The hand and it's tools

"The hands are the instruments of man's intelligence" M. Montessori

The importance of the hand is at the heart of Montessori education.  The use of hands helps the child construct itself thought Maria Montessori.  "The hand is the tool of the mind".  Years later, science tends to prove that indeed manipulation is paramount in learning, and that retention will be greatly enhanced if the child learned through manipulation rather then mere rote learning.

If the hands bear such importance, then the tools we use should allow the hand to work at optimum level: to help the learning process, but also to foster the love of learning.

What is more frustrating, even for us adults, to use a tool that is either defective or of poor quality?  This experience can be even more frustrating for the little child who does not have the amount of coordination we do for common tasks.

I often see in children's store or catalogues tools aimed for children that are either poorly constructed or made with lesser quality products.  And unfortunately, they seem to be the norm.
They are also usually made to entice the children's eyes, with bright colors of other features like mass media products which, in the end, makes them overwhelming.  For the parents, these items are cheap, and thus interesting budget wise.
But if the hand truly has the importance we attribute it, I think it is wise to use high quality, functional, attractive and beautiful material to keep it working.

Children are able to use tools way before we expect them to and better then we them credit for.  What they need is guidance and an adequate and safe environment where they can experiment with such tools.

E was given true and good quality tools at a very young age.  And I can see the results of this already.   His desire and will to work with his hands and use tools is very strong.

I try to fill his need of using his hands for very meticulous tasks by having a rotation of practical life activities requiring fine motor skills, hand eye coordination, and also deep concentration...  in a variety of situations, whether they are real of artificial.

Good quality tools can be found now easily thanks to a some Montessorians who wished to offers good tools that would be correctly sized for children.

I usually find what I need and get inspired by:

For Small Hands and Montessori Services : both have beautiful and inspiring material for the small and not so small child

Michael Olaf is another site that is just as wonderful.

But do not underestimate locally found products.  There are many treasures that can be found in regular stores.  Sometimes, it is just a matter of thinking outside the box.

Everyday Montessori

I have no idea what happened, but I lost my blog post yesterday after it got posted... Blogger cam really be a pain sometimes...I miss wordpress...

This is something I frequently find in the house.  A spontaneous sorting activity initiated by E.  I just have to leave the material in an easy to reach spot in an attractive way.  These colored bowls are his favorite for any color sorting activities.

This time, he used the number puzzle that was close by as objects to sort.  Sometimes, he goes around the house and uses other items, and sometimes he asks for material, or he uses the ones I provide with the bowls.  I rotate this material often.

Color sorting is a good and easy to set up Montessori activity for all ages.  You can easily step up the work by letting the child search in the house for colored object without having a reference in his hands, or over ask for shades a few colors.  This also has the benefit of teaching new vocabulary and train the eye to become more accurate in distinguishing hues.

Pinterest is  full of ideas for color sorting activities, if you need more inspiration.

Life in the polar region

Cold has been upon us big time lately.  Yesterday was a record day of -39 degrees.  We are talking about fast frost bite upon getting outside if a part of your skin is uncovered.

Freezing.

Our time outside has thus been somehow limited this week, and so what better days to learn about Arctic and Polar regions?  We sure have the feel of how cold these regions can be all year round (or almost...)

I took the Polar animals play to another level.  Producing ice is more then easy right now, and it is really fast.

I had planned this activity for E, but again, all three of them were interested in participating, and the activity triggered many questions about ice, cold, Polar regions, frost and so on

E's interest was the name of the animals, both in english and french.  He played a lot about the connections between mothers and babies.

X's interest was more about the interaction constituting the food chain: who eats who and most of all how.  His other very deep interest was about the evolution of the block of ice.  Why we heard the ice crack, if this could happen in the Polar regions too, and what were the consequences of this.  Why the middle of the ice was melting sooner then the top part and so on.  I left the bin out for most part of the day, and I saw him go back and forth to see what happens as the ice melts.  He did until the ice cracked under the weight of the animals, this is the part he was waiting for.

E brought his book out to enhance the play.  He loved copying some of the scenes of the book on our ice patch.

How I did that:

I used Schleish animals, although the scales are not compatible... (which irritated me a little).
To make the hole in the ice, I used a plastic bowl.  I left the bin outside with the bowl in it yesterday during the day.  The bowl was filled with sand so that it could sink in the water.  DOn't fill it with water, unless you don't mind leaving the plastic bowl in the ice patch.
Right after dinner, I got it in so that the ice would melt just enough so that I could remove the plastic bowl.  As soon as this was done, I returned the bin outside until this morning.  Then we just had to add water to simulate the ocean.
The same could be done in a big freezer; right now here, the freezer is used for free...

completely out of sync

Have you ever gone through a time when you felt like you just were not as tuned with your kids as you thought you were? That is where I am right now.

