Montessori Moment: A Fire Lit

 We discovered that education is not something which the teacher does, but that it is a natural process which develops spontaneously in the human being.

~Maria Montessori

Let's get right into it. Tyler received a caterpillar jigsaw puzzle from his grandparents for Christmas, with pieces numbered 1-10. Though I thought it was really cute and loved that it was handmade by a local merchant, I didn't think he was ready for it yet. At all.

With a lot of help, he put it together that day, but when it was time to reconfigure his shelves to accommodate all of his new stuff, I almost stored in away with the other toys that are currently out of rotation. With hesitation, I placed it on top of one of his shelves. This is where I keep work that needs to be demonstrated more before it's placed on a shelf. It's where work that he doesn't quite "get" yet lives.

I then forgot about it (or maybe ignored it). It sat for a couple weeks. Then, looking for something to do, I watched Tyler nose around the top of the shelves (he's getting a bit too tall I guess). He quickly spotted the bright, colorful puzzle. With excitement he brought it down and carried it to his rug. I admit that I kinda sighed to myself. He hadn't shown a ton of interest in numbers. He was much more focused on letters. Sometimes, as bright as he is, he has spatial issues when it comes to puzzles. This was probably going to be a lot of me doing the work and Tyler getting frustrated.

Though I had to hand him each puzzle piece in order, he was excited. He had much less trouble fitting the pieces in than I had imagined. Huh. It went on the shelf so he could find it again, even though I knew he would need our help. If he had interest, we would give it a go.

For the next few days I started to give him two number pieces to choose from. "You need number three next. Which one of these is three?" Sometimes he was wrong, but more and more he was correct. Huh. Okay then... I let him figure things out, helping when asked, though pushing his frustration tolerance just a bit.

He quickly showed that he could do 1-3 on his own, then 1-4 and certainly 9-10. He struggled in the middle. As I briefly mentioned in another post, I then made a sturdy guide for him that matched his puzzle for him to reference.

He sort-of used the guide. He needed a bit of assistance at first in learning how to "read" it. Turns out he didn't need it much anyway. It often became a cute little cardboard caterpillar used for pretend play.

Before Ty had been using the puzzle for two weeks, he woke up one morning and completed it for my husband several times, without struggle or the need to fix errors. He was incredibly proud. With a gleam in his eye and constantly looking up and me with a grin that said "Isn't this awesome?!" he showed me too, again and again.

He quickly started naming all of the numbers on the pieces aloud, something he doesn't always do. He can certainly be one to keep his thoughts to himself. Though Ty can count objects to 13 (something he learned naturally), I hadn't worked on number recognition past 1-3. That first day of mastery, he broke apart the puzzle, messed them up, then put them back in the tray in perfect reverse order, 10-1. Each time he put the puzzle together he would lean back, scrunch up his shoulders with pride and joy and gaze at his work.

Boy was I wrong, huh? Though glad that I didn't put the puzzle away completely, I felt just a tiny bit ashamed at the lack of confidence I had in my son's ability. Then again, it seemed like wanting to put that cute little caterpillar together struck a match in him. The fire for wanting to learn his numbers was lit in a way that I hadn't been able to do before. Perhaps now was just the perfect sensitive time. Who knows? Now that he can complete the puzzle with ease, he has much more interest in his sandpaper numeral and peg work. He's shown interest in numbers all over his world and is proud that he can recognize so many of them. The fire has been lit, and it grows.

If I was still laying out the puzzle pieces in a line for him to fit together, or continuing to hand him each one as he went along, he may have thought himself incapable of doing it on his own. If I didn't back off and start to realize that he was a real drive for becoming independent with this activity, I could have squashed it. I could have hampered the learning process...the trial and error that must happen for real learning to take place.

