Sacred Spaces

Apologies for the hiatus in writing.

At the children's school the theme this year is 'Sacred Spaces'. This can be translated in the home in pretty much any way. For us we are aiming for meals together at the table as much as we possibly can, finding time together as a family for reading, excursions etc and each of us having some space that is ours to be in and relax, read or meditate.

We do the first two a lot, but having individual space when there are lots of siblings, is not such an easy task. We are trying to develop respect of others' personal spaces, but it is hard for the youngest to differentiate between when the older two need that space and when they are playing and it is acceptable to go into another one's room.

So we have decided to further develop the hide-away areas for both them. This weekend we have decluttered and moved furniture from the oldest's room and created a small diagonal corner that has draw across curtains. In that area there is a warm mat, chair and cushions as well as a box for his personal treasures. The younger boy has the same but unfortunately on a smaller scale as there is less space in his room. My daughter is getting the remaining play stand side for Christmas and then she will also have a space in which she can go. Together the children decided that they could invite the others into that space if they wanted to, but no child was to invade that private space without the invitation. I can see it working for the boys, but I am getting ready for the youngest to have to stand her ground to maintain her space as sacred!!

Here are the results:

It isn't the best masterpiece in the world, but we are working with the limitations of the rooms. A good friend has a wonderful space in the eaves of her home that she has turned into a similar area for her children. I will try to get some pictures of the spaces for you. I am also going to be writing about a fabulous stage that her husband has built in the house for the children over the next few weeks.

If you have any pictures of sacred spaces in your home that you want to share, please let me know.

Summer Activities

Okay, so my every intention this summer has been to do less - observe more lol! Here are some of the activities we have been up to so far:

Summer Scrapbooks - actually this is a continuing project. Each of my boys has a scrap book that is journalling our travelling around. We started it last March:

T has added his own writing to his, whereas W has just organised the pictures and souvenirs.

My dd and I have started this project together, using a cheap birdhouse from a craft shop. She is gluing and tiling.

And my elder son decided to paint this little model. It might not look complicated, but it was small and fiddly. He spent a lot of time working on this.

Other ideas we have for the summer are to knit some simple dishcloths with my elder son, do an outing a week and then try to "present" it later, prepare for Harry Potter night - this, as you can imagine, has taken a lot of planning on the eldest's part!! He has made banners, prepared menus for banquets etc etc.

Another idea I thought of, and have not yet put it into play, is to engage the older two in family meal planning and once a fortnight each child is responsible for the planning of and budgeting for and some preparation of a family meal. I may try this over the next couple of weeks and if it works, make it a Sunday night regular!

Summer Reading list

This summer we have been sent home a list of recommended books from the Elementary teachers at the school. It is an incredibly extensive list, but has been compiled only using the Newbery Medal Prize winners from 1922 - present day. I am aware that it isn't a cut and dry list and is only a guideline as to where one might like to start looking, but it misses off some of the great books of our time that I really feel are more suitable for children of 7 - 9. Many of these books have female characters or are quite "feminine" in their story, so of course, my son is not as happy picking this up to read and many, I feel, I too conceptualy advanced for children who are just 7.

There seems to be a lacking of a middle ground for the younger readers who are fluent and skilled readers, but lack the emotional development for some of the content. So, I have adapted a list of books that we are going to tackle this summer, either individually or together.

Some of these may not be the world's most reknowned piece of literature, but in my opinion, at this age, it is important to introduce children to a wide range of literary style and stories.

1. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - CS Lewis
2. Bridge to Terabithia - Katherine Paterson and Donna Diamond
3. The Tale of Desperaux - Kate Di Camillo
4. The Barn - Avi
5. Shiloh - Phyllis Reynolds
6. The Story of King Arthur - Robin Lister
7. The Scarecrow and his Servant - Philip Pullman
8. The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips - Michael Morpurgo
9. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer - Mark Twain
10. Kira-Kira - Cynthia Kakohata
11. The Homecoming - Cynthia Voigt
12. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets - JK Rowling
13. Where the sidewalk ends - Shel Silversten
14. Missing May - Cynthia Rylant
15. Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing - Judy Blume
16. The Mouse and the Motorcycle - Beverley Cleary
17. This can't be happening at Macdonald Hall - Gordon Korman

(Anything to avoid perpetual re-reads of Captain P.P Poopyhead and his amazing Underpants!!!)

