Cheryl asked some really good questions:

<<Do you have specific time scheduled for presentations and observing the dc? What do the older dc do during this? How do you keep the younger dc quiet and busy while the olders are doing their work? >>

I have to preface my answer by saying what I do now is not what I did when most of the children in the house were under school age.  Right now, we do have a scheduled seat work time in the mornings. The older children take turns playing with Brendan for half hr intervals so the rest of us can work together.  I rotate through the other children getting them started on independent work and listening to them read or drilling math facts, checking work, etc. Aidan and Kieran also work on their manipulatives and games – usually at the kitchen island which is too high for Brendan to reach. The table is just asking for trouble! <g>

When my oldest began homeschooling we had a baby and 3yo in the mix. I didn’t attempt to do a set school time during the day though we did do lots of library story hours, walks, art work, manips, and so on. Allen would give the babies a bath after dinner and Colin and I would do any concentrated learning like phonics and math then. It was plenty of time for a very young student. Later we added his brothers’ nap time. By the time those times weren’t enough we had kids old enough to start taking turns with the current baby.

So my big thought?  Get lots of self instructional materials for starters. If a good chunk of your curriculum requires interpretation by the teacher there is a problem. It is the curriculum’s problem however – not your family’s! Ditch it if you plan to continue to grow your family. Be flexible on when things happen. There are often lulls through the day when littles wear out, take naps, or lay low for a span.  Tuck learning into those times rather than trying to squeeze your toddlers into a pre-set academic schedule.

As to the Grace and Courtesy presentations – I tend to unschool these <g>.  Can we unschool Montessori?  I guess I do.  While we are getting cleaned up in the bathroom I might say "hey, do you remember how we open and shut the cabinet door?" (insert demo) When we getting ready to run errands I might say, "How do we behave in the store?"  Some time before expecting guests you can role play things like welcoming and sharing toys.

We also like to occasionally bring up ‘dilemmas’.  For instance a sub had told me the children in my co-op preschool room were beginning to get a bit rowdy. When I returned to class we started with our story as usual, then before going to the trays we talked about the room rules (one material at a time, one child per material, taking turns) they all rattled off the rules. Then I asked them to consider possible situations like, "What if you REALLY want the game a friend is playing?"  "What if they are taking a LONG time to finish?" After thinking through how they would handle these scenarios they all did remarkably well at handling them when they occurred.

Drilling these things works well at home too. They get a charge out of practicing it seems and remembering the appropriate way to do things. Aidan came up to me Friday morning and said,"Every time you ask me a question today I am going to say ‘Yes, mom!’" A delightful prospect <g> 

Observations?  All the time. The kids are kinda hard to miss. ; )  Seriously though, a notebook helps if you have a lot going on. You can make notes to yourself as little problems arise like ‘work on please and thank you’  ‘need to practice looking adults in the eye’ ‘towels on the floor – work on how to hang them this wk’. I try not to ‘go off’ the first time I notice problems but use that as a springboard for demos and discussion in the coming days.

I will say it helps tremendously to catch them remembering the right way to do a thing and to comment about it. A simple "Wow you are really careful shutting the cupboard door," or "You shook Mr Jones hand when he introduced himself, that was really brave!"  really makes their day and encourages them to practice what they learned.

Hope that helps, Cheryl! 

I ran across this article from Practical Homeschooling that was both short and helpful – both good things. <g>  Kathy Von Duyke is mother to 11 by my last count. She used to be a Konos mom and wrote about unit studies.  She became a Montessori enthusiast and had a series of articles in this magazine. Unfortunately only two are available online.

We have been making sentence analysis materials this month.  Thought I would share the logical adjective exercise Moira and Aidan were playing.  The cards are color-coded by part of speech. They go nouns (black) first and then the adjectives. In this pic Moira is matching adjectives to nouns.

What do you suppose it is about our kids and the tongue thing while concentrating lol?

Montessori Mom linked to this site this weekend and I am linking to it also in case you missed it. The Montessori Discovery School has an excellent, concise overview of the method, terminology, and goals for elementary level students.

If the next question is "Why do I care?" you might like to read the results of this study which showed Montessori trained children were head and shoulders ahead of their age-mates in both academic and social/emotional areas as compared to children in non-Montessori schools. Particularly noteworthy to relaxed homeschoolers was the comment that althought they were  "not regularly tested or graded, they did just as well in spelling, punctuation and grammar exams as those given conventional lessons."  This doesn’t have to be painful folks. ; )

I am knee deep in file cabinets and filing system set up this wknd so am sending another link for grins. The So You Wanna site is like a "For Dummies" online. It has cheat sheets and short explanations of all sorts of basic educational topics like avoiding writing errors, delivering a speech, interpreting poetry, etc.  The ettiquette section has additional edu-categories, but do but careful with some of the other categories.  A few of the topics are definitely not those you would want to share with children.  Consider yourself forewarned <g>

pRebecca commented about fantasy play:

<<How would you discourage them from doing so? Would you? I just can’t imagine being able to do it. In theory I could but it would be difficult in reality. >>

   I think this is where the confusion arises.  Fantasy play would be considered more of an indicator than an end in itself.  Akin to attacking a fever without addressing the underlying trigger.  Like you said, it is more prevalent after tv viewing.  In our family it is way more prevalent after stressful times or times when the little ones are left to their own devices. 