In the last few days, I have come to the realization that while I was looking at the holidays coming and going, my kids kept evolving, and I obviously missed some of that.

It started with E's letters, one that I didn't saw coming at all.  And it keeps going with now the pink tower.  

I wanted to wait until E would be 2 1/2 to start using real Montessori materials.  I didn't want to rush anything.  So today, I felt like it was a good day to surprise E (30 months old) with our modified pink tower (the tiniest pieces of 1cm and 2cm are not included), hoping that we would be interested in that for the next few days, and go from there.

Turns out, the only person that was surprised was myself.

I was looking at E building the tower.  He made a mistake, which was what I was anticipating.  But what stunned me what that he looked at his tower, realized the mistake was there, changed the wrong blocks, and added the right ones instead and kept going until the tower was built.  I didn't think he was there yet.

I tried having him make the tower on another mat, going each time to take the right piece on the mat that was further away.  This shows another level of discrimination, because you have to remember what size piece you need to build the tower without looking at it.  With this, I thought it would match his level, and yet again, I could only realize he was passed this.

He finished the activity with building the tower horizontally, again, making a mistake, and fixing it right away, and showing me, with his tractor (see first picture) how every step was even.

Our children are out best teacher.  How is that for a lesson of humility?

The same holds true for X, who we have learned that is a visual spatial learner, and sees the world pretty much upside down from the standard benchmark. Trying to understand the world his way is my current challenge, and it is a big one.

I guess I know what I have to do for the next few days: sit down and look at my kids, play with them, and try to meet them where they really are.  I guess I might be surprised.

Do you have any tips for when you are out of sync like that? I'd be all ears!

What E (30 months) is loving right now

At 30 months old, here are E's favorite activities right now: (sorry the pictures are dark, it is very cloudy and snowy today)


The letters are going strong right now:

Tag toy's peg tumbler:

Pegs he received at Christmas from family members.  This wouldn't have been a choice for me as I try to limit plastic, but E seems to enjoy it for now. Very interesting for counting and color matching.

Wooden block in a bucket.  I think his favorite part right now is to sort them in the holes.  This too was Christmas present

Building train tracks: I was happy to get them out again.  X played so much with these, and E seems to enjoy them just as much!

Number puzzle

Vehicles puzzles: E is very much into trucks, tractors and such.  Anything related is interesting to him

And the one thing that I see all day long...

this is a real replica of a tractor his grandfather owns.  He plays with this all day, everyday.

The rest of his time is spent with BOOKS, and PAINT, 2 things he loves deeply.

Letter explosion!

I don't know what 2013 has in store for us, but I do know that it has started in force!
New understanding of X's learning style (which by itself is so big!  More on that later), many changes in our home environment, jobs... I sure hope that 13 will keep on being good to us.

I have noticed many changes in E too lately.  He is generating a lot more questions then he used to, he is starting to be interested in things he wasn't before, one of them being letters.

A few weeks ago, he started to sing the ABC song.  Honestly, I am not yet sure where he got it from, but I didn't think much of it until he associated a letter he saw to it's name: A.  This made me realize he knew more then I thought.

And with M that suddenly is reading, and spontaneously writing, and X that is now reading regularly cartoon type books (Asterix and Tintin of course), I can say that we are in a time of letter explosion right now.  I do not know how long we'll ride this wave, but I will surely enjoy it will it passes.

So E is currently crusing along the line of learning the sounds of the alphabet.  I never thought I would be teaching this at 2 1/2, but I have learned the importance of following the child.

I took advantage of the Christmas season to buy this beautiful letter puzzle (picture above)  that I have had my eyes on for a while.  I really wanted it for M, but I didn't get it on time for her.  It is right on time for E.

It is a puzzle by TAG toys.  I have said it before, and I will say it again, I love this company.  Their products are really high quality, and they, undoubtedly, will last forever.  E's peg's tumbler is still a hit, 6 months later.  And while the price of the puzzle did seem high at first, I totally understood why then it came home.

Let me show you the actual size of this:

We are not talking about the standard size wooden puzzle.  This is big and heavy and sturdy too!  And I think this is what makes it so satisfying for E to work with it.  He LOVES to travel this around, he does it many times a day.
The letters are easily the same size as the letters of the large movable alphabet.  They are thicker (and not as smelly...).
I hesitated between this and the typical Melissa and Doug; I have no regrets whatsoever about my choice.  I wish I had bought it for the other 2.


