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ShawnaB
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| Posted: Aug 05 2007 at 10:29am | IP Logged
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Hello again, I wanted to start a new post on this, so as to not totally hijack the "Where to Start" thread.
Angela asked about using mats for 2 year olds, as as far as that goes, I am just starting with them. And during "mat time" I am right there with them. Its not independent yet, but it goes something like this:
OK guys, its mat time. (they run to the basket and get their mats.)
I help them lay it down. They sit on it, because I've taught them to do so. They yell "toys!" and point to the cabinet where I keep their toddler manipulatives and activities which I rotate out.
I select 1 manipulative type toy for each of them (shape sorter, stacker, peg board, etc., wedgits, lockbox,knob puzzles, a tray with a basket of colored cubes and a few little baskets, sometimes 1 piece of chalk and a small chalkboard.)
I remind them that they must stay on their mat. I remain nearby, as this part can be a discipline issue, and I'm right there to remind then that they and the toy must stay on the mat.
I set an egg timer for 5 minutes. When it rings, I tell them that they may "finish"...this means stack the toy up they way it goes and then I'll give them a new toy. Once in a while, Jonathan is still engaged, so I just let him continue. Without the timer, they are "finished" in about 30 seconds. I make them stay on their mat with the same toy for 5 minutes, and they seem...after initially protesting...to actually explore and play with the material better.
I do this 3 times, for a total of about 15 minutes. Its not independent work...yet...but we're working towards that in the next year. Two years old is still quite young for independent choosing, but teaching them to use and stay on the mat for short periods of time, and keep their materials there, is a worthwhile goal I think.
After a few months of this, I'll probably start putting a small selection of activities down on a shelf for mat time, and allowing them to replace their activity and choose another when the timer rings.
In a "true" Montessori environment, these guys would still be in the Toddler Room, where they would have free exploration of only appropriate materials. However, my home is not a classroom, and I have to tweak things. They will never have free exploration rights to to the whole house, so setting boundaries is essential (especially now that they can scale any gate and open ANY latch!) And, I'm hoping that the training will allow more free choice in the future, with appropriate boundaries.
Equally important is teaching them to stay OFF their 4 yr old sister's mat while she is working...something that also requires me to stay right nearby.
Last month, I had the great privilege of having
Kendra Fletcher author of the website Preschoolers and Peace speak at a retreat that I hosted. I learned so much from her on toddler training. She refered me to a great resource called Raising Godly Tomatoeswhich I found really helpful. The author encourages keeping your children nearby all time as a very effective way of training...and it really compliments a Montessori lifestyle. It really changed the way I do things during my day.
I think Elizabeth has been practicing a similar lifestyle with here little ones, which you can read about in These Posts which I continue to reference when I need inspiration on how to put it all together with little ones!
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Shawna, wife of Jacob, mom to Abraham 8 Amelia 5 and Jillian & Jonathan age 3 years http://www.psalm121family.com
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lapazfarm
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| Posted: Aug 05 2007 at 12:23pm | IP Logged
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Shawna I love the way you describe your methods. Sounds wonderful, gentle, and effective!And I agree that the groundwork you are laying now will bear very positive fruit for the future.
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Theresa
us-schooling in beautiful Fairbanks, Alaska.
LaPaz Home Learning
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SuzanneG
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| Posted: Aug 05 2007 at 2:10pm | IP Logged
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Shawna, this is great. This will be 15 minutes that will pay off, I'm sure. Isn't it funny how spending such a small amount of time on something can yield such great results?
I noticed my 17-month-old pulling out the mats lately. So, we sort of showed her how to do it. It's so cute how she pulls it out, sets it up (all crooked, of course) and then just sits down on it. One of the girls straightened it up for her, then brought her something to do and she played on it for a few minutes, stood up, dragged the mat back over to where it should go and dropped it.
I noticed that you mentioned "stay close by". That's one of the reasons I like "mat time" and the Montessori stuff.....it forces me to stay close by for observing and supervising the toddler. It really is one of my favorite times of the day.
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Suzanne in ID
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ambermelody
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| Posted: Aug 05 2007 at 4:44pm | IP Logged
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Thanks for those links Shawna. I'm going to have a look when I get a chance today.
I am having success introducing the mats to my 19 month old. We only have mats large enough for table work at the moment, but he will choose himself one, lay it out & he can either help himself to a puzzle (I just found an old transparent stackable in/out files tray in the back of the cupboard & put out a few puzzles on it - it's working really well & i think i'll try to buy some more) or he asks me to pick him up so he can choose his own "work" (so cute to hear him say!) from one of the higher shelves. When he's a little older I will have more things down low but at the moment our "work" is in a really accessible cupboard in the kitchen, so we have had to make concessions.
