I'm sitting here in front of the tv (barely watching it--nothing really on; NUMB3RS isn't on for the 2nd week in a row :( ), laptop on my lap (go figure!), reading the Charlotte Mason series.
I've only started the Preface of the first book, which brought on certain connections to some stuff I've read recently about the method, which then connected with some things I know about the Montessori method. One of these things was the with CM, they do a lot of copywork. This is actually part of Maria Montessori's devisings for a number of the language activities at the elementary level and it had never clicked before. Some of the grammar activities even used sentences from famous Italian literature. The difference is instead of being given a specific passage to copy each day, the students will be copying from whatever materials they have and have chosen.
But there's an issue with this at home--there are sooooooooo many materials and so few students that I've found a lot of my materials go unused. It's rather discouraging. Dd does so much better seeing somebody else do something first before she gives it a shot--but who is there to be sitting down using those materials?
But this is beside the point; I've gone off on something that was not what I actually decided to blog about. What I wanted to say was this: I wish Maria Montessori had written more about her early development of the elementary program with families who had been using her methods at home or whose children had outgrown the Casas and wanted to continue at home. I KNOW it could not have been a ton of cards and materials everywhere in the house. So what did they do exactly? What has been developed and is used today in classrooms was designed for the classroom of multi-age groupings with lots of kids. This is not what she would have encouraged for parents approaching elementary at home.
Shoot, distracted and the thoughts are gone. Guess that's it for now.
4 comments:
Has no one else written about this? So many homeschoolers follow the Montessori method that I would be surprised if no one had written a book or studied the topic.....or even designed a curriculum specifically for at home with less materials needed....
Aha!!! Maybe this is YOUR calling ;) Maybe YOU need to design that and write about it :)
Actually it would make a great article or topic for Homeschooling Horizons magazine one month.......
There are a few things here and there about homeschooling Montessori-style, but not enough explicits to satisfy me. :)
Oh man, like I don't have enough on my plate! lol. I had actually hoped to keep a diary a couple years back on my observations of our homeschooling and then put it together in a reasonable fashion and see about getting it published, but I only kept if for a few weeks. lol. But I might be able to get some sort of ball rolling... I know some people use a lot of the materials and the albums/manuals in their homeschooling, but that doesn't seem to work for me somehow. I don't know if I need to change something about myself to follow the same approach or if it really ought to be something a little different.
I'm not familiar with Homeschooling Horizons. I'll have to check them out.
I don't think you need to change you....if you need to change you to make something work then I don't think it will work long term......
Homeschooling Horizons is a Canadian Homeschooling magazine......it's a wonderful magazine and often has articles about Montessori style learning......you can read articles form the mag online...I;ve just renewed my subscription for another year.....they will send you a free copy too!
What I mean about changing myself is in terms of things I should perhaps change or improve. There are some things I used to do that were Montessori and really helped the flow of our homeschooling. I don't seem to do those things anymore, don't seem to be focused on the same things, and I do feel our homeschooling is suffering. And not in the way of thinking, "Oh, I'm not being as Montessori that way anymore," just in noticing what is and isn't happening and saying, "Hey, I don't really like this."
There are actually a few reasons for this: I don't read Montessori literature as much as I used to, I'm more sleep-deprived than I was before and I have different ages and a different mix of kids. Unfortunately, I can't change the kids and ages and I can't seem to do anything about my lack of sleep, so maybe I need to return to inundating myself with Montessori literature.
Oh, supper calling! Thanks for the feedback, Jane. It's nice to get my juices flowing a bit again.
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