Home School

In my search for new activities to quench Sawyer's thirst for knowledge and creativity, I picked up a copy of "Teaching Montessori in the Home: The Preschool Years" by Elizabeth G. Hainstock. Ever since I worked at Montessori Center School in Santa Barbara, I've been a big fan of Montessori education for children that are of preschool age, mostly because I was able to witness first-hand the amazing tasks that the children were capable of accomplishing (and most of the time they were having FUN doing it!). This new book has provided me with some great ideas for setting up our own home "classroom." Since each day is a great opportunity for teaching and learning, I've decided that we are going to have "school time" every morning that the boys are home with me, schedule and errands permitting of course.

I've been making some of my own teaching materials for the past couple of weeks (thanks in large part to Holly for letting me borrow her laminating machine!), and the boys have responded even better than I thought. Sawyer's patience and concentration when he is immersed in a task never ceases to amaze me, and in true Montessori fashion I am letting him take the lead in choosing his own "work" so that he picks out things that he is truly interested in working with.

Today we cleared the toys and mess out of our front living room and brought in the boys' table and chairs and art easel to set up our school area. I chose this room because it has a lot of light and nothing (like television) to distract them from their learning. I was planning on having school time for about an hour, but I was pleasantly surprised that neither boy wanted to stop working, and we ended up spending almost two and a half hours in quiet work mode. Amazing! It totally set the tone for the rest of the day, and I was SO glad that the boys were both extremely patient and helpful with each other all day long.



Working together on an animal matching activity



Matching up toy animals with picture cards of the actual animal




Pattern making with the Connect Four game - Sutton's first time playing with the game, and he LOVED it enough to play with it for 45 minutes straight!



Sawyer matching up the colors from two identical paint chip strips (one whole and one cut into each individual color). He was really good at it!

Tracing his name on the chalk board