Full Time Montessori School

My boys are officially IN school.  Link and Bumblebee are going to a Montessori school from 8:30 to 3:30 every day.  While I miss them terribly and feel left in the dark about their school, it has been nice having more time for my two baby bugs :)  Anyone wonder why?

Well, in a nutshell, my husband changed jobs.  The long story is we are moving out of state, currently in a hotel, and now have access to at least 5 Montessori schools.  I couldn't homeschool in a hotel, no matter how big it is.

It's going great though!  I knew there was a reason I thought Montessori was so great.  I'm finally FULLY experiencing it.  Oh, we had our moments at home.  Both boys were reading when they started, doing some math, and other things.  But now they are so much more independent in their work.

Link is THRIVING with the older kids.  He wants to practice his reading and writing at home.  He likes doing the big work, especially when an older kid works with him.  Its a great environment for him.  It has cemented in my husband and I what we were pretty sure of before - Link needs Montessori!  I would not put him in a normal school, public or private.  I would either homeschool with Montessori (with extra group meetings) or do Montessori private school.

Bumblebee is busy busy bee as well.  He wasn't having the difficulties at home that I was having with Link.  He was just being neglected because he's four and Link is six, and I felt like I needed to focus on Link.  His reading is really progressing.  But, he can't really remember what he does as school, so all I have to go on is what he brings home.

If we end up moving, I'm still planning on homeschooling.  If we stay... I don't know.  I really, really like their school.  So we'll see.

Creating a Scope & Sequence

During my hiatus I was having difficulty wrapping my head around how I would implement Montessori for Link full scale.  Up until now, it has been very hit or miss, and I knew needed to have a consistent flow of materials and new works into the school room.  I was a little very stressed out about it, lost faith in my ability to homeschool my boys, and ended up over-doing things a bit :)

Since then I have discovered that my main problem was the lack of a scope & sequence for our work.  I was overwhelmed when I opened one of my seven albums and saw a list of hundreds of presentations for each subject!  Then, often I would think to myself "My boys aren't going to like this" or "I don't have the materials to do this" or "That's way too complicated."  I would skim the book, find one or two things to do, then set my shelves up.  But the next week I felt like I was back at square one, wondering what I should do next!

That usually leads to me browsing blogs and collecting files and ideas.  I have a huge folder on my computer full of things I have found while browsing.  It had gotten to where I didn't know what I had or where it came from.  As I was going through my hoard this week I found a few scope & sequence files and thought "Hey, that would be useful!"  In some cases the TOC was the scope & sequence.  I didn't know where some of them came from, but here are the ones that I found the source for:

Maitri Learning - Planning Book/Record Keeping (3 to 6+ Curriculum)
MOTEACO - Albums for ages 3-6
Montessori By Hand - Meg's free albums (you have to be a member)
Montessori Research and Development - Early Childhood Albums TOC
Montessori Primary Guide - Math Presentations

First I took the Maitri learning list and deleted 90% of the list, until I felt like I had something manageable.  But still, I felt like something was missing - cohesion and flow.  So I went to the Montessori R&D TOC.  These seemed very manageable, as long as I had the presentations to go along with them.  So I started looking through my albums and found that I did have some, or at least access to them in some way.   But I wasn't crazy about my selection for Botany and Zoology.  Link is 5 years old, so he's at the tail end of the primary period.  So for him I've really been wanting Geography, Culture, Math, Botany, Zoology and Language.  Meg only has a free album for Math.   I have all of Karen Tyler's albums, but they don't have all that I was looking for. So what did I do?