He'll carry it to the mat. I usually try to re-present the materials each time. He's working with a gorgeous 8-piece set of plastic cookie cutters I bought in france last year (they all fit together to form a flower), basic beading (in theory his work is 2 red wooden beads & a knotted piece of leather that I hold for him to thread, but he always squeals for his brothers big bead set!), a collection of farm animals & cards for matching (which he's really good at. He's going to love the 3-part cards I think  ), a wooden colour stacker, basic shape matching set, & he's highjacked his brothers egg-cup buttons sorting work at times too - but, he's just practicing picking up the buttons & putting them in the egg cups now as the differences in these buttons is quite subtle.
He will actually work for 10 or 15 minutes *sometimes* if he is really into something, but actually at the moment I think he's loving the fun of getting the work - & putting it back. I seem to hear "back" every 2 minutes! Which I oblidge, because he's enjoying something about that & I know he can focus for longer if he chooses.
He also LOVES to roll the mat. "Roll, roll, roll..." which I am supporting too - though now he want to roll his dinnertime mat too.  
I'm excited to hear more about everyone else's experiences with their little ones & "work"!
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Amber
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Bangalow, Australia
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Eleanor
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| Posted: Aug 05 2007 at 6:14pm | IP Logged
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For anyone who might be relatively new to the philosophy, I just wanted to mention that the concept of "enforced mat time" isn't a Montessori thing. Not that there's necessarily anything wrong with teaching a child to stay in one place for a while; I just wouldn't feel comfortable using this approach while he's working with the materials. The child's work is supposed to be freely chosen, based on his inner drive to learn a specific thing at that particular moment in his development. To choose it for him, and set a timer, is pretty much the opposite of what Maria Montessori believed in.
That said, I have an active son who just turned 2, and I completely understand the need to stick the little folks somewhere and keep them busy for a while. But, in that type of situation, I'd be more likely to give them crayons and paper, playdough, blocks, or some other generic, open-ended activity. And I wouldn't call this a "Montessori session" -- more like "mommy trying to keep her sanity, and teach the children some boundaries." 
This is why I think there needs to be some amount of compartmentalization when doing Montessori at home, especially with multiple children. This is something I've been thinking about a lot recently, and I'll try to come up with some more coherent thoughts later. For now, I'll just say that we present "doing school" (at the older toddler/primary level, roughly ages 2 and up) as a privilege, with attendant responsibilities. When my son gets rowdy with the materials, I tell him "no more school for now," and put him in a nearby gated area, where he can see his sister working but can't participate. (If he tries to climb the gate, that's a discipline issue, pure and simple.)
The first time I did this, he complained a bit, then went off and played. After a few minutes, he came back, pointed at the materials, and rather plaintively said, "please." I let him back in, expecting him to head straight for the sensorial shelves, where his sister was, and where he'd been working before. Instead, he ran over to the toddler shelves (which are always available in our family room, even when the school shelves are "closed")... took out a set of stacking rings... took out a mat... sat down, and started stacking and unstacking the rings, with great concentration. Wow, what a moment! He had responded pretty well when I'd when I'd given him presentations with the primary sensorial materials in the past, but never with such purpose. And, when it came to his own toddler materials, he'd never really shown any sort of orderly behavior at all. In fact, although that set of rings had been out on the shelf for months, he'd never paid attention to it until that day, except for occasionally flinging the rings around.
While this burst of purposeful activity was short-lived (as is usually the case in the early stages), it reminded me not to underestimate his potential.
A couple of weeks later, my daughter and I were watching the "Montessori in Action" video, which shows children in 3-6 classrooms. My son was in the room, but didn't seem particularly interested in the show (after all, it didn't involve trucks!). After five or ten minutes, he got up and went into the next room. A short time later, I noticed that he was being very quiet, so I went in to see what kind of trouble he'd gotten into. Lo and behold, once again, he was sitting on the mat, stacking and unstacking the rings. (This was the first time he'd paid attention to them since the session I mentioned above.) Just as before, he was working purposefully, without any direction on my part. The impetus came entirely from seeing other children engaged with their activities.
I guess classroom teachers witness this sort of thing all the time, which is why they're such strong believers in the method. For me, it was a real-life reminder that this approach really does work, even with wild toddlers like my own. And, more to the point -- when it comes to helping toddlers become normalized, the "power of example" is 1000 times more effective than the "power of Mommy."
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Eleanor
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| Posted: Aug 05 2007 at 6:44pm | IP Logged
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BTW, here are some of the activities that I've presented to my son between 18 and 24 months.