So what do E do with this?

Right now, he picks a letter, and I say its sound.  He usually repeats it after me.  This is basically the 1st part of the 3 parts lesson.  The difference is that I let him choose which letter.  I am not pushing anything, he has his own agenda.

In Montessori education, we rather teach the sound before the name, but obviously, he got it the other way round.  Does this worry me in any way? No.  He'll get it soon enough.  Do I think he will be confused? No, he is currently learning his letters both in french and english at the same time, and he manages not to be confused by that... I don't know how he manage.

I am a little surprised by the interest E has in letters right now.  I hadn't planned anything else then playing around with this puzzle, but it seems clearer to me that I might have to go to another step with him.  This next step will probably be the letter pouches that I made before for M.  We'll see how this go.

Overall, I am completely happy with this puzzle.  I have seen M using it to write words (using it like a movable alphabet).  Of course, since there is only one letter of each, it makes it very limitating for that, but I see the delight of being able to handle such big and thick letters in her hand (and in E's hands too!)

One of my favorite toy

...if not my absolute favourite, Cuboro was a gift we gave X last Christmas.

I have not once regretted the price tag of this toy.  The craftsmanship of this toy is outstanding, and the toys itself is a delight to play with. It is engaging, foster creativity, cleverness, but also requires a good dose of fine motor skills.

Challenging enough even for an adult to play with, and yet it can be oh so simple that E asks to play with it daily.

I love how everyone can get a challenge regardless of their ages, and how it allows intergenerational play.

I have seen countless hours of collaboration over this toy, and I know I have yet to see many more.

The Cuboro set is fully compatible with the Cogulino set which is aimed towards a younger crowd.  It has already been decided that E's next birthday present will be a set of Cugolino blocks

I absolutely adore this toy, and cannot recommend it enough.  If you ever get a chance to try it, go ahead!

E's painted Christmas present

E loves to paint.  I don't think a day passes without him asking to go paint in our studio.  I thought it would be fun to share with other members of our extended family the work he does and loves so much.

I set him up with Christmassy colors, and a big canvas.   That is all I had to do, he did the rest.

I used acrylics for this project. He really loved it.

He played with the colors separately at first, and then he started to mix them up.

He was not so used with a canvas, and he struggled at first with the texture of it: his paintbrush was not sliding on the surface as it would with the paper we normally use.  It didn't take him long though to figure it out, and add more paint to his paintbrush.  I love how it created really rich colours.

We have starte to play with colors lately, and I saw that he was expecting new colours unlike the first time we tried our colors experiments, which was more of a surprise to him.

He loves this spot to paint: the mirror is always there, showing him another angle of his work, and I always fill the tub beside for him to rinse out his paintbrushes.

He did 3 canvas, and he was ready to do more.  I love the end result, and I think it is a beautiful and completely child made project.  I am sure our families will enjoy those.

Listening nook

A couple of weeks ago, I saw the need of creating a listening nook.

Many reasons supported this idea, of being the upcoming arrival of december, which meant Christmas music, and also the growing need (and interest) for X ( 7yo) to listen to audio books.

Reading not being easy for him, I still see the importance of being able to listen to good quality books,  stories that will match his level of comprehension and intelligence, something that his reading cannot currently do.

But this was not only put together with X in mind.  I wanted to have a little bit for everybody in this nook, and so I added books, both for X and E (2 yo), an audio game that is loved by both M (5 yo) and E, and M added the first holiday disk...The Grinch who stole Christmas.

Since that first picture up there, the content of the shelves has changed tremendously.  More Christmas music was added, books were rotated as they were finished, and other Christmas story made their place (The polar express being a new favorite right now).  There is material both in french and in english.

At some point, I will probably invest in a MP3 reader of something of the kind to allow X to have access to a bigger selection of audio books, and have the portability of using it where he see fits.  Also he will be able to listen to titles that are of interest to him without receiving comments from the other who don't share the same interest / level of comprehension

Snow storm on the ice field

I am not a fan of plastic, and I try to avoid it as much as I can.  But there is one plastic toy I am willing to make an exception for: the Schleish's animals.  I like how realistic they are, and they are always enticing for E (2yo).

I stumbled upon a Polar region set, and this inspired me ideas for open ended play that was very much in the season.

Although it has been looking like winter outside for the last few weeks, it hasn't for the last 48 hours.  I was planning on making an ice field for X to play with, but after 24 hours outside, the plastic bin I had filled with water was still not even close to be frozen.  So I decided to go with plan B: the shaving cream.

