Montessori for Infants and Toddlers

Montessori for Infants: Who has a child under 18 months?

blog@mymontessorihouse.com — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 00:19:00 +0000

Has everyone with a child under 18 months received our infant supplement? If not, please email us (or check our new customer support links on Monday).

The supplements will help everyone work around the expensive material for infants that include brain-body exercises and materials such as the Object Permanence sets, Imbucare, and others. We introduce DIY ideas and substitutions that are quite useful for maintaining a good classroom setup at home on a budget.

Montessori House: New Customer Service Announcement

blog@mymontessorihouse.com — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 00:15:00 +0000

We are pleased to announce that on Monday November 9th, you will see a brand-new Montessori House customer service section on our website with contact information for teaching material support, general questions, and other issues.

Montessori for Infants: Object Permanence Box DIY

blog@mymontessorihouse.com — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:14:00 +0000

In our Montessori teaching album for infants and toddlers, we discuss the use and presentation of a lot of material that is designed to promote the brain-body development link.

This object permanence box for infants is a wonderful piece of equipment that can also be made at home. For example, you can take a small box (about half the size of a shoe box) and cut a round hole exactly the size of the ball on the top of the box. Using the ball shown, your child can experiment by putting the ball through the top round hole and then lifting the lid to find that the ball is inside the box.

Promoting this sorts of physical and intellectual interaction addresses your child's development needs in these early years.

For those of you who have purchased this teaching album, it is important to get or make as much of this series of material as possible -- it is all in the same chapter in the album.

Montessori for Children Under Two Years of Age

blog@mymontessorihouse.com — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 10:42:00 +0000

The Montessori curriculum for children between infancy and two years of age has been an active topic of discussion. The main focus of the curriculum is to help your young child develop in the areas in which he or she should naturally be focusing such as language, body and brain coordination and development, and interaction with others.

Some of the simplest material that we introduce for infants and toddlers is the most important. For example, there is a whole section of lessons in the album that addresses brain and body development directly: the object permanence box use that covers the stage of development in which children discover that an object continues to be the same, even when you cannot see it (e.g. Mommy still exists even if she has gone to work this morning); imbucare boxes designed for infants to work on hand-eye coordination as he or she works with cylinders, cubes, triangle prisms, and rectangular prisms (are you using the language of the pieces to introduce the vocabulary to your child?); supinated wrist movement exercises that help children work with hand and wrist movements that will be the foundation for writing, fine motor skills, and other key movements later, and; simple shape puzzles, bells, and mirrors.

We discourage you from attempting to push reading and other topics that might be considered more academic at this time. The building blocks for development are crucial, and your child is not helped by learning to memorize words on cards or other material that is outside of his or her developmental needs now.

The prices of material such as the imbucare boxes or the object permanence boxes can be a bit daunting, but you can usually find good deals online and the price of these pieces of material are inline with those of regular toys, so we encourage you to make the substitution when you buy gifts and toys for your child. A lot of our readers have had success putting this material on gift lists for holidays and other special occasions as well.

Toddlers: Suggested Reading

blog@mymontessorihouse.com — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 17:31:00 +0000

For children in the two and up age group, we recommend daytime read aloud sessions of 15-30 minutes using a non-fiction source.

We found some great (free) material online about water and the Chesapeake Bay that we wanted to share with everyone who is homeschooling or informally working with their children at home.

This daytime reading is not meant to take the place of time-honored bedtime stories!

Between Infancy and Toddlerhood: Choosing Curriculum Material

blog@mymontessorihouse.com — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 16:31:00 +0000

A lot of you have written us to ask which Montessori teaching album is best for your 2 to 3 1/2 year old children.

We highly encourage everyone with children in this age group to start with the Montessori for Infants and Toddlers teaching album instead of moving directly to the Primary class album because a number of key lessons such as use of the Imbucare boxes, Object Permanence Boxes, refined hand and wrist movement projects, and language and interaction work provide important building blocks for overall growth and development.

Language leading to reading and writing is a natural progression that we do not rush in the Montessori classroom. The infant and toddler album contains a lot of material that is focused on developing overall language skills that your child can build upon at his or her own pace.

Questions? Send them along in comment form to share with everyone!