Presentations that have gone well:
matching toy animals to cards
showing him a few pictures at a time (e.g., animals or household objects), and asking him to "show me the [x]"
cylinder blocks
sweeping
dusting
washing tables
Presentations that have repeatedly degenerated into rowdy behavior (on his part, not mine!):
pink tower
brown stair
pouring
matching cards to one another
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ShawnaB
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| Posted: Aug 05 2007 at 8:35pm | IP Logged
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And Elenor is 100% correct.
In fact, MM might have a heart attack if she saw toddlers being made to sit on their mats, with a timer to boot!!! (Even if Momma is right there playing with them.)
The reason that just-turned two-year-olds would need to be made to stay on a mat is simply because they are not READY for mat work.
So this is where I struggle with the implementation of Montessori in the home. Infants and toddlers (up to age 30-36 mos) and Early Childhood needs are quite different. I watched this very eye-opening video posted on Angela's Three Plus Twoblog which showed a beautiful Montessori Infant/Toddler classroom. It was eye-opening because it really showed the realities of toddler needs...freedom to see, touch, move...and be rowdy. Everything in the Toddler space was fully accessible to the children, and all of the children had similar needs because they were the same age. Put a 5 and 7 year old in that room and watch the peace disappear! (Or better yet, release those toddler in the Early Childhood classroom...)
This is not the case in the home, obviously. Last year, when our babies turned 1 year, I attempted to create a Toddler Space in our home by dividing our learning room with a fence/gate. In concept it was good, and in retrospect I think it was the appropriate thing to do. However it did not bring about the peace and contentment for my Toddlers that I had hoped for. Unlike a traditional Montessori Toddler classroom, my toddlers could see their siblings, and their Momma, just out of their reach on the other side of those bars. We had a lot of tantruming and crying and wrapping around my legs...cause you know, the grass is always greener, the crayons always brighter, the playdough always tastier...just over the fence!
More often than not, we ALL ended up on the Toddler side, which wasn't a bad solution. But it did mean that last year, my older two were not able to do as much lesson-wise as I would have liked. But again, this is a home, not a school, and siblings are more valuable that lessons any day.
So back to the mats..and WHY would I try to do something with toddlers that they are not ready to do? Good question (I'm asking this of myself..not implyng that anyone was questioning me!)
Well, its not because I read it in a Montessori book. Its because I am looking for ways to incorporate my Littles with my Bigs as much as I can. This year I am hoping to integrate my children more and separate them less. Having 2 toddlers brings another dyanmic to the mix, as its much harder just to wear, or carry, or hold the little one when there are two of them. From what I have studied on MM (and its not that much, so PLEASE correct me here if I'm wrong...)but her approach does seem to separate the children based on their developmental needs. And since I don't want to do that all the time, I end up tweaking activities to include the Littles, even if its not really what they are ready for.
My Toddlers WANT to use the mats simply because they see their siblings doing it, and I'd rather start teaching them a little about proper use than just allowing them to drag them around. I does allow me to teach them some boundaries in an enjoyable way. They WILL start using mats properly and independently at some point. And, it allows me to interact back and forth with both of my two year olds at once, without them fighting with one another over the same activity.
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Shawna, wife of Jacob, mom to Abraham 8 Amelia 5 and Jillian & Jonathan age 3 years http://www.psalm121family.com
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Ellen redsax
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Wow, what thoughtful, helpful posts! Thanks for starting this thread to help us newbies.
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Meredith
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| Posted: Aug 05 2007 at 9:18pm | IP Logged
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ShawnaB wrote:
So back to the mats..and WHY would I try to do something with toddlers that they are not ready to do? Good question (I'm asking this of myself..not implyng that anyone was questioning me!)
Well, its not because I read it in a Montessori book. Its because I am looking for ways to incorporate my Littles with my Bigs as much as I can. This year I am hoping to integrate my children more and separate them less. Having 2 toddlers brings another dyanmic to the mix, as its much harder just to wear, or carry, or hold the little one when there are two of them. From what I have studied on MM (and its not that much, so PLEASE correct me here if I'm wrong...)but her approach does seem to separate the children based on their developmental needs. And since I don't want to do that all the time, I end up tweaking activities to include the Littles, even if its not really what they are ready for.
My Toddlers WANT to use the mats simply because they see their siblings doing it, and I'd rather start teaching them a little about proper use than just allowing them to drag them around. I does allow me to teach them some boundaries in an enjoyable way. They WILL start using mats properly and independently at some point. And, it allows me to interact back and forth with both of my two year olds at once, without them fighting with one another over the same activity. |
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Shawna, as a mommy with twins, you are SO wise to work this into your environment!!  This is part of the beauty and joy of home education with the Montessori method in a REAL LEARNING atmosphere, way to go!!! I love your logic and I'm so glad it's working for you all!! There are probably many ways in which MM would have altered or adjusted her parameters if she were dealing with twins and other children in a home education setting, you're doing a GREAT job!! All of us have to format our learning situations that best suit our families, regardless of methodology!!
