Parenting Resources

Parenting presents numerous challenges, growing in complexity as children age. These parenting resources provide guidance for dilemmas you may be facing. Several articles are from Montessori Life which is the American Montessori Society’s parent magazine.  The guides on independence are original documents from TMA.

Montessori Life

Separation: The Beginning of Letting Go

Your child needs your support and encouragement to learn to separate. When she took her first steps, you held out your arms, smiling and urging her to walk toward you. If he fell, you encouraged him to get back up and try again. The same is true with separating!

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Bringing Montessori
Home

The gifts we can give our children are adequate time, an economy of age-appropriate and well-communicated expectations, and trust in their innate capabilities, which are the same principles that support Montessori’s educational philosophy!

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Starting Each Day: Tips to Get out the Door On Time

It’s possible to make the morning routine a team effort, rather than a competition with parents doing all the heavy lifting. The keys are to be prepared, give yourself plenty of time, and allow your children to be independent.

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Your
Smartphone Or Your Life

The device’s ubiquitous presence at the dinner table, on the nature walk, and during drive time and downtime signals to sons and daughters that they must compete with these inanimate objects for their parents’ attention or simply resign themselves to the shared attention.

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Talking Respectfully to Your Children

We often jump to conclusions and step in without taking into account what our child might be doing, thinking, or feeling. Put down the phone, turn off the television, watch, and look into your child’s eyes when you speak.

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Creating Emotional Safety: Tantrums & Crying

We don’t need to control children; we need to control our own feelings and our own behavior. Our job is to guide them, to be with them, and to support and enable them to feel safe while they release what they need to release.

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In the Montessori Classroom

Early Childhood Food Prep
Early Childhood Montessori at Home – Food Prep

Food prep is a multi-stepped lesson that requires concentration, order, and coordination to be successful. The child has to first wash her hands, set out the material, prepare the food to serve, and then use social skills to offer the food to her peers.

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June 10, 2020
Practical Life Sewing
Montessori at Home – Practical Life

Maria Montessori designed the Practical Life curriculum to teach children concentration, independence, and a great love for work.She discovered that children have an innate need to imitate the activities of adults, as this is their way of learning about their role within society and their environment.

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May 27, 2020
Early Childhood Push Pinning
Early Childhood Montessori at Home – Pin Punching

Pin punching is a fine motor activity and is easy to do at home. Starting with a piece of construction paper, students trace around a shape or draw a simple picture. Then, using a push pin, students carefully create perforation around the shape by making small holes along the line.

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May 4, 2020
How to Montessori at Home: Art

For young children, open ended art provides unlimited possibilities for creativity and concentration. Rather than provide detailed instructions or coloring books, offer different mediums like watercolors, crayons, colored paper, scissors and glue.

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March 20, 2020
Early Childhood - Geometric Solids
Early Childhood – Geometric Solids

The sensorial curriculum area is unique to Montessori education, encouraging children to engage all five senses in their learning, forming concrete ideas from the abstract in their environments. The Geometric Solids are a key part of the sensorial curriculum area, allowing children to understand 3D shapes by making them tangible objects.

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February 19, 2020

Independence Guides