Montessori Versus Nursery School: Role of Parents

blog@mymontessorihouse.com — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 11:51:00 +0000

Much is written about the Montessori Method as it applies to children. But what about parents? How is your role different as a Montessori parent?

Here are some tips:

1. Nursery schools cater to parents. Montessori schools focus on your child.

2. When you drop your child off at Montessori school, you will be expected to be as inobtrusive as possible. This is not because we do not like you or want to avoid you! It is because we need to create an ideal child-focused learning environment. We hold one-on-one parent meetings and host pot-luck dinners for parent-teacher interaction. It is great if parents enjoy socializing with one another, but please try to move away from the playground or door to the classroom, preferably to a nearby coffee shop, when you do get together. It is very distracting to children to see or hear their parents nearby when class begins.

3. Please schedule a time to talk to teachers or the administration. If you can email or leave a voice mail, we will be every so grateful. Drop off and pick up times can be challenging for young children and our priority will be taking care of the children.

4. If you would like to observe a class, we will be glad to accommodate you, but it might take some scheduling if we are starting a new class or have a number of new students to help acclimate.

Questions? We would love to hear from you!

Montessori Sensorial & Colors: Before Color Tablets

blog@mymontessorihouse.com — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 00:20:00 +0000

Montessori Sensorial work includes lovely Color Tablets that are ideal for introducing children to the concept and names of colors.

But if your child is young enough so that he or she still prefers to bite and touch objects instead of showing an interest in handling them delicately, wait for a bit and introduce naming exercises with objects that he or she can touch and bite such as a bright red apple, a bunch of purple grapes, or the peeling of an orange tangerine.

You can prepare a bunch of purple grapes and a bunch of green grapes for your child's exploration and enjoyment to introduce the name of the fruit and the two colors.

Next, prepare three-part cards using these same fruits and vegetables!

Montessori curriculum for infants and toddlers in our Montessori teaching albums.

Montessori at Home: Homeschooling Classroom

blog@mymontessorihouse.com — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 13:17:00 +0000

If you are using Montessori at home, remember to create a special room or space in your home for the classroom, even if your child is still quite young. This delineation of space allows your child to enter his or her unique learning environment complete with child-sized material, shelves, and projects.

Parents who are using our teaching albums: Refer to the Learning Environment section in your binder. Try taking photos of your home environment before and after you implement the changes we suggest for creating a child-friendly and touch-friendly environment.

Learn more about our Montessori teaching albums to use at home.

Montessori School in Baltimore Maryland: One spot left for the September

blog@mymontessorihouse.com — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 12:47:00 +0000

A teacher friend says that one spot is left in her adorable local Montessori school in Baltimore, Maryland.

Apple Ridge Montessori School
200 Ingleside Ave
Catonsville, Maryland, 21228
(410) 818-2000

Ask for Sue and tell her we sent you.

Montessori Class Work: Outdoors

blog@mymontessorihouse.com — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 16:20:00 +0000

This original photo from Maria Montessori's classroom is from The Montessori Method online.

I love this photo because the children look so relaxed in the garden setting!

Montessori Terminology: Primary Class versus Preschool

blog@mymontessorihouse.com — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 23:20:00 +0000

A parent just wrote to ask about the "Primary" class designation. In the Montessori system, we use "Primary Class" for children in the preschool to Kindergarten years -- ages three to six.

Sorry about the confusion!

Here is our Montessori teaching curriculum for the Primary Class.

Montessori Teaching Curriculum: Three-Fingered Grasp

blog@mymontessorihouse.com — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 16:03:00 +0000

A note on the curriculum for parents who purchased our Montessori Curriculum Teaching Album:

All of the small pieces of equipment such as the ball and geometric shapes in the Infant Object Permanence Boxes are meant to be held in a three-fingered grasp (e.g. pointer, index, and thumb). This grasp is a natural one for infants and toddlers, but worth mentioning because adults tend to pick things up with two fingers (e.g. pointer and thumb) and you should use the grasp that you want your child to use.

Younger children will tend to use their whole hands when holding something large. This is fine. No need to correct anything, but just make sure you use the three-fingered grasp with equipment for which your child will need to use it.

Check out our Montessori Curriculum Teaching Albums!