The invitation

Well I am glad I did.  I was not expecting this to be a tactile activity, but shaving cream kinda change the deal.  I didn't know whether E would be as interested to it with the dislike he currently has for tactile stuff.

I guess there is a hidden power to shaving cream.  After a few minutes of not being sure, and wiping his hand almost every minute, he ended up just embracing the whole thing and get dirty.

M couldn't pass up an opportunity to play.  SHE is into whatever tactile thing there is.

I tried to interact with E during the activity.  I asked him how the cream felt on his hands, and if it was smooth of rough.  He said that it was"cold but not cold".  He was expecting it to be cold, but it wasn't.  He built a house for the Bear family and asks M to help him make a "road to walk on".

While he was building, I could see that he was taming the feel of his hand being dirty.  Many times I pointed out how his hands were full of shaving cream, and he said" look mommy, hands are dirty!" with the biggest smile ever.  He even took the time to rub some of the cream on himself, something he would have never done before.

This experience has really pushed him over something he hadn't crossed before.  I can't wait to see if this will also apply to finger paint.  I'll give it a try later this week.


Here is the set up:

I used the sensorial table, and installed the light table on it.  The shaving cream was put into a plastic bin that I use regularly for these types f activities.  I also used the wrapping as "backdrop" to set the mood.  The tub on the right is full of cold water.  I didn't know how they would use it, but it ended up being the sea.  The animals all went swimming in there, and M had the penguins hunt for fishes in there.  It was also very practical to have a tub for a quick washing during the activity.

Beside the table, I had another bin, our cleaning bin, that contains old prefold diapers, a roll of scott towels, and a supply of plastic bags.

The room where this happens is adjacent to the bathroom.  Right after this, both M and E were sent to a much needed bath.

Sustainable Christmas tree

Snow has come and gone temporarily, but December has arrived and is here to stay. This year, it was anxiously awaited by the kids.

Years ago, we decided that nothing Christmassy would happen before the date of December 1st.  Seeing the Christmas decorations and music making their appearance earlier and earlier each year was a cause of irritation for us; I even remember one year when we felt that Christmas had outlast it's welcome in our house before December 24th.  We just couldn't wait to remove the decoration, and get on with something else.  This is the year we promised ourselves that we would restrict Christmas to december, and that was going to be more then enough.  It is really.  And we have no problem holding on to our word.

Since saturday,  Christmas has started to creep up everywhere.  From decorations to music, to handmade gift ideas scribbled on a piece of paper.  We see the old traditions happening again, from getting the box of decoration out on December 1st, to going to pick the tree that very same day.

But sometimes traditions needs to be revisited according to new believes, and to include even the littlest amongst us.  The Christmas tree picking was the one to go this year.

We have made big stride towards a more sustainable living.  We still have loads of road to travel, and things to learn.  But the Christmas tree tradition has been troubling me for the last few years, and I was happy to have find a solution to it.

Last year, we decided to choose a potted Christmas tree amongst else to decorate the house.  Once the celebrations were over, we took the tree outside, and let it be until spring in a well protected area of our yard.  Once spring came, we transplanted the tree to an area of our yard.  It was such an amazing experience to plant the tree we celebrated upon a few months earlier, (and most of all see it grow through summer), that we decided to do it again this year, and use only this tree as our "official" Christmas tree.

It feels so good not to have to throw a tree out once the celebrations are over, and instead to keep nurturing and protecting this tree until it becomes part of our outdoor environment.

Now this little thing needs to be trimmed, and since it is right at E's level, he'll be able to participate fully to the process from start to finish.

Where the drawing morning led us to

One thing I have taken from Lori's book Project Based Homeschooling, was that it is a good thing to let a project hanging on.  This allows the child to come back to it and add over time, bringing fresh ideas and new input.

Seeing the spontaneousness of yesterday's project, I thought it was a good time to put this recommendation to use.

And you know what, many things happened.

Some stamping was done

Games were invented and played (keeping E busy while we were working on school stuff)

And we even had our first glimpse of Christmas(...as per request) amongst the drawing of swimming pool (see the round thing in the picture above...  I guess X is still in summer, and truthfully, so am I!)

items were added at any times of the day, according to the current inspiration

And cooperation was learned during this time, as everybody had to work on the same canvas.  Tears were shed, and new ideas came from them, making this drawing even more interesting to look at.

And after a long day of drawing and collaborating...

I heard the rustling of paper few minutes ago.  Still in pyjamas, sleepy eyes not yet completely opened, another drawing is on the way with old ideas and completely new ones.

I wonder where this one will go. (and right now, I even hear some maths going on, namely multiplications!  Indeed, I cannot wait to see!)