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November In The Kitchen Garden
Planting Overwinter onions, garlic or shallots is a perfect activity for toddlers and preschoolers. We are just planting garlic this year. The cloves are chunky and easy for kids to hold and generally speaking they can survive most mishapscaused by tiny gardeners! Any bulbs you put down in Autumn will be ready in June or July. Prepare Your Beds Garlic, onions and shallots all like free-draining soil. As the bulbs will be in the soil until at least June you must take steps to prevent them becoming waterlogged. The kids helped me to drill drainage holes in the base of our planters. Tip for kids: garlic isn’t all that exciting…
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What is Martinmas?
Martinmas is a hugely popular festival within the Waldorf education community. This will be our first proper year celebrating it with a lantern walk and special meal. What is Martinmas? Martinmas is a Christian feast day and takes place on the 11th of November. It is a popular celebration in mainland Europe, especially in Germany where it is a part of both the school year and the community calendar. Celebrations usually involve children going for a walk carrying homemade lanterns and singing little rhymes. There are a number of ways you can interpret the day if you wish to incorporate it into your family’s life. Christian Interpretation St Martin is…
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Montessori Short Bead Stairs
It’s hard to think of a way to make maths more attractive to a child than with a treasure chest of jewels. The Montessori Short Bead Stair is appealing to adults and children alike. It is irresistibe! There’s something about the colours, the compartments, the order, the shiny surfaces which is so inviting that you want to find out what this box is all about. What is the Montessori Short Bead Stair The beads are a material used by children throughout their primary school years to learn mathematical facts and processes. From straightforward counting to simple processes like counting on and addition to step counting and even multiplication and the…
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Bonjour French, Adios Spanish! Our Plans for Pre-School French
Before our kids were born I decided I would speak to them in Spanish as much as possible. A fine plan! I’ve been low-key trying to get Alfie into Spanish since he was born. First with nursery rhymes, then simple peekaboos, the odd book, a cartoon here and there and visits to Spain. And he just wasn’t into it. Ever. Over the years he’s had a tiny amount of exposure to French and about 6 months ago I noticed that he was far more receptive to French than he’d ever been to Spanish. I resisted switching languages for a long time but I’ve finally faced facts that, for reasons unknown,…
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Learning at Home and Social Distancing
(Insert statement about difficult times here) Our home learning is very informal, although Alfie is old enough to be half way through his preschool year we haven’t started anything remotely like formal learning. Last week I sat down and thought critically about the kind of learning opportunities I was enabling. Home Learning Art & play: the vast majority of our day is spent in free play. Alfie loves creating scenarios for his mini figures and can spend hours muttering and singing to them. Indi frequently watches him or imitates what she sees him doing. Both of them have also been drawing and painting a lot and Alfie loves making models…
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Home Rhythm: Meal Planning and Meal Prepping
Earlier this week I posted about how I got started planning our Home Rhythm. As I assessed our home rhythm I drew up a list of things that felt either time consuming or stressful. Cooking dinner (and meal planning in general) was top of both lists. Whenever I mention meal planning on Insta stories I get a load of questions about it, so here it is, everything I know! Get Started With Meal Planning I’m not a naturally organised person, Scheduling snack times was easy, meal planning was a bit trickier! Every day I was spending too much time chopping vegetables or making last minute dashes to the shop, even…
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The Montessori I Spy Game – Pre-Reading for Toddlers
Phonics (letter sounds) have become pretty mainstream over the last ten years, most parents and schools know that reading starts with sounds. And yet we’re all so keen to bring out the letters, the CVC words and the digraphs. Confused yet? Imagine being a child! Before reading comes the Montessori I Spy Game. Before we rush ahead with printed letters there needs to be a good solid phonic foundation AND a pleasant relationship with reading. The Montessori I Spy Game is the perfect place to start. You can scaffold it into a few stages to help your break up the reading process. The Montessori I Spy Game – Round 1…
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Montessori Appropriate Fiction about Animals
In our home we tend to stick to five principles of Montessori Appropriate fiction, you can read more about them here, this can be tricky because Alfie LOVES animals and finding realistic animal fiction is tough. I’ve divided this list in two the first section features books with nothing unrealistic in terms of behaviour or ability, the second has some very mild fantasy. I’m happy to include some fantasy (Alfie is 3.5y) because this is a home not a school! Alfie spends so much time with real animals he knows the limits of their abilities. Likewise he can ‘read’ animal behaviours so knows they can think and have feelings eg…
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Finding our Home Rhythm
If you’ve been following us on Instagram then you will know that for a few weeks I have been consciously making an effort to establish a home rhythm. This rhythm was inspired by being a student on Eloise Rickman’s Rhythm In The Home course. I highly recommend this course for anyone who wants to be intentional about their parenting and their self care. Identify the Family Needs The first thing I did was identify my main problems. For me the problem was stagnation. I was feeling overwhelmed, under-stimulated, harassed, ignored, tired and a bit bored. I was uninspired by my life. I hate to admit this but it felt like…
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Cooking with Toddlers: Simple Apple Tart
Finding the perfect Montessori recipe for toddlers can be tricky. I usually find I have to get a bit creative with adult recipes. This apple tart is a combination of a few different ones that I’ve adapted to allow for greater toddler independence. Alfie (3.5y) complete each of the steps and only needed guidance on what to do next. It was really delicious and looked far fancier than it was. Toddler skills Spreading Rolling Peeling Mixing eggs Sieving Ingredients 3 large apples (I used Fuji) 1 sheet ready-made puff pastry 2 tbsp apple purée 20-30g butter 1 egg Few tbsp castor sugar Pinch of cinnamon Method Roll out sheet of…
