Making the choice to send your child to Montessori School is a rewarding one. Your child benefits from a nurturing, fun, and child-centered environment during the day. Did you know that you can create a Montessori based environment in your home too? These books will help you to understand how to implement the methodology your child benefits from at school in your home.
Teaching Montessori In The Home- The Preschool Years, by Elizabeth G. Hainstock
This book emphasizes the importance of the first six years of life. This book guides parents to bring the Montessori methodology into the home and apply it to help their child learn everyday tasks.
Part one of the book provides a bio of Maria Montessori and an overview of her method. It also reviews the stages of childhood development and how the method applies to each stage. Part two presents the step-by-step teaching of real-life activities. You’ll teach your child to complete tasks like dusting, pouring, and setting the table. Not only will your child be able to help out with household duties, they’ll also be developing motor skills and coordination. Part three moves on to sensory activities like comparing and contrasting, recognition, and critical thinking. In parts four and five, activities are offered to practice the literacy and math skills your child is learning in school.
Montessori Play and Learn, A Parents Guide to Purposeful Play From Two to Six by Lesley Britton
Britton, a leading Montessori educator in England, shows parents how to design the home and plan activities using the Montessori approach. She advocates allowing your child’s unique personality to develop. You’ll learn how to plan your home around your child, starting with the bedroom and moving outward. By incorporating child-sized furniture and items into the home you’ll encourage physical independence. Put things at your child’s eye level, like coat hooks and bookshelves, and provide opportunities for active involvement. By including your child in household duties, you’ll be encouraging intellectual independence.
Part two of the book moves out of the home and into the neighborhood. Suggested activities include gardening to teach care of the environment, caring for pets and animals outside, or taking trips to parks, farms, and cities. Part three expands to the world. Activities to increase awareness of other cultures and countries, like exposure to foreign language, pictures of other countries, and foreign food can achieve this.
Montessori Read and Write – A Parents Guide to Literacy For Children, by Lynne Lawrence
Developing literacy skills can be an enjoyable journey for your child. Lawrence shows you how to develop a Montessori approach to your child’s upbringing and create a life-long love of reading. By providing a variety of meaningful, literacy-based activities for your child to choose from, you are allowing them to play an active role in their own education.
In the preparation phase, you can choose from activities like setting up a reading space, choosing a book, practicing page turning, or reading together. In the beginning steps towards reading and writing, your child will begin to explore sound. By associating sounds with pictures, tastes, and textures, children are better able to retain new knowledge. Games, songs, and finger play are also recommended at this stage. In the next stage children are ready to write and begin reading independently. Lawrence advocates providing children with access to writing tools and materials, and the use of objects and flash cards to encourage reading. Children should never be forced to read, and should always be allowed a choice of reading materials.
We hope these books will help you better understand the education your child will receive at our school. Please contact us for more on our school and method.
