You can find the info for this post over on our “Novel Ideas” page.
If you are thinking of giving books for the holidays (and I sincerely hope you are) these are well priced, beautiful, and Montessori friendly.
I love tying what we have on the shelf with our bigger picture. Montessori is about immersing a child in rich, holistic experiences.
So, when we want to explore the changing seasons, it only makes sense for us to find some beautiful Montessori friendly materials.
And then, go outside.
There is so much for a child to take in when walking in the forest. We purposely seek out quiet, peaceful spots where we can really take in our surroundings. This doesn’t have to happen in the middle of nowhere. A quiet corner of the park will do. We stop, practise some mindful breathing and really listen. Even at 3, Quentin has been able to master this with practice.
There is just something about sitting beside a stream. The water starts rushing with the heavy Autumn rains where we live. We could just sit all day.
In Autumn our favourite shelf activities include: leaf garland sewing, crayon/charcoal rubbings of leaves, and using Autumn themed free printables a like this one and this one.
Materials collected from nature walks also make great counters to go with number cards.
This is a beautiful new multi level puzzle we were gifted from Mind Set Learning Tools. Such perfect timing.
Quentin has been using our home made lightbox for about a year and a half.
There are so many things you can do with it and it is a great sensorial experience, especially with a mirror in front of the child.
Many people have asked if I have a tutorial for our lightbox, after I posted the above picture on Instagram today.
I didn’t, but I quickly made one up.
Here’s your list of materials. If you have the tools, the materials can be very inexpensive. I got everything I needed (except for the glass) at our local big box craft store and as always had my 40% off coupon with me which I used for the wood frame.
Materials list:
List of steps:
Ok. Check in. You should now have a wooden box with a hole in the side. Your rope light should be glued in a circlular coil from the middle of the box outward and be passing through the hole that you drilled.
Try to pack as much of the actual light inside the box so that none is sticking out of the hole and you can only see the cord. This will also ensure that you get even coverage of light coming out of the box and no dark spots.
Made a mistake? Hot glue once dried is easy to pry off. Re-adjust or just start again if you aren’t happy with it.
Ok. When you are happy with the coil test it out by plugging it in and gently placing the frosted glass on top. There is no switch on our box. We just plug it in when we want to use it. That’s why it’s nice if the cord exists the box on the same side as where the plug sits.
If you are happy with how it looks hot glue down the frosted glass to the top ridge of the wooden box.
You are finished!
Ok. Here is the big important disclaimer:
You absolutely need to use indoor safety rated (doesn’t get hot) rope light.
You absolutely need to use frosted glass to defuse the light your tiny loved ones are staring at.
And: Staring at any bright light for an extended period of time can damage your eyes.
Always use your lightbox in a semi dark (not completely dark) room and never for extended periods of time.
I hope this is helpful. Please feel free to leave questions here and I will try to answer them promptly.
Enjoy.
The air has become crisp. It’s such a cosy time of year. Here are some of the things we have been doing to welcome Autumn.
Some absolutely gorgeous 3 part cards by Puzzleheads. These cards are perfect for Quentin. Great detail, and lots of other complimentary products such as matching wooden puzzles and colouring PDF’s. He can easily match the picture to picture and is learning to match the words. This is yet another way we observe and provide materials for his sensitive period for language. He is now able to sound and then make an educated guess about what larger words may be.
Quentin’s love of geography continues. He uses his Little Passports subscription almost everyday. We explore what is happening around the planet in terms of seasons. He knows our friends south of the equator are opposite to us and therefore just coming into spring. We look up how other cultures and countries celebrate Autumn.
Finally as always, there is Practical Life. The right sized tools make it fun for him. Raking leaves is such a fantastic activity because it incorporates so many parts. Gross motor, fine motor and sensorial. It also expends a lot of energy which at 3.5 years old, Quentin really needs.
Finally one of our favourite activities is making applesauce using our peeler. Quentin loves using this because he can do it but it isn’t easy. It takes lots of coordination, and concentration. The apples come out as peeled and in spirals which he also loves.
Our recipe is simple:
We hope you are enjoy whatever season you find yourself in.
