Greenheart Montessori
Katalin Lovassy
Friday 5: Recommendations
❌ Toy of the Week: Baby Walkers
Children have the sensitive period of movement, when they are eager to move following their natural patterns. Isn’t it beautiful to observe their development when they start to slither or turn from tummy to their back or vice versa? We are happy seeing them crawling, excited when they pull up to stand and start cruising along furniture; not even mention when they reach the developmental milestone of walking! Don’t rush the child and try putting him into commercial baby equipment such as a baby walker, what is even banned in many European countries!
It’s highly not recommended to use it, because it is not a healthy position to put the child in as the child cannot control the direction and speed of walkers, it sways in random directions at uncontrolled speeds. Excessive use of walkers contributes to misguided judgement of body boundaries and poor spatial abilities. It forces babies to walk on their toes, what is definitely not a healthy way to learn to walk. If the child spent a long time in it, he absorbs the pattern of walking on his toes, have weaker leg muscles, poor posture, and the tendency to lean forward while walking. The baby even develops a special space awareness problem, what can stay with him for all in his life.
✅ Toy of the Week: The Wagon
There are a variety of things in our environments to offer opportunities for the child to pull up and cruise sideways and forwards such as the weighted wagon. Leave the wagon available in the child’s environment, so the child can initiative interaction with it. Cruising is one of the last steps before walking independently. The baby’s legs and feet are still disproportionately small in relation to their trunk and head so they need to calculate how to coordinate movements of their body without falling in the process. They are learning co-ordinating movement of their hips, knees, and ankles without falling over. Cruising is not to be rushed, despite how impatient we may feel that the child is almost walking. We want the child to be relying on themselves for movement and not on us. Offering the wagon is a good way of supporting the child’s natural development supporting their freedom of movement.
Practical Life Idea: Doing Laundry
Practical life activities support the child’s development so much, such as language development, independence, boosting their self-esteem. Some further benefits are for example movement development, like gross and fine motor movement or stabilising the balance and coordination of the child.
One of a great example at the home environment could be doing the laundry with your child.
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Sorting Laundry
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Allow your child to help go through clean laundry and sort through items, putting socks together, shirts in another pile, etc...
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Items may also be sorted by what belongs to mom, dad, older brother, etc...
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Items may also be sorted by colour
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Folding Washcloths
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Lay washcloths open on flat surface. Hold with pincer grasp two extremities, lift and bring to meet and line with other edge. Flip/rotate and do the same to fold in 4.
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Fold a few cloths.
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This is a first step in practicing folding other, more complicated items.
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Folding Clothes
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To fold pants: show your child how to smooth out the pants, then hold one side with two hands and bring to the other side, rotate, then using two hands, take and lift bottom of pantleg to waistband, rotate, and do the same (unless you only do one-fold).
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This is one way of folding, but adapt it to how it is that you fold different clothing items.
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Book Recommendation of the Week
Malala Yousafzai, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Greta Thunberg, Dolly Parton and Michelle Obama are all inspirational women who we can look up to. It is exciting for children to get to know their stories and introduce them as positive role models. Little People-Big Dreams are a book of series for children about great people with big achievements for humanity.
Purchase from local Black-Owned Bookstores, like Marcus Books, the nation’s oldest Black-owned independent bookstore in Oakland, CA (where The PEACE Program is based).
Parent Question of the Week!
Montessori works only for preschool age children, right?
Great Question!
Dr. Maria Montessori said that human development continues for life, but a child attains maturity at around twenty-four years of age. These years of development can be divided into four planes of development – each plane comprising of a six-year phase. From birth to six years is the phase of Infancy. Six to twelve years is the Childhood phase. Twelve to eighteen years is called Adolescence and eighteen to twenty-four years is the phase of Maturity. In each age of development, nature has planned certain goals. The child is equipped with the pre-disposition to acquire those goals if appropriate environmental conditions are provided. The community environment for non-walkers called Nido, the Italian word for nest.
The child from 1-3 is at the Infant Community and from the age 3-6 in the Case de Bambini, called the Children’s House.
Children between 6-12 attend the adolescence program.
Dr Montessori called children between the age 12-18 Erdkinder - literally meaning children of the land.
Present times - day school with urban farms in the city.