If you have any books you could add to this list, I would be really grateful.

Colour theory!

I just wanted to post these pictures of the playroom now that I have painted it. I have hopefully used colours that will embue imagination and cooperative play I have borrowed a similar colour scheme as those found in the imagination inspiring kindergartens in waldorf schools- ie: not red for fire and arguments, not white for boredom and lack of creativity and not green for tranquility and sleep etc.

Anyhoo, here are the results -

I decided to put up I's canopy in this corner next to a box of books so they have somewhere to hide away to read. There is also a cushion and our storytelling doll in there too.

The sensory materials have been moved over to this area as they were a little dismissed behind the door.

This area has been laid out for a home style corner (not particularly Montessori I know, but it is an area that all of the children love to utilise!) and we are in the process of creating a nature table which you will see better in the picture down below.

It isn't very clear, but we have got our nature table on the cupboard. So far we have found some interesting wood and an empty nest. The nest was in my hanging basket on the porch until a week or two ago. The birds have appeared to have deserted it. Unfortunately I think the mail man had unwittingly scared them. The eggs were broken too. We have since put it on our table.

The final wall is a work in process!!!

I am limiting the amount of stuff I put ON the walls this time, I have only a framed painting of T's, a picture and a wall hanging and I am going to put our huge map of the US back up too. Other than that, the children's work will now be kept in their art boxes in their rooms and if they do something they are particularly proud of, we will frame and hang in their bedrooms. There is still a lot of work in the kitchen on display too.

And of course - there is a very important factor in all of this............is it working - hmmmm they are currently playing in T's bedroom!!!!!!!ah well, time will tell!

Fairy Tales - yes or no??

This post is going to directly come from an amazing workshop that I have been on over the last three mornings. Actually led by a Waldorfian rather than a Montessorian, and fascinating.

It strictly relates to the re-telling of fairy tales to children.

In my hazy recollection, there is some controversy as to whether or not Montessori was for or against the reading of fairy tales to children.

Those in the "against" court argue that they go against the grain of belief that life should be for real, not wrapped up in talking animals and good and evil.

Those in the "for" court argue that they convey a very real life message in their stories and that legend and folklore are all based on and wrapped up in fairy tales, our history is intrinsically linked.

Add to that, the fact that the true original fairy tales are not the ones we know today, are NOT those of Disney and adaptations on a theme of a theme AND that places like Barnes and Noble no longer stock Grimms tales in many shops as they are deemed "not politically correct" you may be easily of the opinion that perhaps they should be left alone, after all, what is the point?

Up to today, I was more of the vein that there was no real need for them, they seem cruel and stereotypical and send out the message that life is full of goodies and baddies and that girls are all princesses and boys either bad men or princes. This wasn't the message I wanted to give to the children, so have avoided them to a greater extent.

Today my mind has been entirely changed. Not only do I realise that I was incorrect in my own jaded adult and very literal interpretations of them, but I am doing my children a disservice by omitting them from their lives. Children do not take these stories as literal but much more archetypically which is exactly the way they are meant to be taken.

Read in their original form and appropriately aged (NOT censored!) they emit a very potent message, that life is a journey, that we encounter good and evil in a variety of forms and that when the right paths are chosen on our journies, good will overthrow evil and justice will prevail. Yes, the "baddies" meet their ends, gruesome or not, but in the case of most of these, the end comes around by self infliction. Take for example the wolf in the original version of Little Red Cap - She fills his belly with stones, but she doesn't kill him, the stones are too heavy so when he gets up, he falls down dead. The stones........getting whhhhaaaay deep now, actually represent the materialism in life that tempts us (or Little Red Cap in this instance) when we are on our journies through life. In LRC's case, the wolf opened her mind to be tempted by the flowers (greed) and he, himself, was overcome with greed to not just eat the grandmother but to also eat LRC. At the end, the wolf is destroyed by his very own materialistic greed - the stones, the densest natural material on the earth.

Of course, for a seven year old, this is not what they are thinking and nor should it be explained to them thus.

