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ALmom
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| Posted: June 01 2007 at 8:08pm | IP Logged
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Ok, really I have lots of questions. I am overwhelmed actually, but partially because I am just now getting ready to order the recommended books and don't have any albums in front of me.
We got a Mass kit many, many years ago and followed the presentation that came with it. I laminated the cards very nicely and all that. I never got altar linens, thinking my dd would sew some for us. Her first attempts were fair, but the younger children really got into the candles and being realistic (ie using water and various materials like crackers). It was great for teaching about the Mass, how to serve, etc. but also wasn't done as carefully or reverently as I would like. The linens are way too stained to re-use and we never had the folds right anyways (and didn't use the best fabric since this was a first attempt). I'd like to order the linens, replace the candles and add to my set (we didn't have some of the pieces that are with it now) and re-introduce it. How do I go about undoing our old habits - any ideas. Can the pieces be polished nicely again or will they always retain water stains?
I know I will be using at least CGS with my 4 and 6 yo. Thanks mackfam - just one presentation of the good shepherd from her and wow!!! I'm thinking doing some of the Montessori science since that tends to be neglected by me and mine, I think would like the puzzles and cards. I also want to get some of the fine motor and music materials knowing this is an area of lag for all my children - and even my oldest might benefit from picking up rice with chopsticks. But where do you start, how do you decide which materials to begin with.
I think I'll wait on Montessori math as I have tons of hands on type things at home - numbers that can be felt, numbers and pegs, etc. and we seem OK with math for the moment.
If you were looking at a 4 yo nonreader and a 6yo that is just reading, what few things would you focus on most besides the CGS? I've cleared out my dining room to make it into a Montessori classroom. I think I needed to seperate Montessori from the rest of the house - and from some of my disasterously sloppy older children whose work gets scattered everywhere. They can be trained a little at a time when they enter the Montessori classroom and when I fuss at them to collect their school work from all over the school room. I'm also looking for a place to store things that need to be rotated in and out. I know some of mine would fixate on art if allowed - and I just cannot cope with art all day, every day so I need to remove it from choices at least some of the time.
I also have a 13 yo ld child in my home for school time only and have thought about including him at a time by himself as his catechesis is pretty minimal and he seemed very responsive to lives of saints, etc. I don't know if we are dealing with sensory integration issues or not and some have said that he might have some autism. No one has come up with any real diagnosis yet - just guesswork so far. I know someone said that Montessori is not great for sensory issues so if anyone has been successful with some of this, that would be helpful. What is it about Montessori that makes it difficult. I know this child was really drawn to some large and beautiful manger at the Shrine and was drawn in but didn't know who St. Joseph was. This and one story of the saint are the only things that have engaged this child other than sword play with my boys, stratego and risk. I have to have him engaged in something or he and my 4 yo get into it. We are playing a guessing game as to what he knows and doesn't know already and it seems like Montessori would help filter out some of this - maybe? Or am I dreaming for a magic solution.
Any help/advice appreciated. I love looking at all you all are doing.
Janet
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Meredith
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| Posted: June 01 2007 at 8:27pm | IP Logged
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ALmom wrote:
Ok, really I have lots of questions. I am overwhelmed actually, but partially because I am just now getting ready to order the recommended books and don't have any albums in front of me.
We got a Mass kit many, many years ago and followed the presentation that came with it. I laminated the cards very nicely and all that. I never got altar linens, thinking my dd would sew some for us. Her first attempts were fair, but the younger children really got into the candles and being realistic (ie using water and various materials like crackers). It was great for teaching about the Mass, how to serve, etc. but also wasn't done as carefully or reverently as I would like. The linens are way too stained to re-use and we never had the folds right anyways (and didn't use the best fabric since this was a first attempt). I'd like to order the linens, replace the candles and add to my set (we didn't have some of the pieces that are with it now) and re-introduce it. How do I go about undoing our old habits - any ideas. Can the pieces be polished nicely again or will they always retain water stains? |
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Yes, the pieces should polish up very nicely and you could try to incorporate these polishing activities into your program
Almom wrote:
| I know I will be using at least CGS with my 4 and 6 yo. Thanks mackfam - just one presentation of the good shepherd from her and wow!!! I'm thinking doing some of the Montessori science since that tends to be neglected by me and mine, I think would like the puzzles and cards. I also want to get some of the fine motor and music materials knowing this is an area of lag for all my children - and even my oldest might benefit from picking up rice with chopsticks. But where do you start, how do you decide which materials to begin with. |
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I would start by looking at either MWEI Albums or the albums at Shu Chen Jenny Yen's and try to break down what you think they would benefit/enjoy working with the most. You certainly don't have to do it all, and many of us are just beginning with the Montessori method with our younger ones, so there's plenty of time and plenty to choose from. Try not to be overwhelmed by the enormity of it all 
I'm going to answer some of the other questions in another post and I know you'll get lots of good responses before me!! Back later  And thanks so much for asking here, we're so glad to have you with us!! 