   We have found that, just as the articles suggest, our small people resort to fantasy play less as the opportunity to do ‘real stuff’ increases. If they can prepare real food and serve a real family – and it can be done!- they eagerly abandon the toy kitchen. If they have sports equipment they will generally choose to play real games. If they have help working with the horses they will trade the toy animals for real any day. Now animals may not be available but usually yards are and real tools can have their handles cut down for smaller hands.

   Ditto cleaning tools. Rebecca says,"Everyone is willing to repair the fence with a hammer and nails but no one want to sweep the floors."  Sometimes it’s the accessories that seal the deal lol! Individualized chore aprons, a personal set of tools and nontoxic cleaners etc. Moreover I think the European Montessori school linked to yesterday said it best when explaining the practical life activities – the motion of scrubbing the table and the suds created are both more important to the preschool child than the end effect of a clean table.  To me this is the whole point of prepared practical life activities. Rather than being artificial they serve as a sort of mental and physical calisthenic to refine motions, a lab of sorts. No one likes to do a job they are not able to do well. Practical life trays can be an important precursor to effective real life helping.

   Likewise the school says that children "spontaneously and naturally seek order".  This may not be evident at home though I noticed that when it was not it was usually due to the fact that we had gotten snowed under with stuff. Once they have a space that they are able to maintain they tend to do so much more willingly.  This was driven home to me last night. We took the toys out of the boys bedroom. Some had migrated back in during the wknd and there was a mini-tornado left from church prep since we had gone to the park after church last week and had not put one pair of church shoes away properly. It looked daunting but the boys knew where everything went and didn’t fuss over picking up. Aidan even remarked LOOK Dad, that didn’t take long at all to pick up!!  this is rather revolutionary in my life. <g> Huge incentive to stick to the routines and continue the purging.

   So bottom line,I try to keep the little ones right with us doing meaningful things like carrying the library bks or helping bathe and dress the real baby. Read about real people who did fascinating things. They get the impression early on that they, and their contributions, are greatly valued and that they positively impact the family.  This is important because when left to themselves they tend to get mischievous and they quickly sense that they are a liability rather than a blessing. We work to be  blessing – all of us. All of us are coming around to cultivating a deep appreciation of our roles in maintaining our environment. (yes, mom too!)

   Anyway, no I wouldn’t discourage the play. I would use it as a gauge to see if it may indicate a need for less tv (no tv?) or less stimulation (clutter, over-scheduling) or more satisfying activities.  I think once we read the method over and over we generally know when we are dealing with a proper use of imagination and when it signifies a deviation or a stress reduction technique.  A good measure would be our comfort level.  I don’t allow for fantasy play with school materials. That would be a good example.  If they don’t understand a concept or are over(or under)stimulated in an exercise it tends to disintegrate into sword fighting or tossing the pieces about the table. Actually this happens with toys as well. IMO,that is normally my cue that something is amiss, rather than a sign of immense creativity.<g> If they were playing St George slaying the dragon I would be tempted to smile and leave them be.

   It is usually easy to discern if you are dealing with reenactment – which I would interpret as the child working out the functions of different roles – and disordered play. In the latter they are still working internal things out but it might signal to us a need to assess the environment.

Do check out Willa’s series of notes today to learn more about this controversial and fascinating aspect of the method.

I promised Dani I would upload my links today.  In looking around I was intrigued by the success stories of Montessori kids with special needs. We have two delightful little boys visiting us this week while their parents attend a funeral out of town. While visiting when they got dropped off she was sharing about the dyslexia curricula they used for an older boy years back.  It sounded remarkably like Montessori as well. Tracing letters, visual cues, etc.  Anyway, we have been busy here this week so will just jump to the links:

Do 2 Learn life skill clip art.  These can be used a lot of ways.  You can make wall charts such as these and these  or use them for lapbook lessons like Dani plans to.

The Preschool Power tapes teach by showing rather than by telling. They are offering a special price through the end of Sept for teachers of special needs children.  Don’t miss these!!!  They are awesome for all preschoolers and for their parents who want a visual presentation of Montessori lessons. Nothing like having lessons at the ready on your VCR.

