BOOKs: Based in reality

 

Within Montessori, children's books based on reality, rather than fantasy are seen as the most approriate for children.  Here are three books we have that are based on reality, with accompanying photography featuring children at work and play.

BOOK: Playmates by Jane Tanner

"At about a year and a half, the child discovers another fact,

and that is that each thing has its own name.

This show that..... s/he has been able to single out the nouns, and especially the concrete nouns."

 The Absorbent Mind, Maria Montessori

 

New to our bookshelf is this book, Playmates by Jane Tanner. Every once in a while I come across a book which finds a special place in my heart and this is one such book. This book is written and illustrated by Jane Tanner. The pictures are breathtakingly real and so beautiful.

Thankfully my children adore this book as much as I do.  At 16 months they are undergoing a explosion of words. A in particular shows a keen interest in the naming of things.

Drinking from a Glass - Update



This is A with her glass of water. She has added crackers to her water.

Recently A & G have decided glasses of water serve another purpose. There is water play, consisting of placing their hands into the glass of water and watching how water overflows from the top of the glass. Very fascinating. When they tire of water play, their next enjoyable activity is sink or float. Various uneaten items of food are dropped into the glasses. With an intent look of concentration they observe the food sinking or floating.

Evolving Spaces - Update

I wrote a post earlier on the floor bed and different spaces I have within my home (you can read it here.) Well everything and I do mean everything has changed.

Why, you ask?  The floor beds were somewhat successful for day time naps, however for night time sleeps it did not work for us. I believe if they were on floor beds from birth or say 3 or 4 months, it would have been successful. To keep Dad Dad and I sane we went back to cots. Sigh. I am not deterred though. Should I be lucky enough to have another child I would start with a either a moses basket on the floor in our room or floor bed from the very beginning.

What changes have I made? I swapped rooms around for one. The room with the cots, is based on the west side of the house and in summer the room would get very hot. We would have the windows open and the ceiling fan swirling to keep the girls cool in summer. The room the floor beds were in is now the room they sleep in and the room the cots were in is now where one floor bed is located.

OK so here are some pictures.
 

The new cot room

This is the room they sleep in. You will note they sleep is cots. I have tried removing one side of the cot. This didn't work out so great for us either. A & G are very agile and able to get into and out of their cots. It started with laughter and ended in tears when one sibling joined their sibling and gave them a good shove.  Something for us to work on. The tepee was my gift to them for their first birthday. Two cots and a tepee (and a few toys/books) are the only items in this room.




The Old Cot Room

This is the room they use to sleep in (remember in my previous post it was the rather messy room.) They slove this room. They come in here together or alone. Sit on the floor bed, roll around, read, talk and play with their toys. Since taking these pictures I have placed a mirror to the left, just beside the floor bed. I've also added a small basket in front of the mirror which holds their hairbrush.

I dress both girls in here. When we leave the house this is the room we make our way to. I sit on the floor cross legged, and one child sits on my lap, the other collects their shoes (this is a special task.)

I brush the hair of the child in my lap and sing a song about dressing and grooming . When I finish brushing the hair of the child in my lap, she joins her sister to sit on the side of the mattress. I put socks and shoes on both A & G, then brush the hair of the second child. Then we are ready to go. This room is beside the garage. Our outings involve either a car or collecting a pram (one of those huge twin prams that doesn't fit in the house), so we always exit our house via the garage.

Storage with a few of their favourite things and their shoes.



 

A chair for me, a table, tissues, a basket for storage and the wooden plane.

Drinking from a Glass



A drinking from her glass

I wanted to write a small post about drinking from a glass. In particular I wanted to document our experience so far. The above picture features A, she is our expert drinker. She can and will drink from any cup, glass, bottle and even via a straw. This is her drinking water from her glass at dinner time. She also takes a lot of care when placing her glass on the tray or table top.

 

At 6 months old we started offering A & G drinks from a shot glass, then a series of espresso glasses and progressed to little glass tumblers. Some of the glasses I purchased from stores and others I acquired from various local charity stores.

