Book “Aid to Life” (age 0-90+)

Stories from fifty years of Montessori work, in homes, schools, and more – around the world

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First Montessori Books – Special

The “First Montessori Books” series is presently on special, discounted by the publisher:

CLICK: BOOKS
CLICK: SPECIAL DISCOUNT

The author is a member of Educateurs sans Frontières (EsF, an AMI Montessori organization) gathering information on the needs of children and families, and working together to come up with solutions. Here is a link to this organization: EsF

The 8th book in the series, Aid to Life, Montessori Beyond the Classroom, reflects the values, and some of the experiences of this work. Here are some of the subjects shared: Continue reading →

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Concentration, Where the Magic Happens

Circle Time—Collective Lessons?

During my first year of teaching, an older and more experienced teacher at our Montessori school in San Francisco, California, told us that we should have a 30-40 minute “group” lesson at the end of each morning, with all of the children sitting in a circle as we sang songs, had news time, and sometimes gave a lesson that usually would be for one child at a time. I had not heard of such a thing in my AMI 3-6 course in London but I respected this teacher so I followed her advice.

A few years later, Margot Waltuch, who had worked with Maria Montessori for many years, was the consultant for my own school in Michigan (and later the consultant for my 6-12 classes in California). Continue reading →

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Aid to Life – Montessori at Home Age 0-6

For a very complete review of this book
click: review

(Excerpt from chapter 10 of Aid to Life, Montessori Beyond the Classroom)

Temper Tantrums
Everywhere I have worked it seems that temper tantrums are becoming a problem. In some cases a child crying “for no reason” was just not tolerated in the past and any incidence would be immediately punished. Now parents realize that it is important for children to honestly express their emotions. Temper tantrums are one of the ways young children express their emotions, unhappiness, boredom, need for attention. I hear stories from around the world that are similar:

Children cry or yell in order to get what they want and parents don’t know what to do. When the temper tantrum happens in public they are ashamed and know that something is wrong but they don’t know the answer. So they give in to the child’s demands to end the embarrassing scene.

Yes, in these situations we parents know that something is wrong. But what can we do about it? I will share some of what I have learned over the years. Continue reading →

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COVID Parenting – Some Books and Ideas

THINKING ABOUT EDUCATION

Hopefully there will come a time in the not too distant future that the word “Covid” in the title of this blog post will be meaningless and we shall have returned to normal, safe, healthy life. Already it is clear that people are re-thinking education because of the situation. Some children thrive at home, others thrive at school. In the future education may be very different than it has been for the last few generations. Continue reading →