The toddler age group is generally seen as one of the more challenging when it comes to parenting. We are prone to disagree. While parents and toddler's alike may struggle at times with the limited communication abilities that come with the age, it turns out that there is one big thing you can do to get your toddler engaged and happy. Put them to work.
Good outcomes, regardless of where they begin, are the result of a lot of work. Outside of starting someone down the path toward examining something, quotes are – in our opinion - useless and frequently harmful. You will never really be able to understand a subject, an event, or especially a human being (including yourself), from a quote.
There are of course numerous ways to look at parenting. For us, it is deliberate parenting that is done in a way that accomplishes something critical that is always best. That critical something is producing an adult human being who is competent, loving, humble, and joyful while simultaneously being able to live as a good neighbor and citizen.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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".
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.
We have been in the early childhood education game for a long time. We have seen so many things in terms of words and actions from preschool aged children and confess we are rarely surprised any more at the variety of behaviors.
Joy is a reflection of living our values, and we would argue that finding it as parents is critical to our children's success in life. There are a number of things you can do to be joyful yourself as well as teaching your children to be the same way.
Rather than the traditional public school approach of "sit down and shut up" (which has thankfully started to disappear in many places), we actually find it beneficial to take the attitude of "if it keeps them working and it isn't hurting anyone, then we don't care".
Entering first grade, children are confronted with social hierarchies and politics to navigate that are going to be, in some fashion, new to them. One of the advantages for children in childcare is that all of them have at least been in a group social situation by the time they move to elementary school. But mere attendance in a group environment does nothing to prepare a child for the transition.
ne of our favorite attributes of Montessori is the emphasis on freedom. Within our environment freedom focuses on numerous things, but we will look at four today. Freedom to choose the work they will do, the freedom to repeat work until it is mastered without respect to time, the freedom to move about the classroom, and the freedom to help others. When compared to a traditional classroom or even to daycare these concepts of freedom are quite radical.
Compassion, which differs from empathy, is defined as a consciousness of the distress and suffering of others that drives a sympathetic response to help alleviate it. There is a growing body of evidence that compassion is in many ways an innate instinct rather than a learned value and it appears in varying degrees depending on the person. We see this quite strongly in some children at school where they are immediately concerned if another child so much as groans in discomfort.
Courage is a moral strength. It allows us to move forward in the face of fear, challenges and even real danger. We say that those with courage are brave. But at times it seems that we limit the definition of what it means to be brave to a narrow band of seemingly heroic acts. Courage and bravery can seem relegated to warriors and superheroes. And this is a shame, because we see acts of courage every day at school that…
While she is remembered for the innovative and lasting education method that bears her name, Maria Montessori was much more. She was a physician, a scientist, a tireless activist for women's rights, and an advocate for peace. To Dr. Montessori, the hope for a true and lasting peace was tied up in the education of children. A moral education focused on a respect for diversity, citizenship and acceptance of personal responsibility was at the center of her hope for the future.
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