__________________
Meredith
Mom of 4 Sweeties
Sweetness and Light
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Meredith
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| Posted: June 04 2007 at 10:30am | IP Logged
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ALmom wrote:
| If you were looking at a 4 yo nonreader and a 6yo that is just reading, what few things would you focus on most besides the CGS? |
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I would probably begin with the Pink Word Cards. Have you looked at the Language Section at JMJ Publishing? There is quite a bit of helpful information there for beginning with Montessori Language.
Almom wrote:
| I've cleared out my dining room to make it into a Montessori classroom. I think I needed to seperate Montessori from the rest of the house |
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This is an excellent idea. In the Montessori Pros and Cons thread Kristin brings up some excellent point about separating the Montessori spaces in the learning environment which I found very helpful.
Almom wrote:
| I also have a 13 yo ld child in my home for school time only and have thought about including him at a time by himself as his catechesis is pretty minimal and he seemed very responsive to lives of saints, etc. I don't know if we are dealing with sensory integration issues or not and some have said that he might have some autism. No one has come up with any real diagnosis yet - just guesswork so far. I know someone said that Montessori is not great for sensory issues so if anyone has been successful with some of this, that would be helpful. What is it about Montessori that makes it difficult. I know this child was really drawn to some large and beautiful manger at the Shrine and was drawn in but didn't know who St. Joseph was. This and one story of the saint are the only things that have engaged this child other than sword play with my boys, stratego and risk. I have to have him engaged in something or he and my 4 yo get into it. We are playing a guessing game as to what he knows and doesn't know already and it seems like Montessori would help filter out some of this - maybe? Or am I dreaming for a magic solution. |
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No magic solution, just babysteps for what will work for your family! Unfortunately I don't have ANY experience with the senosory intergration issues, perhaps someone else can chime in here.
I hope some of this has been helpful for you. Let us know if there's more we can answer for you.
Blessings!
__________________
Meredith
Mom of 4 Sweeties
Sweetness and Light
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SuzanneG
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| Posted: June 04 2007 at 11:04am | IP Logged
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[QUOTE=ALmom]
Janet:
I am definitely trying to create a special area for the Mont stuff. Like Mackfarm said on her blog....for some reason the children know this is special and they will keep it more tidy, even if the rest of the house is a mess. That is, if I take the time to present and show them HOW to keep it tidy, use the mats, and remind to put things away. I did this a few years ago and it DID work....but then life just happened (pregnancies and babies) and I just got away from it. I'm desiring to get back to it a bit now, as the dc ages have changed and I'm more "up to it."
You asked "where to start".....I would just start with one thing at a time. I literally JUMPED into the CGS stuff last year just one presentation at a time. I didn't try to look ahead too much, or it would have been too overwhelming. Same with the other Montessori stuff. Just pick one homemade activity, present, find a place for it, let them do it. Find another.
3 year old. I'm going to do the practical and some sensorial things with the 3 yr old. I have "trays" of homemade things I did a few years ago...pull those out. I'm purchasing one or two things for this, but certainly is not nec as there are lots of little homemade things to make from the various books.
4 year old. Sensorial things and letter / begionning phonics.
6 year old. focus on the reading activities on the websites that have been listed here. I won't go crazy with this....just enough to make it fun and add a little variety. I'm not getting into math stuff, as we are using Math-u-see and it's working well, and I would feel overwhelmed with it.
I'm also getting a couple of the botany puzzles and continent puzzles.
__________________
Suzanne in ID
Wife to Pete
Mom of 7 (Girls - 14, 12, 11, 9, 7 and Boys - 4, 1)
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ALmom
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| Posted: June 04 2007 at 1:04pm | IP Logged
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Ok, thanks for lots of good advice. I know I'll have to limit presentations, maybe even to 1 or 2 a week considering all the children I'm working with, time limits and money limits.
