Blog Archives - Page 2 of 3 - Greystone House Montessori School

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Teaching Virtue

While cultural ideas and practices change, what does tend to stand the test of time are virtues and the moral development they stem from. The list of Aristotelian virtues is quite long, but there are a few worth calling out to demonstrate the point of them being timeless: courage, proper ambition, truthfulness, wittiness, patience, and friendliness. We would struggle mightily to argue with the possession of any of these traits being a bad thing. It turns out with young children, some of the wiring for these virtues is not in place yet while other virtues seem to present or absence abundance from the earliest ages.

July 23, 2021

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Desert and Savanna Biomes

When you live through the torrential rains that are occasionally unleashed on Southeast Texas, the concept of a desert can be hard to grasp. This is of course truer for young children who have never seen a desert landscape in person. While we are used to thinking of deserts as hot - and the areas we went through certainly met that portion of the definition - deserts can also be very cold. What they are boils down to a lack of precipitation - not a temperature range.

July 16, 2021

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Biomes

We emphasize early science awareness at Greystone House. We are firm believers that early childhood education lacks value if it fails to instill a curiosity about the natural world. One of the ways we instill this is via dedicated curricula that focus on science topics. This week is one of our favorites and the easiest to present and reinforce as it reflects very clearly the place we all live. The curriculum looks at forest and wetland biomes. For many of us an exploration of these biomes is within walking distance of our home. For The Woodlands school location, both biomes are present on the school grounds. While exploration is great in your yard, what follows is a list of places for those who wish to venture out with your children a little farther from home.

July 9, 2021

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Geography and Children

While maps, place names, and landmarks are important for young children to learn, geography as a science is far more about how geographic entities and the relationships they have to each other effect the world. Those entities can be real and physical. Examples of a real geographic entity might include a river, a building, a tree, or a road. Other entities can be present on a map, but invisible to the human eye. An entity that is invisible to the human eye could be a border around a city, change in the health of vegetation mapped using infrared imaging, a group of people, or a map of the potential spread of a wildfire or other phenomena.

July 2, 2021

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Friendship

I feel very fortunate to have the friends I have. I am equally happy to see that my kids are experiencing the benefits that friendship brings. Knowing that they have people beyond family that they can reach out to for anything is a source of comfort and a reflection of interpersonal skills they have managed to build. It turns out that having friends is just as important for preschool children, and in some ways, more beneficial.

June 25, 2021

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Our Amazing Bodies

At Greystone House, we tend to place a lot of emphasis on the care and maintenance of our bodies. While we believe this to be important whether you are aged 5 or 95, we would argue it is critical for the ages we serve. Like so much of what we do at Greystone House, this emphasis is simply a foundation for building good lifelong habits, and the earlier you start the better the result will be. What follows is a list of some of the ways we build this skill and how you can work on building it at home.

June 18, 2021

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We Love Good Men

This will be our second year without a Father's Day Breakfast. We hope it is not only our last event to be lost (we are figuring out the possibilities for the luau), but that we can all take a moment in the absence of the breakfast and let the men in our lives know that we appreciate them. And let them know why. You will likely have unique reasons why the special men in your life are worthy of your praise. For us, the following characteristics are things we can't help but admire.

June 11, 2021

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Amazing Me

As a Dad to three daughters I have a great deal of sympathy for the pressure put on women with regard to appearance (a trend that, sadly, has also been pushed on men with a growing ferocity for the last twenty or so years). Just one glance at the magazine rack at the bookstore, movies and TV, and even popular internet media sites and you are pelted with images of unachievable fitness and beauty that have been rendered by the best makeup and photoshop artists available.

June 4, 2021

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A Better Future

Staring at public data is generally a pretty good way to alleviate stress about many of the negatives we perceive in the United States (assuming you have the mathematical literacy to understand what you are seeing). While there is still a lot of room for improvement, particularly with regard to other countries, crime rates have been experiencing a very big downward trend since the early 1990s, overall life expectancy is going up, and numerous categories of accidents have shown marked improvements. But education is an area where the outlook isn't quite as positive.

May 28, 2021

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Developmental Milestones

One frequent question we hear from parents is "Is my child normal?". The question is generally asked in the context of development. This is of course a very broad question and if we are being honest it is usually asked with some specific incident or developmental milestone in mind. There are a few very good resources we are aware of when it comes to understanding what those milestones should be and when they should occur. Stanford University School of Medicine, WebMD and the CDC all have outstanding resources when it comes to understanding development.

May 21, 2021

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Thank You Teachers

We are very fortunate to have some very long tenured staff. Our professional staff in particular has an average tenure that is in the double digits in terms of years of service. Part of our long tenure average is of course good fortune.

May 14, 2021

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Emotional Maturity

At the ages we support we have seen children trying every manner of ploy to get their way. Pouting, tantrums, arm crossing, yelling, and many of the granddaddy of them all - "NO!". And this is expected. Just as an infant cries to fulfill needs it doesn't understand, younger children try a variety of things in an attempt to get what they want or need. This isn't "mean" manipulation any more than an infant crying would be considered so. These behaviors are simply an expression of the limited experience and tools that a young child possesses.

May 7, 2021

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Raising Equality

The curriculum this week is focused on female role models. This subject matter has been a part of the curriculum for decades now. When we reflect on where the curriculum started we can't help but think about a very different world.

April 30, 2021

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Positive Discipline

As parents we all hit a wall sometimes and a thought similar to the following enters our head. "I have no idea what to do about my child's behavior". "Behavior" as used here can refer to any number of things. Biting, tantrums, refusing to do what they are asked, ignoring ground rules and any number of other irksome behaviors can leave us baffled as parents. The better phrase perhaps is undesirable behaviors.

April 23, 2021

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Earth Day

Earth Day occurs this week and that means a number of things to us. First and foremost - at Greystone House it means we will be outside as much as the weather allows. We love that and so do the preschool aged children we support.

April 16, 2021

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Being an Example for Others

After decades of noting these patterns, I have seen some clear characteristics emerge in the people that I have come to admire - and in many cases - call friends. Many of these characteristics are rooted in the Montessori education.

April 9, 2021

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Do Whatever You Want

Every once in a while we hear a statement that makes us recoil. That is "Montessori just lets children do whatever they want". We have even heard this from people who would otherwise be trustworthy when it comes to information, people who are generally regarded as cautious prior to reporting information. Unfortunately, on occasion, these people are on platforms that are capable of spreading information - good and bad - very rapidly.

April 2, 2021

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How Do I Choose the Right Childcare?

One question we get from friends and relatives outside of our geographic area is "what should I look for when looking for childcare?". We might normally admit to being a tad biased about some things, but when it comes to choosing early childhood education, we are pretty open and honest. Beyond geographic challenges there are good reasons why we tend to not simply say "us".

March 26, 2021

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In Praise of Wildlife

We want to tie into our curriculum subject this week (birds) and talk about wildlife viewing as a part of engaging with nature and creating some fun, family time. It may surprise newcomers and outsiders that the 4th most populous city in the United States has an abundance of wildlife. Not only is there an abundance, but there is also an enormous variety.

March 19, 2021

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Get Your Hands Dirty

One of our favorite activities at the school is gardening. We have kept plants in the curriculum as, among other things, a way to teach the children about growing food. As usual with Montessori, the best way is the hands-on way. Watch the edges of the playground and you will notice a series of box planters. Over the years these have yielded some wonderful classroom treats.

March 12, 2021