.e. yellow botton in red basket: child sees mistake, or, circle lid doesn't fit on heart box, etc.)
-easily set up and put away by child.
Here's what's important with mom:
-DO NOT interrupt child to point out her mistakes, let her find them herself;
-be willing to help clean up.
These first are from "Do Touch," referred to earlier:
Jumbo craft sticks. Pics 1 & 2 are just matching 2 sticks with same patterns. Pic 3 is a simple puzzle.
Also from "Do Touch," sponge sey cut up. One left whole as a control. These are actually quite difficult to put back together!
Button sorting. 3 peanut butter lids with colored paper glued in, heart container with lid to store buttons in the activity's bag.
Flower beads to sort. Three sizes of flower beads (found these on ebay for $1 and knew Rose would love them), 3 peanut lids, tweezers to pick up the beads for fun, pouch to store beads, all in a baby shoe box.
John Paul at work!
These little number puzzles are part of a huge, overwhelming set and were a gift. I rotate a few at a time into a bag with "jewels" to place on the completed puzzles. The jewels make the puzzles much more fun to do.
Letter puzzles. Were also a gift. 26 puzzles are too much for most preschoolers all at once. So a few with objects to match get rotated for this bag. I love that tiny ball of yarn!
Fruit bead sorting, tweezers missing. Sigh. This idea was stolen from the Montessori-n-Such catalog. Fabric covered cardboard, Cezanne picture glued on, jar lids glued on. I like these beads but this tray isn't used very often. I'd really like to replace it with the M-n-S set, but it's definitely a want and not a need!
Lauri crepe rubber toys. Top pic is puzzles that go in a bag together. Bottom is a sorting toy I found for $1 at a thrift store. Lauri toys are great! They are safe, non-toxic, and your toddler can hurl one across the room and it sticks together! They make some cool, inexpensive puzzles for older kids, too. Most of their toys are available on Amazon.
Feel 'n find. A traditional Montssori game. There are 10 objects in bag 1 and their matches in bag 2. Birthday candles, big screws, marbles, thimbles, small spoons, plastic flowers, you get the idea. Make sure the blindfold is easy to get on and off. I actually did buy this one from Montessori services beacause it was cheap and I was feeling lazy, and it is a really nice blindfold!
More bead sorting. We're kinda heavy on bead sorting these days!
Butterfly toss. Just a target and some plastic butterflies. Less dangerous to your breakables than a bean-bag toss.
Bendaroos shape making. I need a laminator, see my bent control card? This is much tougher than it looks.
Boxes and lids. Really fun for 2 year olds. These boxes are usually $1 each, but stock up when Hobby Lobby puts them 50% off.
Hands down favorite! Opening and closing activity. Random assortment of containers, each requiring a different skill to open. Usually each one has a frog or lizard who lives inside, but I'm down to 2 frogs at the moment. JP gets this out at least 3 times a week, and so did my older kids from about ages 14 months to 3 years. DO NOT, I repeat DO NOT put child=proof pill bottles in here. They will figure them out quickly and then you'll have a serious problem on your hands.
Transferring activity. Jars of different objects (with tight screw-on lid!), variety of tongs and spoons to use, 2 pails to transfer to and fro. John Paul likes to pour, which is ok, too.
Some of Rosie's activities in a deep basket which sits on a shelf in the dining room.
OK, friends, I am too tired to photograph my science kits. But you can see them at either catalog website mentioned above. We have a sink or float set and a magnetic/ non-magnetic set, plus a rice play box.
I hope this peek into a selection of our Montessori-style activities inspires you!
"It's not only children who grow. Parents do too. As much as we watch to see what our children do with their lives, they are watching us to see what we do with ours. I can't tell my children to reach for the sun. All I can do is reach for it, myself."
~Joyce Maynard
"Don't worry that children never listen to you; worry that they are always watching you."
~Robert Fulghum
For a few years, I had the opportunity to teach college-level English and writing classes, and one of my favorite classes to teach was creative writing. It was an elective class required for English and Writing majors as well as English minors. I had pre-law students, engineers, and history majors mixed in with the others, students who by no means considered themselves to be writers.