If you’d like to share some ideas for Autumn activities don’t hesitate to leave a comment.
With the new school year just underway for us I wanted to take a moment to share our essentials for this year.
One of the core Montessori values is independence in the child. Beauty and quality of materials are also important. So when I’m shopping for school items for Quentin, I keep those things in mind.
Here are our essentials:
A compact reusable lunch container. We are Studio Ghibli fans and so this Totoro Lunch Box was perfect. A good thing for parents to make sure they know is, where and how their child’s lunch will be stored. Our school as great little fridges right in the classroom. However they need to accommodate 20 lunches. Bento box style lunches can pack lots of healthy food into a small space.
Little feet are still forming. Children should go barefoot whenever possible to help their feet grow strong and in their natural shape. A full school day is a long time for a small child’s foot to be in traditional shoes. Soft soled shoes for indoors provide protection but allow the foot to move properly.
These are from Great Scotts Baby Moccs a locally owned shop of handmade leather soft soled shoes. Quentin and I saw them and immediately knew they would be perfect.
I fell in love with this messenger bag the moment I saw it.
Messenger bags are great for preschoolers. They are much easier to put on than a backpack.
Sierra from Fox and Rebel made and shipped this bag in record time. It is as gorgeous in real life. The arrow patterned fabric lining the inside is a perfect contrast to the simple outside. It comes with the three pins.
One of my favourite things about Montessori school is that the materials are usually supplied. Quentin doesn’t have a list of “must buy” school supplies. Just these three things are all he needs to get out the door in the mornings.
And then something very special arrived in the mail.
Marie-Claire the genius behind So Awesome Wallet Cards sent her latest deck. These are perfect for the car trip to school. They are practically indestructible, safe for use from birth and have amazing details and features. They help keep everyone feeling their best as they set off each morning.
Thank you to all the wonderful artists and makers who make our school mornings so much more bearable. We really couldn’t do it without you.
The other day, we had our first morning where the wind definitely had an Autumn chill. It was light but it was there. And so, with school just over a week away I thought I’d share some of my favourite Summer moments we’ve had.
Creating under the big Maple tree in our front yard. I think of all the mornings we’ve spent there drawing painting and reading will be my favourite memories of this Summer.
Nature Journaling. We pack his bag and go. He collects small samples to bring back for our Nature Tray and records the rest. This has been a good way to channel his writing practice.
Practical Life. It never really stops. He will sit and sew and we’ll talk. Sometimes about everything and sometimes about nothing.
Bike riding together. Their bond has strengthened while they’ve been off together. This was Anthony’s Birthday.
And finally, because within every Montessori child lies a teacher, there was work. He would pull something off his shelves, set it up carefully and then call the cat over.
Here Huxley, see a nineteen is really just a 10 plus a 9.
His new school bag hangs from his dressing chair and his new school shoes should arrive tomorrow. And we are ready. Ready to get back to it. He asks daily if it’s a school day. It will be good to start the next school year and watch him grow, but it has been a very nice summer.
Summer. It is a glorious thing isn’t it?
Both boys are now finished school and we have been blessed with hot, not warm but hot weather.
The new school year is still in the distance and so I’ve been thinking about activities to do with the boys. Things that will keep them from (oh I even hate to type it) the “brain drain.”
Here’s what we do in the Summer:
We linger
We stop a little longer to watch the bees hurry about their work. We breathe the heady scent of lavender a little deeper and we let our fingers run over the soft scented stalks a little more.
We wander
Whether at the beach, around town or through a good book of far off places. We allow time for exploration of all things. Quentin’s favourite is geography.
We create
With paints and pencils and small world play, we encourage creativity and the expression of knowledge. Quentin loves to set up his Schleich farm animals and barn.
His Bruder recycling truck (pictured below) and tractor (pictured above) also offer him a chance to create with to scale and realistic materials.
How does all this have anything to do with learning you ask?
Well, in the Montessori pedagogy learning comes from within the child. It does not happen to the child. So instead of math sheets and reading apps we continue to prepare the environment that will engage the child. We cater to the senses and the inborn curiosity.