Thanks so much for all your insight here!
Blessings!
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Meredith
Mom of 4 Sweeties
Sweetness and Light
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Meredith
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| Posted: Aug 05 2007 at 9:25pm | IP Logged
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Eleanor wrote:
| I guess classroom teachers witness this sort of thing all the time, which is why they're such strong believers in the method. For me, it was a real-life reminder that this approach really does work, even with wild toddlers like my own. And, more to the point -- when it comes to helping toddlers become normalized, the "power of example" is 1000 times more effective than the "power of Mommy." |
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This is so true Eleanor, and I have seen remarkable differneces between my four children and how they respond to different approaches. We really like the effects the Montessori method has on the whole family!! I will have to say however, that *mommy* power plays a HUGE role in our home school as well as the powers of example!
Love your thoughts!
Blessings!
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Meredith
Mom of 4 Sweeties
Sweetness and Light
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Eleanor
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| Posted: Aug 06 2007 at 12:45am | IP Logged
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Meredith, right now I'm working on harnessing that mighty force, "the power of Mommy's example!" Unfortunately, one bad example from Mommy seems to make more of an impression than a dozen good ones. In trying to improve my own habits, I've been finding it very helpful to read books and articles written for Montessori teachers, and to watch movies of Montessori homes and classrooms. It's not even so much the information that's valuable, as it is the immersion in the whole mindset. If I've just come from that sort of activity, and then I'm confronted by a challenging situation involving the children, somehow I always seem to find myself responding the "right" way (M.-style), as if it were instinct... which, for me, it certainly isn't (at least, not yet).
Speaking of which, we just got a few more videos from NAMTA. They were quite an investment, but they've been incredibly helpful already, and I'm looking forward to lending them to several friends who are interested in Montessori. One of the movies is about a 20-month-old whose parents have set up what seems to be an ideal toddler environment in their home. Their son is able to do all kinds of everyday tasks, both for himself and for the family. (He also goes to a toddler program.) In the movie, the mother is obviously expecting another baby soon, but this isn't mentioned in the script. I kept thinking that I'd love to see a sequel, 6 months later, to see how they're managing with two.
Another movie is about a Japanese couple who are taking care of their young infant according to Montessori principles. They also have a toddler. I had to laugh, because although the toddler's toys and furniture are in evidence throughout the house, she doesn't appear in any of the scenes after the baby is born.
Even though these movies don't address the issues raised by multiple children, they do succeed in conveying what makes infant/toddler Montessori so special... the tranquil atmosphere, the simplicity, and the time set aside to do everything at the child's pace. Our third baby is due in a matter of weeks, and I had more or less resigned myself to doing things in a more "mainstream" way this time (having already made quite a few concessions with baby #2). Now, though, I'm inspired to go back to the way we did things with our first child, only more so. I'm sure we'll still have to make some adaptations, but I'll try to limit these to matters of true necessity, rather than just convenience. If I really make this a priority, I think I can find a few other places to cut corners.
Getting back to Shawna's posts, I'm wondering: If toddlers can be trained to stay on a mat, then surely they can also be trained to stay in one corner of the classroom? Let's say there was a large area rug to provide a visual indicator of their "territory," surrounded by some low shelves serving as a room divider... maybe that wouldn't be as infuriating as a gated area? (My children have been okay with the gates, but maybe they're just peculiar that way.) It seems as if this would be a compromise between "controlling the environment," Montessori style, and "controlling the child," Godly Tomatoes style.
(Which isn't to say that I'd necessarily agree that those two approaches are compatible, in a broader sense. I actually went through a long phase where I tried combining them... or, more accurately, going back and forth between them... and I can't say it was much of a success. "Tomato staking" is all well and good, but there's a huge difference in how the two methods advise the gardener to respond when those little tomatoes start sticking their tendrils in places where they don't belong!)
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dawn2006
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but there's a huge difference in how the two methods advise the gardener to respond when those little tomatoes start sticking their tendrils in places where they don't belong!)
Amen, sister!!
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Dawn Farias | wife to Ariel | mom to Gabriel 9, Daniel 7, Elizabeth 5, and Michael 3 | blogger at Be Absorbed | native Texan but currently living near Seattle
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4Real Forums : Nurturing the Years of Wonder
Topic: On 2 year olds