Montessori Teaching Curriculum: Reading, Writing, and the Sand Tray

blog@mymontessorihouse.com — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 15:08:00 +0000

This Sand Tray is your child's first introduction to writing and writing-related motor skills.

Let your child enjoy tracing and drawing shapes in the sand and then show him or her how to make curves, circles, lines, and dots.

Once your child has been introduced a handful of letters via the Sandpaper Letters, you can show your child how to trace these letters in the Sand Tray, too. However, if your child prefers to draw in the sand, that's fine!

Photo credit: Guidecraft Children's Toys

Montessori Teaching Curriculum: Where to Sit?

blog@mymontessorihouse.com — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 17:54:00 +0000

In our first edition of the Montessori Teaching Curriculum for Infants and Toddlers, we explain that teachers (or parents teaching at home) should sit on their child's non-dominant side, and we wanted to elaborate a bit more...

When we write, "Sit on your child’s non-dominant side," this means that you should sit on the left side of a right-handed child. And, naturally, on the right side of a left-handed child. Try having a friend sit on your right side while you try to use a pen with your right hand. Does it feel as if they are in your way? You can’t quite move the way you would like to or you have to be careful that you do not bump into them?

Are you not sure which side your child favors or do sides alternate? Try different sides and see what happens. Be aware of your child's body language and interaction with you when you are on the right side versus the left side. The goal is to have your physical presence not interfere with the presentation or work at hand. Your role is to guide and present without changing your child's focus.

Mats for Floor Work in the Montessori Classroom Setup

blog@mymontessorihouse.com — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 17:50:00 +0000

In our curriculum guides, we discuss using mats or carpets for floor-based projects that are frequently presented in the Montessori classroom.

Note that these carpets should be of a simple single color. Lines and patterns distract from a lot of the projects and equipment -- for example, setting up geometric shapes or different types of triangles involves looking at the lines of the equipment itself, so a patterned carpet does not work well.

Look for a carpet that is the size of a yoga mat, but made from a flat carpet. Avoid materials that bunch, wrinkle, or gather.

This beige floor mat is featured on the Nienhuis site.

Montessori Teaching Curriculum for Infants and Toddlers: Time and Attention

blog@mymontessorihouse.com — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 17:56:00 +0000

For those of you who subscribed to the curriculum newsletters or purchased our Montessori teaching binder, we will be posting additional notes here on our blog, so do check back from time to time or subscribe to our handy Montessori at Home rss feed!

In our curriculum for infants and toddlers, we discuss the presentation format, materials needed, and sequence of events for each lesson or exercise. You will notice, however, that there is no particular length of time for the duration of each lesson. This is key because the length of time that an individual child will be focused on a particular exercise depends on that child.

Once you set up the exercise with all of the equipment and present it, the number of times your child decides to, for example, pour water from one pitcher to another, is an independent choice. At the right stage in a child's development, he or she will has the ability to be completely captivated by a certain type of lesson, for example, a fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination practice lesson such as the Practical Life Water Pouring Exercise. This means that your child's current stage of development calls for this type of skill practice and development in terms of the Montessori Sensitive Periods of Development.

Importantly, make sure that you allow your child to engage his or her periods of attention during these projects without adding interruptions. It is really tempting to go up and talk to a child who is being super cute by doing the same thing over and over, but this is the time that you need to step back and let your child develop the particular skill that has caught his or her attention!

For step-by-step lessons, check out our Montessori teaching curriculum for parents and teachers.

Selecting Montessori Material for Your Home or Classroom

blog@mymontessorihouse.com — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 19:51:00 +0000

A quick recommendation to the new teacher who contacted us for advice on what material to buy for her new classroom: Nienhuis, the traditional Montessori equipment maker, now has a site with material and price information online. Other suppliers are good and cheaper, but we have not kept track of the varying quality versus price tradeoff with the others, so Nienhuis is our fallback.

Here is the link for Nienhuis Montessori equipment.

On the equipment categories --

Infant and Toddler Imbucare boxes: You can select one or two to start out. You will find the prices are a good incentive to look at DIY.

Toddler Simple Puzzles: The two sets shown -- Single Shape and Multiple Shapes Puzzles -- are great because the introduce shapes and varying sizes of the same shape. Knobs that are easy to handle are key because you are building refined hand movements and fine motor skills.