I often get asked about “the trays”. I answer that is doesn’t matter what’s on the tray. What matters is what is in the hand. What I mean by this is that a pretty tray of carefully designed sea shell work is nice, but it is incomparable to the vastness of learning happening when holding a shell at the beach.
And then, just like that, everywhere there is learning. From connections made from reading to real world exploration. From measuring and counting as we bake, to keeping the senses sharp with environmental sensory input (flower smelling) it all keeps the light in their eyes burning. Their growing brains constantly seeking.
There is this quote that rattles around my own brain often.
“Be careful what you teach. It may interfere with what they are learning.”
What Montessori meant by this is that, in the eyes of a child, (especially one that has been given the freedom to develop without outside negative influences) there is no difference between work and play. Tasks thought to be mundane and laborious by adults bring a little child joy.
Because Quentin has always had the freedom to choose practical life tasks from around the home, he now can independently complete many of his own wanting without help from us.
Although he still has access to Practical Life shelves all week at school, I have made sure there aren’t any of these tray type activities here. Instead we have supplied him with real, good quality tools that are in the home along side our own tools.
This had been a process and not something that happened overnight.
If there is an opportunity to learn a new skill (such as using the sewing machine) I will still go back and give him a proper lesson and then observe him as he masters it.
Last week I followed him around with my camera and took some pictures as examples of the Practical Life tasks he chooses in one day .
He first chooses to hang his own freshly washed laundry. A child sized basket and clothes horse make it easier to work with. He uses old fashion pegs because his hands aren’t strong enough to pinch the spring loaded ones.
Preparing his snack of apple. He has been using this crinkle cutter knife since he was 18 months. Although he now has access to other types of small handled knives, he regularly chooses this one.
After lunch sweeping up is still a favourite for him. He has become very good at getting most if not all the dirt into his dustpan.
Of all the activities he chooses, he loves gardening most of all. The wheelbarrow and tools were our Christmas gift to him last year. My Mother bought him the perfect sized “working gloves” as he calls them.
These are only some of the Practical Life things he chooses for himself each day. He also washes his dishes, mops the floors and pretty much anything else he’s decided would be a good project.
Of course these things don’t make up his whole day but I love seeing him carrying a tool on the way to something he’s got planned.
How did all this come to be? Well these types of activities first started as prepared shelf activities. The scooping of beans from bowl to bowl with a spoon is exactly the same wrist movement he now uses to transfer earth in the garden. His dustpan and brush started out as a shelf activity too. When he got better at it we removed the activity and placed the items in his pantry shown here.
The key to all of it is that his tools are stored neatly in an accessible place for him and that we have never discouraged him from helping us complete chores.
New to this? Give it a try on a small scale. You might not be blown away by how much your 2 year old loves to mop the kitchen floor, but I’ll bet you will be surprised by the fact that they will do a pretty good job.
I could just live in the Children’s section of a good bookstore. I could nestle down amongst some comfy pillows and just hope that the shop owner would simply forget about me.
When we look for books for Quentin, the themes of Montessori whisper in our ears. Excellent quality, realistic images, and above all else beautiful.
Reading is a part of our everyday. We don’t set aside a strict time and a limit. It is not a chore. It is a joy. We read with Quentin because we love to, not because we have to.
These are his favourites that have stood the test of times this last year and going into 3.
If You Hold a Seed. A heartwarming story about a boy and his wish. Quentin loves that it goes through the seasons. The layered paper art is stunning and I just had to go to YouTube to find the video of how Elly MacKay made her gorgeous pages.
Walk This World. This is such a fun book. Each page is a different country, and there are lots of paper windows to open on each page. Quentin loves finding the hidden story behind the windows. If your child loves geography like Quentin does, this is the book for you.
African Animals ABC. Ant bear, bush baby, crocodile and dassie. A feast to roll off your tongue as much as to look at. We have always loved Barefoot Books. This is Quentin’s favourite of their publishing line. There are many educational facts at the back that accompany the rhyming text. The style of art is so interiguing and the richness of the colours is what draws you in.
If You Find a Rock. A beautiful poem about not only the rocks around you, but also the places in nature you find them. A wonderful addition to the shelf of any child who loves nature. I have used this book in my classroom before venturing out on nature walks as well.
