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Browsing Tag: Montessori
If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you will know that I am very passionate about Montessori education. But with some recent life changes, we left our beloved Montessori school and I was stuck deciding how to help my daughter with her education in the best way.
Now, I am someone who loves to organize and arrange things. So at first, I wanted to make a whole system of schedules and lesson plans. Except we definitely wouldn’t have followed it; it would have just been busy work for me.
Enter unschooling.
“Unschooling” is a term that can be very divisive. People read it and think of children languishing at home, sleeping until noon, watching television all day, and never learning to read. That couldn’t be further from the truth. One thing I’ve learned through the lens of Montessori is that children are naturally curious and if left to their own devices, will learn just from being allowed to explore.
Unschooling simply means you are letting your child learn naturally without a strict curriculum. But an unschooled kid could still do worksheets if that is what they want to do. You could get a math curriculum for them to follow if they are interested in it. They could also take classes in things that they are interested in. What makes it unschooling is that the child is taking the lead and the learning comes naturally.
When it comes to a preschooler, I do several things to help her learn without giving her a strict structure or making her sit to do the work I think she should do. Here is what unschooling a preschooler looks like, the similarities with Montessori education and how it is working for us.
I have worked in a Montessori school for 5 years and in that time I have become passionate about sharing what Montessori is and ways to incorporate it into your home. I am so passionate, in fact, that I have written an entire ebook about it. But I wanted to give you a little taste of some of the easy ways you can be more Montessori today.
The ebook is divided into three sections: Mindset, Furniture and Other Products, and Toys. In this post, I will share one thing from each category.
(You can find the ebook for sale on Amazon or you can get a pdf version on Gumroad.)
While I was pregnant, I did some research on how to make a Montessori environment for an infant. I will be honest, I was a little intimidated because it sounded like a lot of work to take my already cluttered and messy living room and somehow also accommodate an infant who was supposed to have freedom of movement. We live in a 1,550 sq. ft. townhouse. I literally don’t have another room that I could revamp into a playroom. Mac even roomed in with us for almost a year, partly due to the fact that we had to go through the guest room and totally clean it out so she could sleep there. So the idea of dong Montessori at home in our living room was a little daunting.
Three Months Later: I made a few updates on things we have already changed.