Toddler Infilare Exercises: The Three Discs on a Vertical Dowel are surprisingly affordable. Again, you can pick three different sets out of the equipment line up here and be fine.

Toddler Supinated Wrist Movement: Worth buying a few because these are hard to make, unless you are unusually gifted with DIY. The Interlocking Discs are super popular with kids.

Infant and Toddler Dressing Frames: These are perfect for Montessori DIY!

The Threading and Braiding Material is definitely a good Montessori DIY project.

The Infant Mirror has a handle, which is fabulous, so check out the pic before making your own.

Infant Bell: Very cool. Good price, too.

Geography Material: The sandpaper globes and simple maps are really great to have at home. Globes make enjoyable and educational bedroom decor for children of all ages!

Practical Life: Sorting tray. I really like this one! See the pic above. You can make your own!

Montessori Teaching Curriculum for Infants and Toddlers

blog@mymontessorihouse.com — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 16:20:00 +0000

This is the first post in what will be a short series addressing infant and toddler development within the Montessori setting.

Montessori teaching methodology for all ages focuses on providing the right learning environment with the appropriate material, teacher, and student mix that will allow children to follow their own individual paths to learning.

For infants and toddlers, this focus on the individual path is especially important because children in this age group are developing so many key facets of themselves during these early years. A lot of parents ask us for a very clear and precise curriculum with information on how much time should be dedicated to teaching a certain lesson and when their child should move to the next more difficult topic. No matter what curriculum one follows, this is pretty much impossible due to the different developmental schedules of young children.

In our teaching binders, we strive to provide the same mix of topics and developmental exercises that one would find in a real life classroom, so parents can set up the material and let their children learn at an individualized pace. Some children may spend hours on a project that other children spend months enjoying. This is completely natural and does not indicate any developmental level or differing progress achievements.

See our Montessori teaching curriculum for infants and toddlers.

Montessori and the Tactile Sense

blog@mymontessorihouse.com — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 22:08:00 +0000

When you visit a Montessori classroom for infants and toddlers, the first thing that all parents remark upon is how calm the teachers remain. There is never an outburst of "No, don't touch that!" in the classroom.

Ah, but how about in real life? Yes, it does get tricky to maintain a Montessori like calm presence about everything, especially in a world of vehicles, power tools, and other dangerous things.

Since touching, tasting, squeezing, biting, watching, listening, shaking, and grasping are primary routes to discovering the world around them in these early years, our task is to help them go about this process!

So, here are some suggestions to try steer your child's touching and testing towards good and helpful activities for children under three:

Provide a touchable environment at home. No breakables, no glass tables, and no access to electrical outlets and similar hazards.
Put together a low shelf full of Montessori equipment (see our earlier posts for DIY, which will save you tons of money) such as

the Imbucare set (shown in my May 15th post Hand Eye Coordination and Grasping Practice) -- these are fantastic DIY candidates or Amazon wish list items
Soft blocks in a variety of shapes
Hard building blocks
Dressing Frame Sets (another earlier post on Practical Life Material)
Three shape puzzles
A Mystery Bag full of delightful and toddler or infant safe objects such as soft toys, a smooth large pebble, a soft squishy beanbag, a feather, and a small book.
Children's picture and word books as well as more difficult children's books for you to read aloud to your child.
And other tactile and friendly items!

Montessori and Language Development for Infants and Toddlers

blog@mymontessorihouse.com — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 17:30:00 +0000

As you work with your child to develop sounds, words, and sentences, you can consciously increase your use of descriptive words and phrases to enrichen your child's language environment.

Using descriptive language with an infant or toddler is not always an intuitive thing. It can be tempting to use simple words and phrases, omitting more difficult vocabulary and sentences, so it is important to think through the process so that you use correct phrasing and great descriptive words when you speak with your young child.

Many parents who observe a Montessori class for children in this age group for the first time are struck by the level of vocabulary used in the classroom. From the equipment itself complete with rectangles and spheres to social skills interaction, the goal of a Montessori teacher is to provide a well-rounded language environment in addition to the beautiful equipment and furnishings.

For example:

Use full sentences with concise and descriptive vocabulary when you speak with your child. For example, a "the blue cup" can be described as "the blue ceramic cup" and "the red cup" can be described as "the red plastic cup".

