Montessori

I have tried out the major homeschooling styles this year - a month for each method - and I have learned a lot about educating styles and a variety of new skills and approaches. Here are the highlights.

My inner child was really drooling to do Montessori all along - mostly for the toys, but also for the idea of the kids learning 'practical skills' (clean my house, make me pizza) and of course my surrendering my teacher role to become a 'facilitator' which just sounded too easy.

I was so wrong.

Toys

Every homeschooler's first question: 'How did you afford the toys?'

It turns out it's a lot easier to remortgage your house than I thought.

The only real Montessori toy I bought for 10.99

I also cheated.

I bought Easter baskets to use instead of wooden trays

£23.99 on the left vs. free using my sewing cutting board and some random blocks we had lying about (guess which we chose?)

We used bath mats (£5) instead of rushmats (£25) for each student's work space

My favorite thing was the mats to be each kids' 'work space.' My whole life was an invasion of little people, trying to doodle in my mathbook for me (not that I needed help) and jostling for my attention with their pressing needs of JUICE, APPLE, UP!

In the Montessori method, you quietly take your mat and lay out one thing you're working on. If you want to collaborate with someone in your within-three-years-of-age-class, you set your mats side by side. This seemed pretty revolutionary to me. And you know what - our toddler figured out and respected the system! She is a clever girl.

The Preparation

The day before launching the Montessori school method in our home, I cleared six shelves of books. This took at least an hour.

I then spent the night before every day of Montessori school setting out the wooden toys in baskets or on wooden trays in an appealing, accessible way. I put out the educational games I thought would challenge the children.

I also prepped 'Circle Time.' You can be elaborate but we just did

• our Today is ritual (weather, date, etc)
• a practical skill
• an academic lesson in less than five minutes 

We used this during circle time

It took between an hour and an hour and a half every night to get ready for the next day. I also cleared our schedules and prepped ahead chores so the kids could have 3 hours' uninterrupted playtime.

As Maria Montessori says, 'the work of the child is to play'!

I had read a lot of homeschool blogs (not Montessori method homeschoolers) which argue it's 'good' for kids to have to put up with their younger sibs' distractions and noises. Mari Montessori would not agree.

The Montessosri classroom is supposed to be silent.

It's the parents' job to facilitate and set the standard of a good work environment.

The Montessori classroom is supposed to have a cooperative feel. We work together, we don't compete.

One of the most charming things was watching my older kids help their toddler sister to do puzzles that were just outwith her abilities to start with. It was amazing to watch her watching them and then being able to do it the same day sometimes! I think the boys got a buzz out of it too.

Practical skills

It turns out my kids are capable of a lot more than I realized. We did the dishes together the first day. After a few days of doing the dishes, Z (age 7) proposed reintroducing the system of everyone keeping the 'same cup' all day, rather than using a million cups and making more dishes. He has been faithfully reminding us and keeping us focused on the 'one cup a day' rule since.

T, age almost 2, was thrilled to learn grownup chores. In transpires that her dream job is doing the dishes, scrubbing is something she aspires to, and even folding is something she'll cheerfully have a go doing.

aaaand yes he made pizza by himself for us!

We did one new 'practical skill' a day. Some of our successes were:

• washing dishes
• shining a silver platter with a mix of water and baking soda (it worked!)
• clipping hedges
• planting onions
• frying eggs on the stovetop
• getting their own drinks
• folding teatowels and put them away
• getting out the mini blender and make their own chocolate milk
• washing out the old compost bin with the hose

What were less successful:

• trying to get the kids to shine the silver teapot and coffee pot with ornate scrollwork
• dust is apparently invisible to them
• the compost I was trying to get them to stir was too smelly
• weeding got their hands too dirty

Facilitator NOT teacher

This was the hardest part for me of any of the homeschool styles.

I like to control.
I like to control everything and everybody.
The idea that the kids could just do whatever really bugged me.

I heard of a Montessori nursery where the adult facilitators weren't allowed to intervene when a child was bullying another child. I was shocked but then I thought about it and thought what would be the result? Long term? The bullied child would probably refuse to share anything with the bully or invite him to his birthday party, etc. Perhaps that would be more impressive feedback in the long run for the bully. Working things out among themselves seems to be the mantra of Montessori teachers.

The other major hurdle for me was Not punishing kids with praise. I love giving the kids encouragement and feedback for everything. But it was interesting to see that they still enjoyed doing activities without my background praise soundtrack playing. They did the puzzle for its own sake, not to get attention or garner adulation. I meanwhile just about choked on my suppressed commendations.

Math

I did freak out on Day 4 when I was thinking how skimpy we had been till then on math. I am ashamed to say I bailed on the Montessori method and made Zeddy do his normal mathbook (Abeka grade 1).

My secret informer at the local Montessori school here in Edinburgh said that math was the Number 1 concern for most parents at the school. The school responded recently by undermining its Montessori approach in favor of a more traditional approach to math, and then die-hard Montessori advocates started pulling their kids out because they felt the school was selling out on its principles.

I am so sympathetic. I am living this.

I reined myself in and said, there must be a way to teach this stuff the Montessori way.

Math-U-See being wonderful

We played with money. We counted jewels, pasta, we discussed skip-counting. It was surprisingly challenging but probably good for us all to think outside the box.

I do not think this would be sustainable for us in the long term - I don't think a busy schedule, health problems or anything distracting would be conducive to this type of Montessori homeschooling, for me anyway.

Risk taking

I used to think I was a gutsy girl, a lover of danger, a risk taker.

This part of Montessori almost broke me.

So the first day I tightened my belt and let the 2-year-old paint with acrylic (not water color). In clothes. Inside. Without lots of newspaper.

My original idea of risk taking

Another day we tried face paint.

Climbing and rope balancing seem to be a Montessori thing so we tried that.

Of course this doesn't come close to true standards of Montessori risk-taking.

A story I heard was that a kid in a Montessori nursery was hiking up the climbing frame with a knife and a nursery teacher (who was on supply) went to intervene but was told off.

we reenacted

Cyrus had a go

everyone had to have a go

Risk taking got more elaborate as the days went by

Funerals, it turns out, are cheaper than the Montessori toys

Maybe I have been making light and being unfair to the Montessori method. What works for you in your Montessori method, what do you do differently and what do you like best?