Sunlight!

We found a "Compact Flourescent Sunlight Bulb" at Walmart and put it in our family room. And it makes it look like we opened a window! Even the shadows it casts look nicer. I love it, if we had a few more, it could always look like daytime in here.

This could change my life!

All Mozart

I promised a friend I'd post this. I still haven't listened to it yet. They boast 24 hours of Mozart.

http://www.live365.com/stations/mozartmp3

About the pictures in the middle of the book

There's a center section of photos in the book about Maria Montessori. The first is a portrait of her, a very strong-looking, handsome woman. A picture of little kids outside on "washing day," washing clothes in wooden sinks and hanging them on a short clothes line. A beautiful, orderly classroom with shelves, drawers, and a walled little corner with things hanging from the wall. It looks like it could be kitchen utinsels, but the picture is too small to make it out. A little boy (three or four) at a table with two sandpaper touchboards. Each board has some areas that are smooth, and some areas that are covered with sandpaper to teach "rough" and "smooth." (It seems like a lot of work to me to teach something that kids will learn just from handling things in the routine of their daily lives.) Large paper cut-out cursive letters with a boy of about ten arranging them to make words (who cut out all those letters?) A girl writing words on a lined chalkboard. Number rods. The manipulatives to teach addition are longer than the child! I imagine that, these days, manipulatives have been scaled down to a more handleable size. Four children arranging events along a long timeline. The timeline is so long (twenty feet?) that it's laying outside on the lawn. Children working with a pegboard to figure out a mathematical equation. And, finally, an aged Maria Montessori with a small child.

At first glance, the materials look impractical and expensive. I would think that children, being designed to learn, could learn without special equipment, or, when equipment helps, that simpler is better. I may be showing my CM bias. Earlier this evening I was wondering why I decided to read this book (what was I thinking!) And then I remembered. I had read an editorial that Charlotte Mason wrote in the early 1900's reacting to the flurry of interest in Maria Montessori when she was the newest trend in education. I thought I'd understand CM's letter better if I understood more about the Montessori method. So, here I am, reading the book, but I feel so biased that I'm not sure I can read with an open mind.

So, this will be Maria Montessori as seen through the eyes of a very biased CM educator.



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If you want to know more about Charlotte Mason, you can start with this FAQ. You can also read CM's six-volume series online, including an in-progress modern English paraphrase, here.

Maria Montessori Her Life and Work ch 1

Miss Roxie still doesn't have her copy of Pride and Prejuduce, so we aren't starting that book yet. So, what shall I read?? I'm itching to start The Lord of the Rings, but I can't find a copy I like, something small and hardbound that fits nicely in my hand and is lovely to hold and look at. Which leaves the book about Maria Montessori that I've been talking about reading for months. So, that's what I'm going to read. Here's what I got out of the first chapter.

Maria Montessori Her Life and Work by E. Mortimer Standing, written in 1962

Chapter 1

Maria Montessori (1870-1952) was born in Italy, an only child. She sounds like a determined, confident (perhaps to the point of bordering on arrogant), and ambitious child. She wanted to be a mathmetician in an era when women only had nursing or teaching careers open to them. So she went to an all boys school! Then she changed her mind and decided to go for biology, then changed her mind again and decided to be a doctor against her father's wishes. She was the only girl in her medical classes, and, because of rules about co-ed dissections of cadavers, she had to dissect after dark by herself - a spooky prospect, but she was determined enough not to let that deter her. She held her own when the guys gave her a tough time and earned their respect, though not necessarily their affection. She paid her own way through the university by tutoring.

At one point, she was discouraged and ready to give up. As she walked home, she saw a beggar woman with a toddler. As the woman begged for money, Maria watched the child happily playing with a scrap of paper, totally oblivious to her plight of poverty. That inspired Maria not to give up, so she continued with her medical training.

When she graduated, her mother supported her, but her father still disapproved. Critics who disapproved of a woman doctor were ready to heckle and protest at her first medical lecture. Her father was persuaded to attend by an acquaintance and she was so brilliant that she earned his approval and even stopped the critics from causing a scene at the lecture. She was chosen to represent Italy at a feminist convention in Berlin. She spoke out for working women, then went to another convention in England to speak against child labor.

As a doctor, she was assigned to a psychiatric clinic, where she had to visit insane asylums. There, she saw idiot children (?) mixed in with the lunatics and her heart went out to them. After being given their food, the children would scavenge the floor for crumbs. The nurses were disgusted by the children's lack of refined manners, but Maria realized that they had no toys, they were treated like cattle, and grabbing crumbs were their way of reaching out for tactile experiences to feed their minds. She thought that they might benefit from some kind of educational attempt. She began to work with two French doctors whose lives were dedicated to 'defective' children - Jean Itard (who worked with deaf mutes) and Edouard Seguin (famed for his work with deficient children). Maria told an educational congress that those children were entitled to an education as much as normal children. The result was an orthophrenic school in Italy, with Maria as its director for two years - 1899-1901. Deficient children from regular schools were deposited there, as well as the idiot children from the asylums in Rome. Maria visited London and Paris to learn how others were dealing with these kinds of children. Then she returned to Rome to observe and study the children themselves. She spent 13 hours a day with the children, and then she stayed up late writing her observations and assembling plans for their education.