Days later he still gets immense joy in showing us (and anyone else who comes to our home) how he can put together his caterpillar. Before this, and for the last month, his sense of pride came from the his mastery with The Pink Tower. Not only would he eagerly grab it from the shelf to show us while we were working and playing, but he would carry it into whatever room we were in and build it at your feet, looking up with what seemed like happy little sparkles shooting straight out of his little eyes. If you moved rooms before he got more than one block out, he would pick-up and follow you again. At this point we knew to stop (what was so important?), get down on the floor, and watch, matching the anticipation in his face. The feeling of independence of pride when he masters something can't be beat!

You did it, kid. You really did. High-five!

The Beauty of a Montessori Mind at Work!

Ty woke over two hours earlier than normal this morning. This Mama really, really needs rest. I had gone to bed a bit early to assure I would get it. Sigh. Nothing is a sure thing. I pushed through the first few hours, feeling kinda short-tempered, dragging, grumbling a bit...really not like me at all. Then I observed Ty at work this morning! What a mood changer!

First off, ignore the photo quality if you can. I was too lazy to go grab my camera and just used my phone. Sometimes when I get up, even if I'm not really involved much with what he's doing, it distracts him and he stops to follow me. Being Montessori-minded, I of course really hate to break his focus. 

Okay, that said, and I'm not sure how much of this intro is necessary, but Ty started off by putting puff balls down his shirt. We had just been using them for a gross motor activity that I'll blog about soon. Putting things down his shirt is a new (and adorable) way of exploring for him lately.

Then Tyler ran off to pound pegs into his M&D hammering/peg toy, a newer interest for him. After a bit of intense pounding, he made the connection that he also uses a hammer to pound things with his M&D Pound and Roll toy (an old favorite) and ran over to use it there. He then grabbed some puff balls to put down the pound a roll toy and noticed that they rolled down too, but that sometimes they got stuck, so he tried to pound/roll some balls down to get the puff balls out. Okay, nothing too incredible, though I really liked his problem solving. I could tell his brain was fired-up.

Tyler then started alternating between the two hammers, looked at me (quietly observing from across the room) and held one hammer up saying "big!" then the other saying "small!". Indeed! The handle on one is almost an inch shorter and the hammer head a bit smaller! Nothing that I really thought he'd take note of. Ahh, sensorial works are sinking in! 

It seemed like he wanted me to participate, so I moved closer and made some vocal observations. After a while of experimenting with the puff balls and pound and roll balls, he suddenly reached over and said "big!", touching the biggest Pink Tower block in a basket on the nearby shelf, then found the second smallest and said "small". Aha! Something else that's big and small!

He soon decided that he would demonstrate this idea to me further, lining the Pink Tower (we are only using five right now) horizontally saying "big" and "small". I also gave him the word "medium" for the middle block, something he paid more attention to today than last time I told him. He started using it correctly quite quickly. He then decided that he would put his extension cards in order as well. I can't say he uses them very often, so I was happily surprised. He talked again about his hammer sizes as well. Connections, connections! His brain was so ready to do this, and all on his own!

He then decided to match the cards to the blocks and did it perfectly.

Ty then built the tower vertically. He did this over and over, laying them on the cards then building them back up. After he was done with this, he started talking about how some of his puff balls are big and small as well!

Though I'm still awfully tired today, that beautiful Montessori moment really rejuvenated my spirit. It's one thing for Tyler to do a work that I've prepared, but those moments when he uses that knowledge so eagerly in other ways, independently, is always such a special delight. Montessori works! 

This whole Montessori thing...it's working!

At 17 mos old, I wasn't sure how much the activities we do and things that I have introduced Tyler to would really matter. Sure, he seems to enjoy and understand a lot of it, but is he truly working towards normalization yet? Well, I've been surprised in the last week to see how much it's sinking in!

After doing lessons on his fruit and vegetable nomenclature cards a few times and feeling confident that he knew what to do, I put three sets on the shelf. I wasn't convinced that this was something that he'd choose to do, especially as it's in the same location as his latches board, coin box, color stacker/sorter and farm puzzle(big favorites), but I had an empty spot on the shelf that was driving me nuts. These cards would have a lot of competition, and how much joy would he find in matching? He seemed to like working with them, but how much really? I expected that he would simply dump them on the floor and that I'd need to find a better choice for that spot soon, but it was worth a shot.


