Blocks and cooking!

I've been reading lately that blocks are the best toy for little kids to play with - haven't bought any till now because I have to be honest, I just didn't see the point (would far rather read to my kids!!) But today I saw the light!! I finally bought a set of blocks last week while we were in the Midlands, and today sat down on the lounge floor and played with the girls. They were so enthusiastic about playing with the blocks, I was really amazed! They started out building towers and then wanted to make houses for their plastic animals. This kept them occupied for ages - Emma kept saying, "I know, I know, let's ... " and then experimenting with different shapes. It was so sweet to see, and I could see they were processing a lot about the relationships between shapes and space just by handling the blocks (shades of Montessori, methinks...)


The house Amy built for her giraffe. Note that the giraffe is enjoying his first meal in his new home - Amy made sure to place the tree right under his nose!

I've also discovered another great activity which the kids love - chopping vegetables! Now instead of putting on a DVD while I'm preparing supper, I give the girls something to chop - cucumber, bab marrows, whatever. Emma's attention span seems to miraculously increase when we do this activitiy!

Kinds of activities to do with Amy & Emma (and Jess!)

This is a work in progress...

Here are the different things I'd like to do with my kids regularly:
Devotions (daily)
Reading stories (daily)
Music - singing, dancing, making music
Art & crafts
Baking
Gardening
Practical Life activities- cleaning, pouring, spooning, threading, etc
Sensorial activities
Other Montessori activities
Puzzles

First day of homeschooling!

Today was my first "official" day homeschooling Amy & Emma. Before I forget, I want to record what we did and how it went...(As I'm writing they're having their nap - oh blissful naptime!)

While we were having breakfast I read the girls today's portion in "Devotions for Preschoolers" (thanks, Mom! This was Amy's Christmas present last year) and then "The Whale and the Snail" - a current favourite picture book from the library. They really love being read to at meal times, so I plan to do this regularly.

After breakfast we made some bread (Rose's honey bread) - initially I thought it would be a good idea for the girls to help me measure the ingredients, but this quickly resulted in chaos - so I put the ingredients in and gave them each a turn to mix. Loved this.

Then I remembered that the lawnmower needed to be collected from the service shop - and Brian was needing to mow the lawn today. So we jumped in the car and went to collect it.

When we got back the bread was ready - just in time for a snack! (Cannot survive the morning without a snack or two.)

Then I made each of the girls lie on a piece of paper, and I traced their outline. They were so impressed with the result that instead of colouring and decorating the pictures as I'd planned, they worked on tracing their own hands and feet, my hands and feet, and Amy even took flowers out of the vase and tried to trace those! (Good precursor for nature study, methinks...)

Then I dashed to the shops to get a few things (fridge is empty after Easter weekend), leaving the kids at home with Maureen. I left the blocks out for them to play with.

When I got back I got things ready for the kids to paint outside, using their new easel. They absolultely loved this, spent ages outside painting while I got lunch ready and played a bit with Jess.

(Stripped down to their panties, of course!! I don't know what we're going to do when the weather gets colder - move inside, and use lots and lots of newspaper and huge aprons, I guess...)


After much admiration of their painting - they each painted their own painting and then decided to paint the easel as well, it's now got patches of yellow and red all over the one side - we went inside and had lunch. Then I read the girls another story - the Princess and the Pea - and finally, put them down for the long-awaited nap.

Phew!! We had a lovely morning, and I think what helped is that I've recently been reading a lot about beng very relaxed about the preschool years. I'm seeing that they really need to have fun, and that I need to learn to follow what they're interested in and what they're happy to do. Having said that, I'm still working on making some Montessori materials and am looking forward to introducing some alphabet and number work, but will do it very slowly.

Charlotte Mason / Montessori?

I've been reading alot about the Montessori approach over the past few weeks, and really like some of the ideas. I like the idea of the Montessori environment - everything geared to the child, all furniture etc child-sized, activities easily accessible from low shelves, etc...and I also appreciate Montessori's emphasis on encouraging the child's natural desire for independence, and for engagement with "the real world" and "real things". The child's mantra is "I want to do it myself" and according to Montessori, this should be encouraged and faciliated. Also, the materials are fascinating - so simple and yet incredibly carefully designed for learning, not content, but structure...engagement with the materials helps the child to learn to structure what she is learning about the world...I'm not explaining this very well, still just beginning to understand.

But I also really love the Charlotte Mason approach - this is where my real passion lies: a literature-based approach to education. I was wondering whether these two approaches - Montessori and Charlotte Mason - could complement each other when I came across this post: http://rusticanda.blogspot.com/2006/01/cms-letter-to-editor-regarding.html. It seems that Ms Mason had very passionate views on Montessori, and they didn't include a marriage of these two educational philosophies! Still, I plan to use some Montessori ideas in our playschool / homeschool journey, while focusing on lots of play and exposure to lots of great children's literature...O such heady ideals! Let's see what reality brings...