She decided that the method that was working for these children should be used with all children. After all, if the methods were rational enough to get through the mind of even imbeciles, wouldn't it work with anyone? [This, I think, is what alarmed Charlotte Mason - that someone would have so little respect for the personalities of children that they would presume to think that methods that worked for idiot children would be good for all children across the board.] With her direction, these defective children learned to read and write and even did as well on public exams as normal children. While the world marvelled at the miracle she had wrought with imbeciles, she was wondering why normal children weren't scoring higher on their exams than defective children. She decided it was a lack in their education. She felt that the methods she had used with idiot children could 'develop and set free the personality' of normal children.

In 1901, she gave up her position at the school and went back to the university to study philosophy and psychology, and to reflect on her theories about education. She felt a need to clarify her vision and theory. She translated long books by Itard and Seguin from French into Italian, a labor of love for her admiration of their work. She also studied the nervous diseases of children and was an examiner/lecturer at a teaching college. In her lectures she emphasized that the teacher's duty was to help, not to judge, and that real mental work doesn't exhaust the mind, but nourishes the spirit (that sounds CM-ish!) Some of her students said, "Her lectures make us want to be good."

There is a story of how, as a doctor, she paid a housecall to a woman who had just given birth to twins who were nearly dead. She lit a fire, held the babies and brought them back to life. Years later, the mother credited Maria as being their real mother, since it was she who had given them back their lives.

Read the next part of this series.
Read about the pictures in the book.
Read Charlotte Mason's Letter to the Editor about Montessori that prompted me to read this book.

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If you want to know more about Charlotte Mason, you can start with this FAQ. You can also read CM's six-volume series online, including an in-progress modern English paraphrase, here.

Miss M's New Kitchen

Miss M got a little kitchen set for Christmas. She has an assortmrnt of little dishes and toy food that have been collected over the past twelve years since her big brother was a toddler. She doesn't seem to know what to do with the stove or the oven. I guess I haven't been the best example!

I made her a little teabag. It's a tiny bean bag with about ten pony beads inside. She knows exactly what to do with that. She puts the little bag in her little toy mug with pretend water from the toy sink, and then pops the cup in the little toy microwave oven to make tea, just like Mommy.

The teabag

She probably needs a little toy blender so she can make pretend green smoothies! LOL!

Christmas!

One of the things I love about Christmas - cards and pictures! We hang the cards from the top of the doorway between our dining room and family room, and we put the pictures under the glass on our table so we can see them throughout the month.

Daddy and Miss M.

Tim WON!

His poem (posted below) won! details at The Beehive.

What did he win?

This virtual chocolicious award! We're thrilled to have received such an honor from one of our favorite blogs!

Okay, it took a couple of days

But I think I "get it" now. The Beehive posted a challenge, they listed some neologans (neologs?), which are made-up words. Shakespeare made up his own words , so it's nothing new. And they challenged their "Beehive Faithful" to write a poem using all the words. This is Tim's poem. Today it hit me that, in this poem, the Neologist makes up words, and Strunkenwhite is the proper language itself. And now I get it, and it's really funny! You'll have to click on the Beehive link to see their original post and a list of the words that had to be included in the poem.

Long ago (three days, you know)
there was a dreadful fight
between a Sir Neologist
and one Sir Strunkenwhite.

First "Snoitatulas, sirrah!"
said Sir Neologist.
Sir Strunkenwhite spoke not a word,
but only clenched his fist.

Then fully clad in armored plates
(spendiferously bought)
those two aku-akued across
the field, and staunchly fought.

Up and down the field they fought
and took dismayful wounds,
smiting not with swords alone
but eke with piercing words.

"Do improbe your strokes, Sir Strunk,
or else you've lost the fight:
loserish attacks ne'er yet
availed a losing knight."

"Nevermind, Neologist,
just keep your own defense:
neologistic tendencies
don't prove linguistic sense."

But in the end Neologist
defeated Strunkenwhite
and laid him out upon the ground
with sound like dynamite.

"Aha, sirrah! Gahbooleah!
you're at my mercy now."
And, speaking thus, Neologist
let fall the fateful blow.

"Gahbooleah! Gahbooleah!
O frabjous day!" cried he--
and quickly turned hysterious
in his excessive glee.

Alas for Sir Neologist!
He overdid his mirth,
and soon he lay by Strunkenwhite,
quite dead upon the earth.

Therefore friend beware, lest you
should suffer Neo's lot;
play with language if you will,
but see you kill it not.

If You Give Your Mom Some Bubble Bath

"Does anyone else enjoy the 'If You Give A Mouse/Moose/Pig a Cookie/Muffin/Pancake' books?"

I can't say that I've ever really read those books, just skimmed one once. But I did enjoy this! Katie at CM, Children and Lots of Grace wrote it, you must read it! :)

Deck the Blogs!

We were tagged by The Common Room to share some of our favorite Christmas ornaments and tell their stories. We've switched to a smaller tree, so some of our ornaments aren't used any more. These are my picks; Tim may have others.

This is a nutcracker ornament. It commemorates the years the boys were into the Nutcracker, the music, and the ballet their friend was in, and the figure skating one.

This one is just cute, and it's my very favorite.

This is a teeny, tiny church.

This reminds me of my childhood in Rhode Island, when we used to get sleds for some Christmases and go sledding during our Christmas vacation.

We had a friend who used to make these egg ornaments and give them out to our church group every year. I had three, but this seems to be the only one I have left.

These are actually napkin holders. Dad got three of them, one for each boy a few years ago, because they were like Narnian crowns. They're solid and heavy, so we don't hang them on the tree, we display them around the tree instead.