Wavy Knife or Crinkle Knife

We own two wavy/crinkle cutters or knives. The black one I have owed pre-children. We only own one. The handle is designed for use by an adult. I have seen this exact type for purchase in several kitchen stores. I use this a lot when I am whipping up a stir fry for dinner. It is especially handy for cutting vegetables, like carrots and zucchini.  Post children I often use this to halve vegetable or hamburger patties, cut apples, carrots, pumpkins or sweet potatoes into interesting chips for the girls dinner or snack.

We own two of the green wavy cutters. I made sure I brought two, one for each child and both are the exact same colour. I would have liked red, but they only had one in stock. Purchasing two in different colours, has the potential to lead to conflict at the moment, so items exactly the same is a safer bet.

Stephanie at Montessori on the Double has recently posted about cutting with a knife and kitchen activities. If you have not read her post a link is here. Kylie at How we Montessori also posted about the same topic here.

The green one is the exact same brand mentioned by Stephanie at Montessori on the Double and the same one pictured in use in How we Montessori.

I purchased ours from our local kitchen store for $6.95. The brand is Joie. I have seen this available in red, green and yellow. I did take a photo of our wavy/crinkle knife in its packaging (see below.) Size wise the knife is 9cm long and 8 cm wide, about the size of a cup coaster.

 

If you are based in Brisbane we purchased ours from Whisk Home Essentials in Northlakes Westfield Shopping Centre, but you could also try Robins Kitchens or House stores, which can be found in most large shopping centres. These are small and easy to miss so ask the staff for help.

My little pilot

Walker plane - beautifully hand crafted

June has been a very busy month for us. I expect it always will be. This month we had a long weekend away and went on a farm stay in Northern New South Wales, near Byron Bay. Lovely weekend, but it was cold and it did rain and rain and rain.

On this weekend we made our way into a little town called Bangalow, which hosts a farmers market on the weekend and has a number of little shops.  During our visit we saw a number of handcrafted wooden toys. I fell in love with all the toys, they were amazing and I wish I had taken a photo of all the toys they had available. In case want to know, they had a huge dump truck, train, truck with trailer for car transport (including the cars), rocking horse, cars, smaller trucks and a pram. All the items are made by a local craftsperson, from wood (look at the wood grain) and the workmanship is superior. If you are ever visiting Bangalow please visit Windhorse Gallery.

Unfortunately when travelling with twins there is never spare space in the car. So we could only buy one item. I was thinking a small car, however A had other plans. She saw the plane, her eyes were as huge as saucers and once she sat on the plane she had the hugest smile. There was no way we were getting out of the shop without the plane.

A and her plane - Future Pilot perhaps?

So, we are proud owners of a walker plane. A loves this plane and this is definitely hers. G does get to sit on it and have a ride, however, G is always quick to turn up and take over. I guess we will have to work on her sharing skills.

A (in striped top) taking over again. Poor G been sidelined (again)

Book Display Shelves

It has been a very busy week. Time seems to be slipping through my fingers! I've spend most of last week and this week researching two topics, bookshelves and modern cloth nappies.

This write up is on bookshelves. I really, really, really want a front facing display book shelf. I want. I'm almost, no I am obsessed with finding the perfect display book shelf, one where the book covers face outwards. The advantage of a front facing bookshelf is the book covers are on display and thus young people are attracted to the books, consequently encouraging reading and more importantly returning the books.

Here are my requirement

• able to display front covers
• free standing - we are renting and I don't want to put holes in the walls
• durable -  can handle the knocks and bumps it's likely to encounter.
• ageless - should age well and not look out of date 5 years from now. Also neutral color (not gender specific.)

My finding so far are in the picture above and below is a summary.

Œ	Imaginarium Book Library $59.99 available at Toys R Us
	Wooden Book Storage Organiser $49.99 available at Toys R Us
Ž	Junior book display. I love this book display and it would be prefect for our living area, unfortunately sold out and I haven’t found a similar design available for purchase in Australia.
	Book display. Sloped book display shelves on one side and deep shelving on the other side. I like the idea of wheels, makes it easy to move and clean underneath. I have no idea the cost of this. But it looks sturdy and well made. I imagine this would last forever. Made by TP Preschool Equipment . Website http://www.tppreschoolequipment.com.au
	Double side book display. Good if you have lots of books, unfortunately sold out as well. Website http://www.teaching.com.au
‘ & ’	6 & 7 Similar to number 4 except no wheels.  Number 6 shows the shelves and number 7 the book display. Available from http://www.teaching.com.au
“	Wire book display stand. Available from http://www.wooldridges.com.au

So far I'm thinking maybe number 6 & 7‘’.

