Outer Space

Mary 2y. 3m.
Mary is very curious about what is going on around us, interested about people and nature. Once I decided to experiment a bit and to tell about the space, cosmonauts, astronauts, Solar System and our generous Planet Earth. We looked at all these fascinating stuff in the book, I also showed her some short movies about our Universe.

Our Solar System - Size Of Planets and Stars to Scale

The reaction at first was rather ambiguous, which is clear as these are rather abstract hard to understand things for babies. However, later after glueing and drawing our Earth and other planets on paper Mary became very much interested in space, stars and planets. We also tried stickers, read books and played cosmonauts flying into space =).

Don’t know what this interest will turn into in the future, but space definitely is worth paying attention to as there is huge potential for development for humanity. But now Maria is looking every evening through the book about space, she has expanded her vocabulary and become more knowledgeable about the nature and the world we leave in. In autumn, when it gets darker earlier, we try to study star sky just above us.

Methods to Develop Early - Maria Montessori

There was conducted a research in US comparing the development of children who went to Montessori school and those, who went to usual school at the ages of 5 and 12. Montessori children did, indeed, better in various fields when tested at age of 5. At age of 12 the difference diminished but still was seen, especially in creativity.

Maria Montessori was developing her education method in the beginning of 20th century putting emphasis on child’s independence, liberty and so called discovery model (not direct instruction). The most important in Montessori method is “prepared environment”, which is specially tailored for the development needs of child. Children themselves know the best what they want to do at the particular moment: to iron or to wash smth, to play with cereal, to study math with specially designed material. Montessori environment is usually separated in zones: sensorial, linguistics, math, space, geography, physical activity.

In fact, every mum can educate her child using Montessori method and create Montessori environment at home. When Maria was 1 y.o., I offered her to draw using cereal on a tray. She was also trying to select the correct cover to each jar, tube etc. She enjoyed these games a lot and I tried to employ these games more and more not knowing about the existence of Montessori method. I think it is more on the intuitive level to give child freedom of choice and organize simple games, which stimulate child’s development.

Arts and Crafts Come with Time

As Maria Montessori writes, the biggest happiness is to watch children, to see how they develop, how they become curious about the surrounding world.

Just I would like to share the observations of how Maria was growing up in terms of developing her creative abilities and her likes/dislikes of the tools to create masterpieces =)

She started going to the toddler’s school when she was just 1y. 4 m., which she enjoyed a lot. There she was offered to try to work with the modeling clay, to paint with crayons, to play with cereal, as well as to dance, make exercises etc.

In the beginning the only thing Maria liked was physical activities and listening to the cheerful songs. Being a bit disappointed with her dislikes of other activities, I was also offering her crayons, clay, paints at home. No result! When growing older (~1y.6m)., the started to enjoy gluing things together. At the age of 1y. 8m. she actively started to work with clay (our flat resembled sculptor’s workshop with pieces of clay being everywhere). Finally, the non-fading desire to draw with crayons came in place, which appeared when Maria was about 1y.11m. Still she is not very much keen on paints (enjoys but for a very short period of time).

So, it will all come with time and every child will try him/herself in as many fields as s/he will be willing ,in order to be able to find their major occupation.

Palm and Finger Painting

Maria 1y.8m.

Perhaps, the first tools to use for kids, when painting, are own fingers and palms because it is much easier than to draw with a pencil or a brush and of course it is a FUN for both child and adult!

I suggested Maria finger painting when she was 8 month old. It was cool! but the duration of the painting process was quite short as she couldn’t concentrate for long. Besides, she didn’t like her hands to be dirty :).

Few weeks ago she herself proposed finger painting and now almost every morning she takes out her paints and starts creating masterpieces; she adores when her parents also take part in it. Since then we have quite a lot of things which Maria created with her colourful palms: butterflies, dinosaurs, Santa, fish, flowers, fireworks etc.

Fairy Tale and Geometry

Maria 1y.7m.

Maria knows geometric shapes relatively well thanks to the poster which was once hanging on the wall as well as the sorter puzzle. Not to forget things once learned, I try to repeatedly speak about them. So, I cut the shapes of different colours (for repeating colours as well) and size and told Maria a story, which was supposed to motivate her to visualize it with the help of available shapes. Of course, one can think of more complex story, involving many more shapes and colours. Ours was the following:

The Sun was shining high in the sky. Just under, the small squared house with triangular roof was built. In the garden near the house in the oval blue pond there were lots of fish. A cow named Annabel was walking on the rectangular piece of grass. Once she fell ill and didn’t have any milk. She was treated with medicines in the rectangular packages, but all was in vain. The only thing which helped were the oranges brought by little girl, Kate. Actually, not the oranges themselves but the loving and caring attitude of the little girl helped. Annabel and Kate became friends soon. Annabel got well pretty fast and treated Kate with the milk every day.

I must say that Maria selected shapes on her own and though at first it was not very fast, the most rewarding was that she liked the thing a lot. Every time she did it better and better. Now, she can do it without any fairy tale. =)))