The guidelines we were left with was that

a.We should read them ourselves, and find our own fairy tale.

b.We should chose age appropriate ones; ie: the more challenges and conflicts, then the older the audience

c. We should not censor the end for something less gruesome. If you need to censor the end for your child, the fairy tale is not yet appropriate. Also look at it this way - if the wolf lives and runs off - where is he now? Is he hiding in the real world??

d. Read them during the day NOT before bed. Children process these stories better when they have just come from the spiritual state of sleep rather than before they go to it.

e. Learn them and read them unscripted, detail IS important to the stories however, so make sure you have read them and understand the significance of the detail.

It is hard to find a good book of Fairy Tales, I have just ordered the one at the top of this page which is published by The Pantheon Fairytale and Folklore Library and can be found at Bob and Nancy's Books I am thoroughly looking forward to reading, digesting, dissecting and then re-telling these tales to my boys!

Hats!!

This really should go with clothing........but I had to post this separately!! Look what a gem these are. Might be perfect to lose that extra scarf!!

Here is the link to this WAHM's site!!

The Bedroom

There is a lot talked about the baby's and infant's bedroom in various Montessori resources: The Floor Bed, mirrors at a child's level, simple pictures, not so many toys but what few being down on low reachable shelving and maybe a mobile for small babies. There is not, however, so much talked about for adapting the room as the child grows. I have already added some pictures to previous entries but this entry is to show how I have tried to organise the children's bedrooms for their varying ages and with the space and resources we have.


Toddler:


This is her bed. We have got her elevated off the floor and not on a mattress, we didn't actually go down that route. However, it would be so easy to adapt a mattress on the floor and then put it on the frame later on. She has a small bedside table that she can put water or books on and yes, that is a bed guard. The floor is hard!!


This is an area set aside for her to sit and read. It is round a slight corner so out of direct vision from the rest of the room and the door, which means she can be quiet in this space. There is a beanbag for her to use and a selection of books. I haven't really been organised to rotate them, but I frequently cull !! We also have rotating books downstairs in the den that I change on a fairly regular basis. She also has some shoes and slippers on the bottom shelf.


This is inside her wardrobe. We adapted this using a broom handle to create a lower rack for the clothes she is currently wearing in season.

This is her "care of the self" space. She has a mirror at her height and a clothes peg. To the right is a playstand which I have shown from the other side in the photo below, that contains her comb, brush and mirror. She also has, which isn't shown, a box of play jewellery and hair accessories that she can use if she wishes. The basket contains a plethora of soft toys and some hand puppets. Dressing up clothes are primarily in the play room in another wardrobe on a low rail.

Here you can see the mirror, comb and brush and a few small toys. The play silks create a backdrop for a puppet theatre or shop or cover it all or........anything really!




Older child's room:




These two pictures are inside my eldest son's wardrobe (excuse the mess - Montessorischmontessori - they still can't put stuff back in the places it belongs and as for folding aaagghh!)


I have some issues with chests of drawers (one of which is lack of space, another safety, for a child to pull them open and then apply their weight on a drawer fills me with the heebiejeebies) they are stiff and cumbersome, so as we have the luxury of a walk in closet for this son, I bought some wire cube shelving from Target and his underwear, t-shirts, sweaters etc are all in their own space. He has a step so he can reach the stuff that is hanging, but that is primarily the next season's clothing.


This photo below shows his working space. We haven't yet done this with our younger son. We chose to give our elementary son this space partly because he LOOOOVES to write stories and also to give him some space for his hobbies without the younger two. When our younger son reaches elementary age we will try to provide a similar space for him. At the moment, our younger son does his art and craft either downstairs in the kitchen or in the playroom.


This was a flea market table!! $40!!


He has a space for his pens and we also bought a fishing tackle box that he keeps colouring pens and crayons, scissors, sharpeners and glue in. That stays up out of the younger two's reach!! There is also a pin board to display his work and an area to store his stamp collection. Both him and his brother have a CD player in their room (that is as technological as they will get - I will refer to media in another entry) to allow them music or stories on CD.



This is the reading space we have designated for our elder son. Unfortunately he doesn't have a nook anywhere that can be turned over to a quiet space, and he frequently climbs under his covers to read his books (at any time of the day !!) so this is a bit redundant at the moment. Still, it is a low chair to the floor and concealed by the table so he could hide away if he wanted to.