More on Montessori and language development for infants and toddlers.

Infant Health: Safe Sleep for Your Baby

blog@mymontessorihouse.com — Sun, 24 May 2009 19:39:00 +0000

Some of our readers are volunteering with new mothers and asked for health information, so we have been looking... Here is a great article by the National Institute of Health that comes complete with free multilingual printable information.

I also thought it a useful reminder that soft plushy surfaces can pose Sudden Infant Death (SID) risks to infants because a lot of new organic mattresses and padding is not as firm as regular bedding.

Three useful tips from the NIH site include:

Babies sleep safer on their backs. Babies who sleep on their stomachs are much more likely to die of SIDS than babies who sleep on their backs.
Sleep surface matters. Babies who sleep on or under soft bedding are more likely to die of SIDS.
Every sleep time counts. Babies who usually sleep on their backs but who are then placed on their stomachs, like for a nap, are at very high risk for SIDS. So it's important for everyone who cares for your baby to use the back sleep position for naps and at night.

Also, given my experience with wonderful sinkable organic rubber tree derived latex mattresses at home, remember that if you sleep with your infant in your bed, the surface of your own bed will be important.

To read the entire article on Safe Sleep for Your Baby: Ten Ways to Reduce the Risk of Sudden Infant Death (SID) visit the NIH site. Those of you volunteering in the community will find the free printable material links there.

Toddlers: First Box of Color Tablets

blog@mymontessorihouse.com — Wed, 20 May 2009 17:35:00 +0000

The First Box of Color Tablets is the official name for the box on the right that includes three pairs of red, yellow, and blue tablets.

Superb for introducing toddlers to color names, these beautiful tablets are meant to be handled by the tabs on the top and bottom (the white bars). You can show your child how to hold them by simply grasping them with either one hand or two hands, depending on how big your child's hands are because he or she will copy what you do.

For DIY tablets, you can make colored bars with handles out of any material that allows the colors to come through well. If you are buying red, yellow, and blue child-safe paint, remember to get a lot because these colors are used frequently in the classroom for other material you will want later.

More Montessori House curriculum ideas for infants and toddlers.

Hand Eye Coordination & Grasping Practice for Toddlers

blog@mymontessorihouse.com — Fri, 15 May 2009 17:19:00 +0000

"Crossing the midline" is a concept in a lot of toddler equipment that you can see clearly from the equipment itself. Look for the midpoint in the dowel and see how the relationship between the objects on the dowel and the arrangement interact. Your child will experiment with this relationship as he or she arranges all of the discs on this particular dowel. Since this is a horizontal dowel, your child will need to carefully push the discs past the midline to fit all of them onto the dowel, unlike the vertical dowel where the cubes go to the base by themselves.

One key feature of Montessori equipment is that it is well-crafted. Everything balances, stands, and performs its function flawlessly. If you find yourself looking at material that is not steady or does not fit well together (e.g. the lid does not close completely or the dowels are different sizes), don't buy it!

The easiest way to create a good DIY project out of this concept is to attach a vertical dowel to a stand and find a series of large symetrical round or square beads of the same color to use as disks. Of course, if you are good with woodworking, a horizontal and vertical dowel set would be great.

More curriculum and lessons for little ones in our Montessori curriculum monthly newsletters (only $12.99 a year).

Photo credit: Nienhuis Montessori equipment for infants and toddlers.

Montessori Practical Life for Toddlers: Dressing Frame

blog@mymontessorihouse.com — Wed, 06 May 2009 15:35:00 +0000

This Velcro frame is the easiest frame to use and make.

Use the same set up, shelf, and steps as shown above for the button frame. When you close the flaps, close the one on the bottom first. Then place the top flap on top of the bottom flap. Press lightly. Show your child how it sticks together.

Let your child work with this and other exercises for as long as he or she wishes.

The dressing frame sets include a number of different types such as buttons, laces, and zippers, but you can also make this into an easy (and cheap) DIY project. If you are making dressing frames for your older infant or toddler, the dressing frame with three large buttons comes next.

More curriculum ideas in our Montessori curriculum monthly newsletters.

Photo credit: Nienhuis Montessori Equipment