Montessori Renaissance

We recently have experienced a Montessori Renaissance in our home, in part as a result of resurrecting this blog. It's been so refreshing for the older girls, because Montessori is a welcome change of pace from the rigors of, "Now it's time to do math, pages 89 - 101 and the corresponding exercises." (I kid. But truly, Singapore Math is INTENSE.)

On Friday, the girls worked for hours. They were busy and happy and productive, and somehow I even managed to clean a little while they worked!

The sensorial materials still have as much appeal for our 5-y.o. today...

...as they did three years ago:

Our 7-y.o. is rediscovering her favorite Montessori materials and -- in a wonderful turn of events for our family -- is thoroughly enjoying presenting materials to our 3-y.o.:

It's like having an extra teacher in the house (and further testimony to the brilliance of the Montessori method)!

I certainly don't plan to abandon the curriculum choices we've made, because I feel confident that our girls are getting a great education; however, I am looking forward to incorporating more Montessori into our weekly schedule, and the girls are too. :)

Free Pink Tower/Brown Stair Extensions, Part 2

Of all the things I've posted about on this blog, nothing has sparked more interest than the free pink tower/brown stair extensions we set up and photographed in January 2009.

Looking back at the post, I was reminded how beautiful the Montessori materials are -- they are sublime in their beauty, simplicity, and sheer genius. We were inspired to make a new set of designs from scratch, and the girls welcomed the challenge (there are a few pics of the girls working on them here), even designing one of their own.

Below you will find photos of a new set of extensions for you to use in your Montessori classroom (and the names we gave them).  Like the Montessori materials themselves, the pictures call to our kids and compel them to build, build, build! We hope you enjoy them!

(Please feel free to repost, share, etc.; if you do, please include a reference to the blog and/or link back.  Thanks! :)

Chunky:

Labyrinth:

Circle:

Nautilus:

Stairstep:

Double-S Snake with Tail:

Back-to-Back Skyscraper (our 7-y.o.'s creation):

Symmetry Facade:

Argyle:

Starburst:

Aztec Antenna:

[You can see the entire Picasa album here, and you can see the album with the first set of extensions here.]

OMS Daily

As promised, we're starting a somewhat daily ;) photo- and video-based blog to record our homeschool work.

Over at OMS Daily, you can see the work the girls do each day as well as a monthly spreadsheet we use to track what they have accomplished.

OMS Daily will be rough and definitely not stylish -- just a place where we upload pics from the day, with brief descriptions of what's happening in the picture, so you get a feel for the pace and subject matter of the girls' work.  It's been a fun way to record everything the girls do in a day, and the older girls really like tracking their progress.

Tuesday is our big day to be out of the house, so we won't have much to post on Tuesdays -- the older girls, the baby, and I go to our homeschool co-op (where the big girls take their co-op classes and I go to a ladies' Bible study while the baby hangs out in the nursery), and our 3-1/2 y.o. goes to her preschool.

We have posts back to January 2, so you'll need to click through a page or two to see all the older posts.

If you are interested in what we are doing, please check it out. :)

The Curricula We Use (January 2012)

After our oldest daughter, now 7, was ready to move on from Montessori as her core curriculum, we decided to try the classical model of education for her (we have a full Montessori preschool set up in our living room, and while we felt comfortable teaching those materials and extensions, we weren't prepared at that time to add elementary Montessori to the mix). We started when she entered first grade, and her younger sister, then 4, did everything right alongside her. We loosely based our curriculum on Susan Wise Bauer's The Well Trained Mind and supplemented with Singapore Math (Standards Edition) and some classes through a local homeschool co-op. This year, we added Classical Conversations to the mix (we do it at home because our local CC groups were full, but that arrangement has worked out well for us :).  We have continued to add bits and pieces, and this frankensteinian approach has produced good results, allowing us to tailor our teaching to each child's strengths and weaknesses.

Here's where we are today:

N, 7 y.o.:

• Classical Conversations memory work, science, art, and music (currently on Cycle 3) and Veritas Press history cards
• Singapore Math (currently on level 4A)
• Spelling Power (currently on level E)
• Zaner-Bloser Handwriting (currently on 2C)
• Writing With Ease (about to start level 2)
• Story of the World (about to start volume 4)
• Montessori (various practical life, sensorial, and grammar work, and lots of demonstrating for her younger sisters)
• Bible (currently reading the Bible in a year)
• Homeschool co-op (U.S. Geography and Bible classes 1 day each week)
• Piano lessons (1 day each week) and practice (5 times a week)
• Ballet (2 days a week)

S, 5 y.o.:

• Classical Conversations memory work, science, art, and music (currently on Cycle 3) and Veritas Press history cards
• Singapore Math (currently on level 2A)
• Spelling Workout (currently on level A)
• Zaner-Bloser Handwriting (currently on 2M)
• Writing With Ease (about to start level 2)
• Story of the World (about to start volume 4)
• Montessori (exception word drawers as well as various practical life, sensorial, and math work)
• Bible (currently reading the Bible in a year)
• Homeschool co-op (Bible class 1 day a week)
• Ballet (1 day a week)

G, 3-1/2 y.o.:

• Classical Conversations memory work, science, art, and music (currently on Cycle 3) and Veritas Press history cards
• Montessori (the full preschool curriculum)
• Public preschool (tailored for children with hearing impairments with a focus on precise speech and language development -- 1 day a week)
• Bible (currently reading the Bible in a year)
• Ballet (1 day week)

E, 1-1/2 y.o.:

• Montessori (getting started with basic preschool work :)

I'll post more about why we chose these particular curricula and our opinions of them later, but I wanted everyone to see where we are so our daily blog, which I'll link to soon, will make sense.

Really?

Has it really been two years since my last post?

How I've missed you all, and how I've missed this blog, and how I've missed the Montessori world. (Because not only have I not been posting, I also haven't been reading very much!) Thanks for sticking with me.  

Much has happened over the past two years, and I hope to be able to share a little over the next couple of weeks. Very briefly, though: 

1) I changed my name to Renée. Hi. :)

2) The girls are now 7, 5, 3-1/2, and 1-1/2.

3) We continue to homeschool, although--due to a number of families who moved and other changes--no longer in a home co-op format.  :(

4) Although the older girls (7 and 5) have pretty much moved on from Montessori as the core of their curriculum, we are in the thick of Montessori with our 3-1/2 y.o., and I look forward to slowly incorporating our 1-1/2 y.o.

I'm excited to start blogging again, and I plan to blog here at least once a week about bigger-picture, curriculum-type things and any new materials I've made (but I'll be talking about more than just Montessori, because we use multiple curricula now).

And instead of writing loooong posts about our daily work (my own fault -- I'm too wordy :), in an effort to catalog what we do each day, I'm starting a separate blog where I will quasi-live blog our lesson plans and daily work (I'll link to it as soon as it's ready to go live). That blog will be mostly photo-based, with iPhone snapshots (I'm retiring the big camera that requires lengthy uploads, which means I'll be able to get posts up faster, but the picture quality won't be as nice), and there won't be much text.  It won't be clean and polished but instead will offer a quick, real-time look at our work. 

I will do my best to respond to every comment/question/suggestion/request, but I can't promise anything...sorry.

My husband will probably help me with my blogging duties here or at the new blog.  He is an integral part of our homeschool, and I literally could not homeschool without him. After the addition of daughter #4, there were days--months, really--when I did no schooling and he did everything!

I will have some exciting news about some Montessori resources he and I are developing...hopefully later this year. :)

I'm excited to be back, and I'm excited to share all that we're doing!