I am including an article  about Montessori being used for Autistic children.  In this one Montessori Mom answers some questions about using the method for special needs.  Here is a very encouraging story written by a young lady who has Down’s Syndrome.  She presented this testimony to the entire school in a speech given during Disability Awareness Week.

and finally LOTS of lapbooking links! I am very happy to be able to share several links to free templates and fold directions. Now you really can try before you buy: 

Tamy Duby has a visually appealing new site called Lapbook Ladies

At Scrapbooking to Learn you can access fold directions for the file folders and booklets.

a few more can be found here, not many but I really like her illustrations <g>

Candle in the Window is another how-to site.  (Crossover content with Scrapbook to Learn)

Mirkwood Designs has tons of templates to download and resize to your needs.  These are designed as cards so there is a great deal of potential here for all kinds of projects. There is nothing so nice as ‘press and print’ imo!

And should you want it just that easy you can check out Hands of a Child.  They sell lapbooking kits along with topical study guides for a host of subjects. If you click on a title you can pull up a free downloadable sample for each.

If you want more more more then ck out the yahoo lapbooking group. They have oodles of shared images in the picture files for the group.

Hope that helps, Dani!   Back to school here!  : )

   While surfing around Fuller Farm yesterday I saw a link to what may be the most significant article I have read about homeschooling in a very long time.  Perhaps THE most. Cumberland Books has an excellent article by Rick Saenz about How to Think About Homeschooling. The author begins by having us determine the purpose for our lives.  He goes on to discuss the content and means of education. He explains that his approach is less of an approach and more of an attitude. Thought provoking!

   His basis premise is that for his family the purpose of life is to be a godly person, marry a godly spouse, raise a godly family. This goal is not for the fortunate few but within the grasp of any called to it.

   Another truism he shares is that given such a goal, not all children need to study the same thing. In fact he goes so far as to say that which particular set of knowledge and skills (and we all must be knowledgeable and skilled in something) we choose to pass on can and should have less to do with what others think is critical and everything to do with our own family’s legacy and traditions. This idea is at the same time liberating and challenging because while it means there is no one ‘off the shelf’ curriculum that will be created with just the content and balance that your family may require it does mean that your chosen path need not, and should not, look like ‘ your neighbor or cousin or fellow parishioner’. And, ‘it will ultimately be up to you to find it’. Amen to that.

   He asks us to consider why it is we are teaching a given course. He doesn’t offer a pat answer to that question and asserts that there may well be a very good reason behind our choice. He simply urges us to avoid choosing to do so simply because we feel a vague obligation. He reminds us that there are few skills which cannot be learned once the need for them becomes apparent. What cannot be learned later is character. Lapses in that department follow an individual forever and cannot be made up down the road. Therefore, its entirely possible we may choose to pursue a less palatable subject, less because it is ‘necessary’ and more because the process of learning it helps with the vital skills of learning ‘how to think abstractly; how to apply oneself to a task that is difficult and doesn’t yield immediate tangible benefits; how to submit to his mother’s authority; how to keep to a schedule’.  I cannot even say why it is so important to me. If the end result is that we all still cover geometry what was the point of taking the decision apart? I guess for me the point is living life on purpose and knowing WHY you are a doing a thing. Better yet, having your student know why. A simple ‘because’ rarely flies for a teen, nor for any of us really.

   The most significant piece of advice he shares, if you can rightly call it advice, is that if godly living is your goal there are a lotta ways to skin this cat. For some of us that may look more academic or more vocational. The content is less important than the purpose – though there must be content. He advises us to be true to ourselves, our families and our traditions.  This is a radically countercultural position to take in many places today. I am reminded of the German mother who was imprisoned yesterday, her husband compelled to flee the country, because they were guilty of believing in a parent’s right to educate their own children, a crime of "high treason" in Germany. Not many of us both articulate our purpose and maintain such an unwaivering commitment to it.

   At any rate, if you have a few moments, check the article out at Cumberland Books. You can also find some thoughtful titles on simple living and agrarian lifestyle tucked here and there at their site.

   In the funny way life has of bringing related thoughts together for me, we read a wonderful short story aloud yesterday, Leo Tolstoy’s Three Questions. It seems to me that homeschoolers and mothers in general often ask themselves variations of those same three questions – "who are the right people to listen to, whom to avoid, and what is the right thing to be doing at a given moment?"  In fact those questions are ultimately the cause of many anxious catalog readings, many pangs over scheduling, and more anquish over methodology than one could imagine. In the end Tolstoy affirms that now is the most important time, because it is the only time over which we have any power; the most important person is the one we are with; and the most important deed is to do him well.  To me the overarching theme here is that it IS in fact ok to be responsive, to address the immediate needs presented to us, and to allow tomorrow to unfold as it will. If we do our part today we can rest assured that our tomorrows will flow steadily from our diligence and intention.