I made a scope and sequence using the Montessori R&D albums TOC for Geography, Botany and Zoology. Then I went through Gettman's book, pulling what I felt was missing.  I used Meg's math album TOC for math.  I discovered that Jessica, at Keys of the World, has albums that cover ages 3-12, and bought her Zoology and Botany "Keys" albums.  (I also bought her music album based on advice from MBT in the comments of this post).**Edited to add** I'll use the KotU Botany and Zoology for Elementary, and Karen Tyler's for primary**  I sold my Math-U-See materials on eBay and purchased the Golden Bead Material.  I still plan to use my Logic of English curriculum, but to also do Montessori works to supplement.  (at this point that includes sandpaper letters & sound boxes)    I have a plan and I feel better!   We will still be doing Classical Conversations, but mainly for the chance to hang out with other kids.  I don't have a play group and I don't know anyone in the area with kids around the same age.  We'll see how we like it and decide if we want to continue it next year. There is also a chance that we'll be joining a Charlotte Mason group.  Its a mixed age group that meets once a week for "enrichment" or nature study.  I really hope that works out!

My scope and sequence is a work in progress since I don't have my Keys of the World albums yet.  I also have not finished going through all of my Karen Tyler books yet.  But, I thought I'd post it anyways.  It is linked directly to my copy, so as I change mine, this one will be changed as well.  (I guess that doesn't help you if you download it before I am finished)

You can download it here.

So that's where I'm at!  Stay tuned for our work plan preview!

Misusing Materials, Lefties, Correcting Mistakes, and Montessori Groups

This should probably be several different posts, but since they are all applicable to me in the past few days, I'm going to lump them together.

Montessori Groups
For those of you not in-the-know, there are these great little things called Yahoo! Groups, specifically, there are Montessori Yahoo! Groups. Essentially, they are message boards specific to a particular topic that you can join. In addition to other people's blogs, these message boards are a fantastic way to connect with other Montessorians. What is really amazing about them is that there are people out there with tons of experience, education, and advice who are members of these boards who take lots of time to share ideas, answer questions or debate different topics. There are also people (like me) who have no experience and are asking questions and getting guidance. If you search for Montessori, you get tons of them, but the ones I joined are Montessori Beginnings, Montessori By Hand and Playschool6.

The reason I bring up these groups is because I've asked a few questions lately and I want to share the responses I got. Which brings me to the other three topics.

Misusing Materials and Correcting Mistakes
So I mentioned in my post Observations-Scooping Beans that Link really enjoyed the activity and did well with it. He liked it so much, that I decided to add it to the shelf. And since he has never really bothered the stuff on the shelves without someone in the room with him, I thought he wouldn't take it off the shelf. Well, a little later in the day I heard glass clinking and found that he had removed it and taken it into the other room where his little table is. (we only move the table into the room when we need it and he uses it daily for eating and playing). I was tickled pink! So I poured the beans into the bowl for him and just stood back to watch him. I was excited that he liked it and that he had carried it so carefully to his table. He scooped a couple of times, then walked off. So, I was like oh well.... then he came back, scooped a few more times, then picked up a handful and threw them in the air. Whoa! Please don't do that! So I do my best not to get aggravated (please remember, I am NOT a Montessori teacher and I am learning to be more patient). I say "we don't throw beans, lets clean these up" and while I'm on my hands and knees picking black beans off the carpet, he comes over and throws another handful..... I pick up beans faster, and put it all away again.  (heck, I was just proud of myself for not yelling)

I asked on the Playschool6 message board how I could handle this misuse. I really needed to know what to do after the fact, but they had good suggestions on preventing it from happening (this is a common theme with Montessori I think) I edited the responses a little bit (and didn't include who said what since I forgot to ask if it was okay for me to repost their responses)

We've all struggled with these two at one time or another (usually more often than that!) :)
For the materials and environment (including words spoken)
Rules:
*Must be respectful of the materials, their maker/purchaser, and the child(also phrased: respect for self, environment, materials, people within the environment)
*Does it help attain some portion of a direct or indirect aim?for the beans, exploring with hands is a sensorial act at a time the child is sensitive to this, as well as the use of practica life - it is helping connect with the material - for the tower building, there are toys (blocks) specifically for that and the material is designed for perceptual purposes (ok, not that castle building doesn't have some lessons in perception - but it's not close enough of a similarity)

For error-correction - honestly, most mistakes work themselves out over time. If he "knows" something and is a bit beyond the activity at hand, it may be playing a role into silliness. OR he's stretching his imagination - if the answers are possibilities, let it go. If the answers are just silly (a photo of a toilet going into the kitchen), he's probably beyond that particular aspect of the activity.

