MaMaws' Montessori

  Today's playtime was, in part, I inspired by some neat-o toys acquired at our local fast food store (see tags) and let us tell you, they are a hit with our LO! You'll notice, in the picture,  an arrangement of toys to structure the concept of exploration. A 1,000 cube, a couple of kid's meal toys, a gift from the holidays, and an old toy of mine were gathered to provide an opportunity to have some fun and learn at the same time? After playing with the rubrics puzzle for a while, he discovered that turning the xylophone upside down made a different set of sounds, than when it was turned the way I played it down. The picture is blurry due to the fact that he was using the mallet to push and pull the toys in the arrangement he felt was most optimal for play.  ☺ Pose for the camera! Possibly the cutest picture from today's play: "Rabbi with Son."

Hello there, Thanks for stopping by! I'm going to leave these pictures here for now, then I'll update with the details later? Of course, if you want our complete recipe (or to try some)  you'll need to contact us directly for pricing and scheduling ;) Obviously, we substituted ingredients and added some extras to make it to our liking. Ok, real quick, we had a little under 2 lbs of meat; this yielded 24 1oz meatballs and a small meal loaf.   

 We recently shared with yall some fun times we had with our Pour and Explore activities.      Recently, K has been having so much fun we have switched up our schedule from just a few days a week to everyday!  This means much more research, prep, shopping, and clean up but IT iS WORTH IT! Here is a "generic" or "whole group" version of today's sensory bin experience:    First, we took a survey of what was around us.  Shopping is on the to-do list, so today we are working with whatever we have and can locate around the houses.  If you do what we do, you'll notice when your LO stays focused on a particular thing or activity; this can be used as evidence we use to help us communicate with them.  (If you LO is currently pre or non verbal that is.?) Today we had, at our disposal, whatever was in Mom's pantry as well as his snacks for the morning.  Take a look below to see what we found today.  A few things were grabbed and outsi...

  TO SEE RESULTS, CLICK HERE:   Pour and Explore: Day 2 What is it?         Pour and Explore  is how Montessori Maws' do sensory play.  What is sensory play? Lets do some research! *googles the question* "  Sensory exploration is a  child's way of examining, discovering, categorizing, and making sense of the world, and it's beneficial to provide them with opportunities for  sensory  play."   (Mar 5, 2020   www.verywellfamily.com  › why-sensory-play-is-importa... )        Ok, yes technically everything that you do can be considered sensory exploration, but we as Maws need some time for us to treat ourselves!  So, create a goal that is reasonable to your family (at least once a week) so the time spent can be 100% focused  on the activity.          In our home, with our LO, we try to theme these and spend at least 3 days before we 'exit' the activity.  Yes,...

TO SEE DAY ONE, CLICK HERE:  Pour and Explore: Day 1 The goal:  to create an edible play dough for Outdoor Sensory time.  Last week's rice based 'Pour and Explore' was a hit and I hoped this would have similar results.  After comparing the ingredient list to my pantry, I halved the recipe to mix the following: 1 cup Flour (extra to roll) 1/2 cup Salt 1/2 cup Water (extra to sight) I decided to go from basic to extra and add in a bit of food coloring and flavoring; seeing as how we only has yellow available, the lemon flavoring/scent was the only real choice. How to: Check our our page for full instructions: https://mamawsmontessori.blogspot.com/p/diy-play-dough.html The Results: So, we successfully created the dough and placed it in the activity we still had going from the day before; (Pour and Explore: Puff Rice Edition) and it seemed to fit in quite well!  I have "heard' you can create shapes with the dough and through it in the oven @ 200 until hard, but...

How Did We Get Here? A Bit More About Us My name is Rachel and Brian, my husband, and I will be expecting our first LO later this year.   Both of us are in the field of education in southeast Texas, he is a professor in the Theater Arts 🎭department at our local four year university (5 years running) and my experience has been at the upper elementary levels in Title 1 public schools since 2014.   We have recently started a company together with a focus on professionals in the fitness 🏋, wellness 📿, and mindfulness industries.  Obvi – education will be a big deal too 😉 I originally intended to take some time off to recover from an unexpected surgery over the summer, thankfully Brian was oober supportive, and during this time I discovered a term that would turn how I have been applying everything I learned about pedagogy on its head.   Let me explain… With the majority of my formal knowledge about the early years of education, and how t...

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/280427.Waldorf_Education THE ACTUAL EBOOK - FREE! https://books.google.com/books/about/Dr_Montessori_s_Own_Handbook.html?id=0mIWAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button#v=onepage&q&f=false Do you have a book to recommend?  Please let us know!

As a first time soon-to-be Mama, I am constantly  on the search for new resources.  At the moment, the best way for me to do this is via social media, specifically Pinterest. I am including my link below, in hopes that you find some useful and fun info too!  Aaaand if you want to add me, I wouldn't be upset; oooooor if you want to collab, just let me know!  :D https://www.pinterest.com/Rach314159/montessori/ Also... Please check out the blog post " Developmental Milestones " for more.