Shelving I would have considered if we weren't renting.

If we weren't renting a google search showed loads of wonderful parent's who have used clever ideas to create display shelving for books, for example

• Ikea spice racks in this Montessori bedroom here
• Rain Gutter book shelf here
• Recycled Wood Pallet Shelving here
• DIY project - Flat wall book shelves here

I showed my husband another picture (not the one I've linked to on this page) where someone had used Ikea spice racks to display books from knee height to eye level of an adult. I thought it was wonderful and very clever. He said "that's a neat climbing frame." It never occurred to me that it might serve another purpose. I'm also fairly confident at least one of my little people would see a climbing frame as well.

Anyway check out this website if you want inspiration for children's bookshelves.

Montessori Materials - Look what arrived!

Look what arrived last week! I'm so happy with theses. Direct from At Home with Montessori we received our order for our Palmer Grasp Cylinder Block and the Pincer Gasp Cylinder Block. We also have the interlocking discs (not photographed here. )

A & G are very good with the Palmer Grasp. The girls have examined and scrutinised these blocks very closely. When they pull the cylinder blocks out they like to poking their fingers into the hole. I have placed both blocks on a shelf in our living area.

A loves the Pincer Grasp block. I have to keep track of where she crawls to when she has the cylinder in her hand(s). So far I've found the cylinder under the sofa, in the kitchen, under the desk in the study and in the treasure basket.  Her other favorite place to put the cylinder is her mouth.

Treasure Basket

If you have read How To Raise An Amazing Child the Montessori Way by Tim Seldin, you may have come across the Treasure Basket. Creating a Treasure Basket was one of the first Montessori things I did. It's simple and doesn't cost a lot to put together, just some thought in gathering the items together.

Above is our Treasure Basket. The basket came from Sam's Warehouse for $8 and everything else we already had in the house. Below is a picture of what is in our basket at the moment

• rattle
• shoe
• bowl
• baby wipe wrapper (see below)
• stainless steel egg cup
• silicon egg ring
• wooden spoon
• stainless steel sugar bowl
• box

Top Favorites

Shoe - A&G are fascinated by shoes, they don't have shoes at the moment, so I brought a pair placed one in their basket. This shoe has been closely examined by them on numerous occasions and is often the first item to be extracted.

Rattle - I know it's plastic, but they love it. It came from a charity shop, they use to just shake it, but now they roll it across the floor. They are also very enthralled by the small balls rolling around at the ends.

Sugar bowl - Feels different and has an interesting lid with a small handle at the top to practise their pincer grip. They like to lift the lid up, then let the lid go and listen to it clatter. Oh wow, what an interesting noise that makes. Let's do that again. On occasions they have been known to fight over the sugar bowl.

Bowl (Green) - A new addition to the basket and by far their favourite . It makes a very interesting noise on the tiles, and is the right shape and size to spin across the tiles.

Black box  -  Another  new addition to the treasure basket it contains three items inside which rattle, A&G are practising taking the lid off the box. It take a lot of concentration.

Lastly the baby wipes. This is a empty packet, which I have cloth wipes inside. They like to take tissues out of box, and this is a variation. At home with Montessori covered this in her blog where they used a pringles tube. .

Books for Infants

Here are two of our favourite books. Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown

and The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle.

I remember been enthralled by The Very Hungry Caterpillar when I was young and now I have children I see why. There are so many aspects covered by this book (life cycle of a butterfly, days of the week, colours, counting, food variety, the moon and the sun and it is interactive)  A&G like to explore this book by poking their little fingers in the holes the caterpillar has created.

My parent brought my sister and I a Swan plant when we were little. They may have brought two, so we wouldn't fight over one plant. The Monarch Butterfly likes to lay its eggs on the leaf of the Swan plant. I remember visiting the plant each day and to our delight one day we discovered little white eggs on the leaves. We watched avidly as the little caterpillars hatched, ate the leaves on the plant, grew larger, turned into a chrysalis/pupa and eventually a butterfly. It truly was an amazing experience to witness. I hope to provide the same experiences with my children. I feel it is important to create opportunities for real life activities and memories that will be remembered many years after the event. Since they have one of the best books on the life cycle of a butterfly, why not investigate avenues to provide them with a real life experience.