Julia, Child. “Baffled and befuddled, mindless and muddled, adults sometimes forget what they know.” How so very true. Quentin loves the story of a child who grew to love cooking and helped adults “overcome their feelings of never-enoughness.”
Home. This is a new one for us, but it has quickly become a favourite of Quentin’s. Beautifully simple pictures and a good straight forward story has made this a favourite. Quentin loves the fact that the homes are from all over the world. Definitely another good one for a geography enthusiast.
Both Buddha at Bedtime and Nightlights are essential in our house for bringing calm. From virtues to peaceful self affirmations, these books do it all and in a gentle way.
And finally an unexpected late entry. In fact, we didn’t own this until late this afternoon. I was looking for another title to give as a gift and this one caught my eye. It absolutely floored me with its artwork. The layout and text are just breathtaking. Here are some examples.
I showed it to Quentin and he immediately loved it. Facts accompany each drawing. For lovers of animals, geography, and art, Amazing Animals. If I could only get one, this would be it.
And so there it is. His bookshelf at 3. If you are looking to start a Montessori child’s bookshelf think beauty instead of “cute”. Trying to bring it all together at once may be daunting. Each of these books cost under $20US and were collected slowly one by one.
That’s the beautiy of a collection. It starts to take shape over time. As does a child’s love of reading.
Montessori Birthdays hold a special place in my heart. A “Celebration of Life”.
It couldn’t have a more fitting title.
I’m often asked what my recommendations are for gifts that fit with Montessori values. There are many fantastic options out there, so I thought I would offer a unique perspective on gift ideas for the 3 year old. Or rather, Quentin would.
Being a “Montessori from Birth” child, coupled with the fact that he attends an extended day Montessori school 5 days a week, I thought it would be interesting to sit with him in his Montessori Space and see what he could come up with for gift ideas.
Me: “Quentin, what would you give a friend for their Birthday?”
Quentin: “Candy.”
Me: “Yes, but what about something to play with. What are your favourite toys?”
Quentin: “I like my animals and buildings and you have to have a tractor for a farm. Oh! And I like my picture cards and alphabet cuz you can make all the sounds and match them and I know all the sounds and the words and that’s gonna make me read soon.”
Me: “Ok. What about things to play with outside. What do you like to do outside?”
Quentin: “I like to ride my bike cuz it’s fast. I got a new wheelbarrow and my working things for outside and I have real working gloves cuz, yah, sometimes your fingers get dirty and I don’t like that. And you know what Mama? I got rhythm bells too and those are for big boys cuz you have to ring gently or it’s a bad sound but I like them.”
He sort of wandered off after that, but I thought his answers were sufficient.
He came back later and helped me find the images to make the above picture.
Starting at the top left: Bruder Tractor, Bruder Recycling Truck (his upcoming Birthday gift), Rhythm Bells, Early Rider Lite, Schleich animals, Wheelbarrow & Tools
Despite the “toddler-esk” nature of his answers, some interesting things stood out. He likes to play with beautiful, reality based, good quality things. These qualities all fit within Montessori values.
The animals and buildings he’s referring to are his Schleich animals and his Safari Toob Landmarks seen here. Both offer detailed replicas of real world things. Bruder vehicles are built to scale and have moveable parts but, (and here’s the best part) have no sounds, flashing lights or batteries. It’s all the child’s imagination. His bike, wheelbarrow and garden tools (“working things”) allow him to be out and exploring the world, but in a real way. Unlike typical toddler musical instruments, his rhythm bells offer a true to tone sound, allow him creativity with the musical scale and help him practice gentleness.
When I’m looking for a Montessori friendly gift, I look for something well made, reality based and ultimately something that could grow with the child. I also try to “Follow the Child” as best I can. If the child likes art, some good paints and brushes with a nice art pad is always appreciated. There are endless real child sized tools for a budding chef or carpenter at Montessori Services. Most importantly, the gift of something homemade and from the heart can often be the best gift of all.
I came to find him when I had the picture ready to see what he thought.
“But Mama, you forgot to do the candy.”
Our Montessori Life 