Starting Out

Hi, I am Teressa, and I am a stay at home mom to my three wonderful children, ages 4, 2, and 1, and wife to a fantastic husband. 

In the past three or four weeks, I have started to consistently incorporate a learning time into my children's day.  I have been teaching the children many things along the way (K knows letters, numbers, letter sounds, and can read easy books, and G knows letters, colors, and can count to ten- just to name a few things) and reading to them a lot, but with my oldest getting closer to five, I want to take a more proactive step in our home education. 

After talking with a friend about the Montessori method of teaching, I decided to look into it more, and I liked what I saw.  I am by no means a die hard follower, but I do like many of the aspects of that teaching method, such as respecting the child, providing freedom of choice, hands-on-learning, and the fostering of independence, to name a few.  Another aspect that drew me to this method of teaching is the fact that different aged children work together, and since I am at home with children of different ages, that works great for me.  I would say our activities are certainly Montessori inspired.

The event that really hooked me was when K really engaged in a bean pouring activity.  He poured beans back and forth for around 40 minutes, and even forewent television watching to continue.  He really looks forward to learning time each day, and we take pictures/video to show Poppy when he comes home.

K pouring beans

We are starting out small here, and seek to expand what we have and our prepared environment as we go.  I really just started with what we had around the house, and I got a few things from the dollar store to help out.  Here is our learning area right now. We plan to add some shelves, and I would like to get some baskets that allow the children to see what's inside along with some other Montessori/Montessori inspired materials.  Some things stay on the table so my one year old will not be able to get to them =). 

Here are a few pictures of some of the activities the kids have done lately.

G scouping pistachios





K covering name with pistachios

M playing with magnetic letters


Some of the websites/blogs that have really inspired me are countingcoconuts.blogspot.com, chasingcheerios.blogspot.com.  An ebook that I have been reading is Montessori at Home (http://www.montessoriathomebook.com/Home.html/).  I also get great ideas from other moms too.

If you have any cool ideas or great sites for inspiration, please let me know.  Always looking out for new ideas!