The first day of class was always exciting. To walk into that room of intimidated and bug-eyed students who had been forced to take a college level creative writing class and convince them that they could have a good time was always a highlight of my year. Breaking through the barriers they had set up in their minds was my favorite challenge. They were not all talented, and they didn't all leave my class as burgeoning writers. But they left with capability and an appreciation.
Over my next several posts, I want to share a few tips and ideas that might help you break through the barriers your child might have set up in his mind, to help him become capable and appreciative.
Taking Writing by Storm: the Brainstorm
The brainstorm stage is the first step to writing, but many students get stuck before they've even begun. Staring at that blank sheet of paper is absolute torture and makes writing a paper or a story that much more miserable. But brainstorming can take several different forms. Choosing the right form for your child, or experimenting with all of them, could be the first step in knocking down the walls of resistance.
1. The list of ideas. This is the traditional take on the brainstorm, but here's what I always recommended to my students. Write down anything that comes to mind, even if it's off-topic or a bad idea. There is no such thing as a bad idea on a brainstorm. Even bad ideas can inspire good ideas. Set a timer, turn off the inner-censors, and storm. Let your mind belch ideas on paper. Don't worry about organization or connections or anything besides just ideas at this point. Don't worry about parallelism: the ideas can be adjectives, nouns, verbs, or adverbs; they can be complete thoughts or fragments; and they might even be doodles in the margins.
2. The sketch. Some of us think best in pictures, not lists of words. Another great brainstorm tactic, especially for a story brainstorm, is to draw a picture. Let your child sketch what he sees in his mind about his story. He may be able to develop the character only after he's drawn that character. He may be able to describe the setting only after he's sketched it. Let him doodle and draw and sketch as part of his brainstorm process. Then, after the drawings are complete, let him make his list of words from the drawing he has created. Keep in mind, your child doesn't have to be an artist for this to work; he only has to be a visual learner.
3. The cloud. If you see that your child has only five words on his brainstorm, you might see if your child thinks best in the form of relationships. In other words, sketch five clouds and put one of his words in each cloud. Then, have him brainstorm for each word. He may be able to fill out his brainstorm by thinking of ideas related to those five keywords. Or, the process of writing something—anything—might lead him to a totally different and unrelated but absolutely brilliant idea.
4. The narration. Do you have an auditory learner? Or a child who just loves to talk? Try narrating the brainstorm. This could take a number of forms. Your child could do the talking while you write down his ideas; your child could do the talking and then pause to write down his own ideas; or you could get your child a mini-recorder to talk into, then have him listen and write down what he said. Have him talk to the character. Have him talk as the character. Have him talk to the character's best friend. Have him ask questions to the general of the army on which he is doing his report, and then write down those questions as leads for his research. And you don't have to sit silent. Ask your own questions to lead him and inspire more conversation. A few things to be careful about here: don't do the storming for him, don't feed him ideas, don't tell him what he's "thinking." Remember that you are giving him cues only. Think of the prompter during a play, whispering key lines and first words to get the stunned actor back into the script.
5. The rant. Many of us think better when we are writing complete sentences in paragraph form. I think this is why so many students are tempted to write the brainstorm after they've written the first draft: they just can't think in lists. So let your child write, similar to a brainstorm, but in a flow of thought rather than a list. The ideas don't have to make sense, don't have to be in the right order, and don't have to be complete sentences. Don't worry about grammar or mechanics. Just write. It might even start with, "I have absolutely nothing to write about. I hate writing. I hate writing this paper," which is why I called this "the rant." The only rule is that your child cannot stop writing until he's reached a certain length or a certain time limit. There is something about writing itself that sometimes frees up the ideas. Even if it starts as a rant, at the end of five minutes or a full page (front and back) he's probably thought of something. Then, take that "something" and repeat the process, using the "something" as his cue.
There are so many methods or mix of methods we could discuss, but I hope that I've provided a few "cues" for you to use. Brainstorming, is in essence, whatever it takes to get your ideas flowing. And if you can help your child discover what way works best for him, you haven't just taught him how to write; you've helped him learn how to think.
, and another is 
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