Catching him at work

For the first couple days, I saw him take the cards out at least once and do a match or two on the floor all on his own. I was shocked. Since then I walk into the kitchen several times a day to see that he is using them, or I notice the matches together on the floor where he's been. I can often hear him trying to pronounce each as he's looking at those cards as well; he now has a cute toddler-ese word for "potato" that I won't even attempt to sound out here!   


Taking the matching a step further by matching red pentagons from his color stacker as well?

If Tyler hadn't been interested in this work and I had attempted to force it upon him, this wouldn't have been the result. Pushing a child to learn something they're not interested in or ready to learn simply leads to an internal resentment towards learning as well as whatever specific activity you're trying to shove down their throat. The philosophy of Montessori is to follow the child's lead and to allow the child's natural path and pace of learning guide what they do and what you introduce, not to attempt to "create a genius".  I find this is the way some people who don't understand Montessori view the method and it couldn't be less true. Learning is to be seen as joyful to the child and seem like play! If Tyler isn't interested in an activity, we stop and try again another time. If Tyler is showing keen interest in another area, which is revealed by keeping a close watch on his daily activity, I introduce as much of that sort of work as I can create and find. A love for learning develops with the Montessori method, and I can see it truly budding in my little guy!  

Another recent "he's getting it!" moment happened over the weekend. I had been to Hobby Lobby for the first time and I excitedly came home with several bags full of goodies to create activities, a spring display, and art projects. As I was unpacking the bags onto the floor to take-in the sights of my many treasures, Ty became interested in some colorful glass bottles I had purchased. I had bought tiny puff-balls for him to put into these bottles for fine motor practice, and in an effort to keep him busy for a bit, I quickly opened the puff-balls and showed him what to do. He caught on and enjoyed the challenge of managing the tiny balls and getting them into the small openings on the bottle. He enjoys the glass gem and glass bottle activity so much, I figured this would be similar but more difficult. Success!

 After working for a few minutes, he suddenly got up and headed to where we keep his rug and frantically started to pull it out. He realized that what he was working on was an activity that would usually be done on his rug and wanted that area to work on! We've only really used the Montessori rug concept for two weeks, but it is an idea that Tyler clearly enjoys! We helped him move the work to his rug (and have since moved his rug to an easier, more accessible place) where he calmly continued and finished.  Normalization has truly begun!

An interesting piece of work, freely chosen, which has the virtue of inducing concentration rather than fatigue, adds to the child's energies and mental capacities, and leads him to self-mastery."

--Dr. Maria Montessori 



Work is calming

Tyler is typically a very fun, easy-to-giggle, happy little boy who loves to go off and play on his own, but ten days of exhaustion mixed with drugged hyperactivity from the lovely amoxicillin he's on, caught up with him for a moment last night. I was attempting to make dinner and Tyler wasn't in the mood for Mommy's attention to be elsewhere. I realized that he needed work, though I had nothing that I thought would keep his interest. I could tell he needed something new but not too difficult. Thankfully I had just read a post on the "Chasing Cheerios" blog about putting Q-tips into a hole in a container. Perfect! Thanks to my container hoarding ("I could use this for something someday, I'm sure...") I had a parmesan cheese container on my storage shelves and we were well stocked on Q-tips. In less than a minute the house switched from one full of whining chaos to silent focus.

Whew

As you can see by the amount of Q-tips, this went on for quite some time! He had great focus.

Realizing he could also use this as a soft sounding shaker

I admit I spent much of time that I should have used to make dinner, watching him and taking pictures. After he was finished he was calm and refreshed though, just as Maria Montessori promised! Making dinner was no longer an issue.

On our way to brushing teeth before bed, he noticed the work again and was eager to continue.

Impressive! I later counted 74 Q-tips in the container. This is certainly going on the shelf!