One thing that keeps intriquing me is some of the early stuff that develops eye-hand while introducing early concepts. I'm hoping to do so remedial development here. In other threads we've talked about eye-hand delays in our house. I don't want to jump to a presentation that involves eye-hand skills my children don't have, but I don't want to bore my older ones with materials they are beyond. I still would like to entice some of my older children into the materials that develop eye-hand as my to be 7th grader will not cross over center or use both hands together, my to be 5th grader is still not writing cursive and cutting and writing skills are more akin to 2nd grade, my 7yo is now reading a little - but we must be very careful about visual strain. My to be 5 yo for whom a lot of the material is for is the one who probably needs it least. He actually probably has the better cutting skills, etc. but I don't want to skip over any of the eye-hand develpment with any of the children. I'd rather introduce something, find that the material/skill is already there and move on than skip to something that the base eye-hand skills are missing. If you have the skills to learn efficiently, then academic lags are minor. If your lags are in things that make it hard to learn efficiently, you are forever under stress. If the eyes don't work together, you'll always be bogging down until that is corrected, if you take hours to copy one sentence and by the time you are through your hands are so tired because just writing with a pencil/pen involves intense concentration and strain and the only way to control the pen/pencil is to grip it so tight the knucle's circulation seems gone ... kwim.
I'm still a bit confused about sequence of presentations - but am waiting for my books to come in. I printed off the Shu Chin album, which gave me some ideas and mostly helped me see much of what we did wrong the last time we tried to jump into Montessori (back when my 15 yo was 8 yo and struggling with everything including attention beyond 5 minutes).
I'm thinking about the knobs and cylinders, exercises with eye droppers and colored water (likely to entice all my water fixated children and develop some eye-hand), chopsticks with rice, some things like this. I do know my almost 5 yo is the least challenged eye-hand wise (probably the only one without vision problems) so I'm not sure how long he'll go for these and I want to be ready with some other things for him. To be honest, I'm not sure what to do with him or the 13 yo ld child whose social skills are akin to my 4 yo. Right now this youngest just wants to be doing and learning. We have a number, peg game that he has taken to - basically a wooden square with a number written on it and the same number of holes to put pegs into. The numbers can be hooked together to form a puzzle - ie the 1 will link the 2, etc. in the correct sequence. We are currently working with numbers 1 - 5 though he is bored with 1 - 3. I saw some Montessori math materials and am not sure - I have so much hands on math stuff, the Montessori materials can get expensive and while I would love more children, right now it looks like our 5 yo is the last  . I wouldn't mind starting with things like the pink tower (though I'm having infinite difficulty figuring out the point) but hate to spend mega bucks to use something for a few weeks and then have it outgrown. The 13 yo ld child just seems defeated from years of repeated failure and though I sense he wants desperately to learn, he also needs something that is challenging enough to keep interest, but easy enough to give pretty instant success. He does show signs of sensory issues and Montessori is so intense with sensory input that I'm not sure it would be a good idea for him. His attention span is extremely short yet I need him occupied when I'm working with my other children. I feel that once again I'm thrown into the ocean, trying not to drown, hoping and praying we hit on at least a few things that work. We all need a break from everything - but not sure if we can or how to take it.
I think what I need is a good summary chart of what skills must be evident before introducing something - a plan/ sketch of sequence so I know from the start where to start, what to introduce next when they need a new activity. I was hoping some others have jumped into Montessori late with dc who have fine cognitive function but lots of eye-hand and other issues dragging them down and how you help the older dc who are not going to be intrigued by pink tower type stuff but might need some of the skills associated with it. Kwim.
Perhaps sandpaper letters in cursive would be nice for the older boys who cannot seem to get cursive. My concern is that something earlier isn't there to make the cursive come - will a child who has one eye shut and the other turn on as you cross the midline really going to get cursive where smooth motion is the key. Also if eye-hand is such a problem that the writing utensil is gripped so hard that the knuckles are red - then white, does it really help to do sandpaper letters. My almost 5th grader still tends to go to his hands when eating. I know his mind, how quick he is with his thoughts but something is becoming a wall for him and for most of my children. My hope is that going back to some of the Montessori materials is that we can address some of this.
I'm off to look at the other posts in here to see if there is something on sequencing, somewhere. I ordered the Gett book, the Haincock books and the CGS books (Moira's albums plus the Cavaletti). Hopefully, when these come in, I'll have a better idea of what I'm doing.
I'm not that keen on pushing reading early based on eye development lags in most of the others - but would love to know more about this in Montessori. Ie activities that don't involve a lot of print, but do develop skills needed for reading - even for some of my readers might be worthwhile just because I think they are slow to read/ progress slowly with reading more because of the eye issues than because of reading programs. I did make my own moveable alphabet (print) using Lauri alphabets - it is a bit small but very, very durable. I also have a boggles Jr game where you use cubes to match letters on a card and then later the children can cover the word and try to do it themselves and check (seems very Montessorish to me but I don't think my younger dc are really ready for anything like that just yet, though I did see quite a few children totally engrossed with this in our co-op) One thing that really, really fascinates me is all her life skill presentations involve a lot of skills needed prior to the more "academic" presentations.
