Montessori Moments

These "Montessori Moments" posts are meant to highlight some of the ways we implement the Montessori method in our home. Many of the activities that are featured--cooking, cleaning together, going out into nature, etc.--overlap with other parenting philosophies or might seem like things that parents just do with their children intuitively. I've still chosen to highlight them here because they are integral to the Montessori approach to parenting and education and fit within a comprehensive continuum of activities that support children as they undergo the important work of forming themselves. For more information about incorporating Montessori into the home, I recommend How to Raise an Amazing Child the Montessori Way for a basic overview. For more insight into Montessori as an educational philosophy, I recommend Montessori Today. When trying to implement Montessori with infants and toddlers, I recommend Montessori from the Start and Joyful Child, as well as my favorite resource, which is a DVD documentary of Montessori at home with a 20 month old called Edison's Day.

1) Cooking Eggs

I read Kylie's post about Caspar cooking eggs years ago. When Henry recently started showing signs of readiness, I figured we should give it a try. 

Henry has been cracking eggs for a while now, and he really enjoys doing all the prep work that goes into making scrambled eggs. He gets out the compost, whisk, and eggs. He cracks the eggs independently and whisks them. Around the time he turned 3, he started asking to help me cook them on the stove. I decided to skip the electric skillet because a) I didn't really want to purchase yet another appliance and b) Henry seems old enough to understand the severity of fire and heat (with close supervision). 

He pushes his learning tower over while I turn on the gas and butter the pan. I also pour the eggs into the pan. Then he uses his wooden spoon to push around the eggs until they are cooked. 

It reminds me of this article about why Montessorians introduce young children to needles, knives, and matches:

"All of this intention, attention, and precision gives the child knowledge of several things:

• S/he is trusted by the adults in his/her life;
• S/he is recognized by the adult as capable of keeping him/herself and others safe through his/her own self-discipline;
• S/he is trusted to remember and persevere in taking great care with a dangerous tool;
• The adult has confidence and faith in him/her;
• S/he can trust that when the adult says no, there must be a very strong reason because the adult has show respect by giving him/her dangerous tools to be used with great care and shown him/her how to use them;
• The adult will always do the very best to respect his/her desire to learn and do if it can possible be made safe;
• S/he can use dangerous tools to carry out dangerous tasks because s/he has skill and intention."

2) Real Glass

As I mentioned in this post, Tate is eating food now and drinking out of a real glass. In Montessori, we avoid using sippy cups. As the Michael Olaf website explains, "A cup with a top that prevents spills interrupts the natural development of the child's control of movement, and the development of skills of observation and logical consequence." 

It's such a tiny thing that makes so much sense to me. Henry started using glass from the age of four months, and he quickly learned how to hold the glass for himself and take great care with real glass because it can spill and break. 

3) The Weaning Table

I wrote about setting up the weaning table for Henry several years ago. Now it's Tate's turn! He uses it for any meal that we're not eating together as a family. When we're eating together as a family, he pulls right up to the table in his Tripp-Trapp high chair. 

Although the learning tower, weaning table, and Tripp Trapp were all expensive investments, they have been so incredibly useful for several years. Further, all of them are holding up extremely well, and I imagine it will be easy to recoup much of our investment by reselling the learning tower and high chair on Craigslist when we no longer need them. 

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