Both these books are Big Board Books otherwise known as lap books. They cost more than the normal board books, but I buy these where possible.  A & G like to touch the pages, help turn the pages, sometimes sit on the page, and press their faces closer to the book to look as whatever has caught their fancy. The bigger the book the less fussing and frustration experience by everyone.

PS : Please note the Swan plant is declared a weed in some states of Australia.

Our Local Library

I love the library. It's free! As a twin mum I look for places that provide good parking and easy access to the facilities, including a door wide enough for a twin pram to enter and move about. Libraries tick all the boxes. Also some libraries have undercover parking so on a rainy day they are perfect places to visit.

I have always loved libraries. I aim to instill a love of books, or more importantly reading into my children. We read to the girls everyday and we visit the library every fortnight. I often travel to other libraries, as each library offers something different. The libaries do get busier with the after school crowd, so I prefer to visit before 2:30 pm. This allows A&G the opportunity to leave their pram and explore the library.

This is the children's space in our local library. Libraries today are different to when I was young. Beautiful don't you think? A special space design for little people.

All the board books are stored on the bottom shelf. Little people (crawlers and walkers) can move about this space without parents worrying about the books been torn by curious little individuals.

There is enough open space for tummy time, crawlers and walkers. Plus enough room for our twin pram to move and park up without been in the way. Before A&G crawled I would often lay a blanket on the floor and put them down for tummy time.

The library also has a selection of toys members can borrow (including puzzles and pretend play items). Every week they display a "Toy of the Week." When we visited an activity centre was the toy of the week and it kept A&G very busy.

So if you haven't visited your local library recently give it a try, there is something for everyone.

Opportunities for Gross Motor Skills

We do not have stairs in our house, so we do not have the option for A&G to climb up and down steps. I have improvised by placing the cushions for our sofa on the floor and creating a step.  G can climb up onto the sofa easily, A on the other hand is still building up her confidence to climb up to the second level.

The beauty of our sofa is it's free (!) and it can be configured differently depending on how many cushions I want to place on the floor.

G worked out very quickly how to climb up and I taught her how and where to climb down. I will do the same once A works out how to climb up.

There's nothing more pleasurable then watching your child learn to do something for themselves. The big smile on their face is worth a million dollars.

Freedom of Movement

We own 1 baby gate, which is currently dismantled. A & G can move freely throughout our house. Rooms I do not want them in I close the door, for example the laundry. I have select toys, activities and a mystery basket in various locations in our house.

A&G have been wake from their morning nap for about an hour. I gave them a  morning snack consisting of a whole strawberry and 1/2 a Cruskett with avocado. Since snack time, I've been observing them discretely and they have been very busy.

Front Entrance

• Both crawled to front door to look outside and watch the building activity at our neighbour's house across the road. 15 minutes.
• G  crawled to archive box waiting to go to storage. Stood up and banged on the box lid. She spent 10 minutes at this task which I think is a long time. She obviously loves to bang on things. A is still watching what is happening across the road. 
• G is bored now, lets out a squeal and disturbs her sister who turns around and squeals at her.
• A crawls to storage cupboards to open and close the bottom draw. G joins her and they enjoy 10 minutes opening and closing the draws whilst babbling to each other. Not sure what they were discussing but they sure were enjoying themselves.

Total time 35 minutes

Study (next to entrance)

• A crawls to study and sits under desk.
• G follows (2 minutes later) and starts squealing. The squeals echo so A joins in.
• The squeals are ear piercing, I go in and speak to them about using their inside voice when in the house.

Total time 5 minutes

Lounge

• A & G follow me to lounge area and both see the nesting cup tower I built for them while they were having their snack.  Both crawl to the tower to smash the tower down.
• A crawls over to the books and G uses the couch to stand up. She spends 5 minutes cruising from one end the next. A is still reading her book (upside down.) The book has photos of baby animals.
• G crawls over to join A reading, en route she is distracted by a noise from outside. Crawls back to entrance to investigate. (5 minutes)
• G comes back, rolls around on the floor in the lounge whilst talking to her foot. A discards her book and selects another book. (10 minutes)

Total time 20 minutes.