One of my biggest faults, no matter what method/program, is being too ambitious. It all looks great, we try to do it all and overwhelm each other in no time. I'm trying hard not to do this with Montessori this time (last time it was a huge flop at our house - I didn't know what I was doing, there was way too much on the shelf to choose from, my children only chose art and I didn't know of any books that helped you sequence and present correctly - plus everything I saw was for preschoolers and I was trying to work with an older child where nothing else worked). Of course, the other reality is that I need to order enough for the year at the beginning and have a basic plan. In the past, whatever we planned to wait and order midyear never gets ordered - the car breaks down, the ... whatever - basically life becomes too hectic to re-plan, my dh doesn't have the same time to sit and discuss and rehash with me and and money isn't there later. Then I'm left hobbling along with school without the resources we planned on having. These Montessori materials and albums were on our plan for around Christmas last year - and here we are and still not sure we can order much. I know I don't have time to make a lot so we'll just have to see. I have so much stuff from years and years of homeschooling - right now I'm not sure what I'm doing. I'm trying to declutter, come up with an overall plan, finish last year, organize a garage sale to make some money for the next years materials and waiting for my dh to decide what we really can do/want to do. He, obviously, has not had much time to look at our schooling lately - between his dad, his work and our car problems.
The other reality I am working with is that I am still struggling with my eyes and it may take me forever to fight my way through the reading material and prep work I need to do, I cannot cut because I cannot see well enough to do it and eye corrections so far do nothing but give me migraines so making a lot on my own is just not realistic right now, energy level is low, I have difficulty working with my dc even now with less intense mom plans so how much Montessori can I really do. Yet, I'm desperate to find something that helps my dc eye-hand lags. School shouldn't take over our whole life, I want my children to have some leisure but here we are again with a highschooler still bogging through materials.
Janet
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Mackfam
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| Posted: June 04 2007 at 2:35pm | IP Logged
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Janet,
I think once you get some of your books, all of this will start to come into focus - at least I hope it will. In the meantime, I think you're on the right track.
Clean out your dining room/play area. You'll need a holding zone somewhere - I know you've got tons of room in your house Maybe you can set up the dining room to be the holding area for now. Start pulling from all of your shelves everything Montessori that you've already got. I think you'll find a lot of stuff. Sort by subject. You might find that you have tons of stuff for a particular subject. I think you'll get a visual idea of what you've got, and what you're still lacking by doing this. Somehow ??? make this area totally off-limits. Gates? Large furniture? Threats of withholding food? Just kidding 
Work on your presentations notebook. There are tons of great sites that have already been mentioned here, so I won't be redundant, but I have found that they all contain really useful info. It takes major time and paper  to get all of it printed and in a notebook. For now, maybe it would be a good idea to just print from a site that seems to "visually" make sense to you. You can always go back and print more later. You just need some basic framework for ideas right now. It's about here that I started to get a real idea of what I thought was really needed with my kids. Every family is different. In a perfect world with unlimited cash I'd love to just go through and order one of everything, but like you, we're on a tight budget. I chose things that I thought would address some of the biggies, and I made a list of things that my dh could easily make for me. The Brown Stairs, the Red Rods, The Pink Tower. Would've been much easier to order, but these items are described in great detail on various presentation sites, and I don't think it will take much talent to cut the wood to the specific sizes. You have a couple of sons you could enlist here I know! Make a list!!!
Hopefully, once you've sorted, piled, listed, and read, you and your dh will have an idea of what you want to order and invest $$ in. It will be an investment, and like any investment I believe it will take time to mature and bear fruit. It will need to be nourished. As you rightly point out, Montessori is not a magic bullet. Theresa and others have talked about it in great detail, the need to be present, to set aside specific time to work on this, to commit. I think there is a big front-end workload in Montessori that will yield dividends during the year and beyond.
I don't have any experience or insight regarding the specific visual problems your dc face except to say that I know God would not give you this cross without the graces that accompany it. Reading your words, and hearing you talk about these challenges reveal to me that you possess more insight into this than I think you realize. Trust. Seek God's will through your husband (as I know you already do!) And have great peace!!!
I'll be praying for you!! If you want to come over and dry-run some of the things I've ordered to see if they might be worthwhile for your crew - just call!
__________________
Jen Mackintosh
Wife to Rob, mom to dd 19 , ds 16, ds 11, dd 8, and dd 3
Wildflowers and Marbles
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4Real Forums : Nurturing the Years of Wonder
Topic: how to undo old habits