And that's what the control cards are for when you are using such sets of cards - so the child can check for himself. This alleviates the "judgement" aspect of correction, yet still provides the correction.

To prevent it, I would think you'd either have to direct the child to a different activity or be very vigilant when they are using the beans, for example, and stop the child before they throw. Then go find something they CAN throw. :)

Lefties
I also posted this on Playschool6:

I believe I've read somewhere that it is good to encourage your child to use their right hand to make writing easier. But how much should that be encouraged? Today I introduced a scooping activity to my 2 1/2 son. I showed him how to do it using my right hand, and he started out with his right hand, but switched to his left because it was easier.

If I constantly switch things I feel like he is loosing out on fine tuning his left hand if he does end up using it, but if I don't, I feel like I may be missing out on the opportunity to help him be right-handed.

Is it really possible to switch him from left-handed to right-handed? How should I handle this?

And boy did the lefties cry out!  Someone also very kindly came to my blog and left a comment.  So, I won't be worrying about switching his hands anymore!

I'm still getting used to being active in the whole online-community, but as I do, it's becoming more and more encouraging and helpful.  It can be both discouraging and helpful when all you read about is how wonderful other people's kids are when your kid is driving you a little batty, or how creative and well organized their homeschool environment is when yours is a total disaster.  But, I'm learning that the hardest part is getting started and that there are other people out there in the same boat as me... and its kinda cool to find people who can relate to you and offer advice... so thanks to everyone out there who has no idea they've been a great help :)

Why is Montessori Education so Cool?

Well, there are lots of reasons I think it is great, but this post is about a study I read that was done in 1967 and was funded by the U.S. Department of Education.  (I wonder if there are any newer studies out there with the same or different conclusions?)  Anyways, they were studying "the general problem of finding more effective ways of preparing pre-school age children for their initial formal learning experience in school"  I'll skip right to the conclusion, and if you're interested in reading more you can check it out.   Since I am not that great at statistics, I'll just quote the conclusion rather than summarizing it.

The investigators found that the superior gains (27 percent greater) in verbal ability made by Montessori trained children over the other-than-Montessori-trained children were statistically significant at the p. .001 level of confidence.

Of the eight factors which emerged from a factor analysis of the variable rated in this study, only three: positive learning attitude, sensory motor coordination and verbal ability met statistical criteria for retention and further discriminant analysis.  The authors found positive correlations between positive learning attitude and verbal ability as well as with sensori motor coordination, but with the latter factor, only in the Montessori group, where many of the sensori-motor learning activity involve manipulative mathematics devices designed to develop the child's concept of number.  The investigators suspect the influence of general intelligence accounts for the positive correlations among these factors.  Group variance (higher for the Montessori than for the Control children) was significant at p. .05 when correlations of positive learning attitude were compared with sensori-motor coordination.

However, Montessori-Control group variances of the positive learning attitude factor and of the sensori-motor coordination factor were not significantly different.

Of the five to five-and-one-half year olds in this study, Montessori-trained children (67 percent and 94 percent) seem to have acquired greater "reading readiness" and "first grade readiness" than those in the Control group (30 percent and 50 percent).

Primary teachers in the public and parochial schools to which the children in this study transferred found no particular adjustment problems "peculiar to Montessori-trained children."  Then found no significant differences in creativity between children coming from Montessori and other pre-schools.  They rated children who had attended Montessori pre-school superior (at a statistically significant level) to their peers in interest in learning, independence, interpersonal relations, leadership and learning ability.

To fully understand what they were measuring and how, you'd have to read the study and look at the forms and other material they used.  I did not read the entire study, but it looks like it was well thought out.  Since I already thought Montessori Education is great, I didn't feel the need to be convinced all over again.  If you aren't convinced, this study may help :)

Here's all the info on the first page to help you find it:
Montessori Pre-School Education
Project 5-1061
Grant No. OE 3-10-127

Urban H Fleege, Ph.D
Michael S. Black, Ph.D
John A. Rachaushas, M.A.
June, 1967