The grand exit

• G crawls off in direction of kitchen.
• A decides to join her. Discards her book and crawls off.

I can't see them any more, but I can hear one banging on the bongo drums and the other babbling in the hallway. The babbling sounds like A. I'm off to take a sneaky look at them.

Gardening Activity

I love vegetable gardens, as we are renting I'm limited to gardening in pots. A salad garden is always good to have and can be gown most of the year in South East Queensland. On the weekend I purchased a variety of salad seedlings. The other day the girls and I planted the seedling consisting of lettue and Kale. Not sure how the Kale will go in our warmer climate.

I set up the potting station in our garage. As they are too young to really garden, I did all the work and talked to them about what I was doing. They were most attentive, until A became bored and crawled off to bang on the drink fridge door. G remained and seemed facinated by what I was doing. I turned around to pick up the brush and shovel to clean up our mess. When I turned back around, two seedlings were missing and G had a lettuce leaf hang out of her mouth.

Success alround and finised off by the girls crawling to their room for an afternoon nap.

Creative montessori spaces on the cheap

Before I read up on Montessori we would put the girls down for tummy time and then give them rattles and toys. We all but put items in their hands, so they never really had to reach for anything unless they threw items out of their reach. Once I started reading up on Montessori we stop doing this, pared back the toys and were more thoughtful in our toy selection.

As mentioned earlier my introduction to Montessori coincided with G learning to crawl, so I knew we would need to make some changes in the house. I loved the idea of having a few select items on low shelving, but we are renting at the moment whilst we look for a house plan to build. I couldn't justify buying new furniture that may or may not fit into our new house.

My solution was to remove the junk in the cupboard of our TV unit and placed some of the select items on the shelf. When the babies went to bed we would just close the door and hey presto a clean tidy room.

G loved it, she loved to pull everything out and climb inside it even better. Working on her spatial awareness. The novelty of climbing into the cupboard has worn off, she moved onto bigger and better things, which I'll cover in another post.

A, at first wasn't a big fan, remember we use to just give everything to her. We knew she was capable of rolling we never gave her the motivation to roll. Eventually she realised if there was something she wanted then she had to move herself (in this case rolling.) Also watching her sister having all the fun was a big motivator to move. Consequently, she also figured out how to sit up.

Eventually I had to remove the doors as G liked to sit by the doors and swing the doors open/close/open/close and it became a hazard once A was more mobile and rolling. So the TV unit looks like this now. The items change, except for two books they like, the Fisher Price Shake Rattle and Roll Ring sorter (a gift) and the nesting cups (another gift) remained as firm favorites. The activity centre remained for a while, but has made its way to the garage, where all baby bits and pieces end up.

Montessori sites I love

After the 2011 Christmas/New Year break I actively started researching the internet for information on baby proofing, weaning and crawling. What spurred this hub of activity? The girls had just turned 6 months and A loved food, she would watch anyone eating and took to eating mushing solids like a duck to water. G on the other hand did not want anything to do with food. I feel we may have pushed the solids on G and in reflections she just wasn't ready for it. G on the other hand showed signs of crawling at 6 months, she was up on her hands and knees rocking back and forward and sure enough at 6 months and 1 week she was off. A on the other hand showed no signs of wanting to roll.

The challenge of twins is you always have another baby, for want of a better word to compare too. One rolls the other doesn't - there must be something wrong, one eats the other doesn't - there must be something wrong, one crawls one doesn't - there must be something wrong. See the theme here?

As a mother I have to constantly remind myself to take a deep breath and be in the moments, because they fly by so fast. So how do you do that with two babies, so I searched and searched and came across two wonderful sites

How we Montessori - Australian based (Canberra) please note Kylie is not a twin mum, but her site is rich in information and links to resources. I've found her site to be invaluable.

Montessori on the Double - Stephanie is a twin mum and never ceases to amaze me with what she has achieved with her two little ones.

Wow what a discovery, and I've been hooked ever since. I won't reinvent the wheel by rewriting what has already been written, but if you are interested in finding out a different way/lifestyle/option for weaning, bedrooms for infants and much, much more head over to Kylie's site at How we Montessori and  Montessori on the Double.