The Prepared Environment: The Montessori Step Every Parent Should Do

I know I will get rolled eyes when I start making claims about every parent, but this is something I feel very strongly about. The first thing that makes Montessori "Montessori" is the Prepared Environment, which has two critical features: freedom of movement, and everything child sized. A Prepared Environment will do tremendous things for your babies and children, and you don't have to be a homeschooling stay-at-home parent to do it.

Let me start by sharing a picture of a sample Montessori nursery, and don't skip this if you co-sleep, because the principles apply in that situation, too.

This Montessori nursery was featured on Ohdeedoh, the kids rooms version of Apartmenttherapy.com. The first thing I want to draw your attention to is the mattress on the floor. Next, notice that there is art at baby level and toddler level, and the shelves and desk are small. The room has been child-proofed so that instead of a crib or playpen, the baby is free to explore the whole room at her own discretion, with nothing to hamper her movement or curiosity.

MichaelOlaf.net puts it perfectly:

"Every child follows a unique timetable of learning to crawl to those things he has been looking at, so that he may finally handle them. This visual, followed by tactile, exploration is very important for many aspects of human development. If we provide a floor bed or mattress on the floor in a completely safe room—rather than a crib or playpen with bars—the child has a clear view of the surroundings and freedom to explore.


A bed should be one which the baby can get in and out of on his own as soon as he is ready to crawl. The first choice is an adult twin bed mattress on the floor. Besides being an aid to development, this arrangement does a lot to prevent the common problem of crying because of boredom or exhaustion.


It helps to think of this as a whole-room playpen with a baby gate at the doorway and to examine every nook and cranny for interest and safety. If the newborn is going to share a room with parents or siblings we can still provide a large, safe, and interesting environment.


Eventually he will explore the whole room with a gate at the door and then gradually move out into the baby-proofed and baby-interesting remainder of the house.


These are the beginning stages of independence, concentration, movement, self-esteem, decision-making, and balanced, healthful development of body, mind, and spirit."

Here is another room I found on Flickr:

The mama designed this room for her 14 month old. Until he turned 14 months, he slept in a small mattress on the floor of their bedroom.

Another child's Montessori-style bedroom from Flickr:

We bed-share with our children, and have our mattress on the floor. As soon as they could crawl, they were climbing in and out of bed on their own. Soon they were selecting their own bedtime stories from a low child's shelf in our room and bringing them to us in bed, before they could even talk. The only time we restricted them was if I was home alone and needed to cook on a hot stove.

I love that this is not a forced, artificial independence, such as when we tell ourselves that babies need to learn to "self-soothe." The prepared environment provides the OPPORTUNITY, and then the child chooses his own pace of exploring and developing. He has soft, safe, colorful toys, a good selection of beautiful books, art and mirrors on the walls at his level, sturdy furniture to help him move about the room.

As the baby learns to crawl and then walk, they are able to reach things on low tables, and pull themselves up to sit on small chairs, use little cups and utensils, poor their own juce and milk, reach the sink to wash their own hands, and do the things that the adults around them do, but on a level that is feasible for them.

We keep snacks on a low shelf in the fridge that they are allowed to have whenever they want, such as apple slices or hard-boiled eggs. We have low hooks by the door so that they can hang their own coats, and are getting hooks for the bathroom so they can hang their own towels. We have a bench at the sink, and I made special placemats so the kids can set their own table.

(picture complete with one Deirdre chipmunk who stuffed her cheeks for the picture)

Their underwear, socks, shoes, hats, all of it is low and accessible. They have child-sized gardening tools and watering cans, a small wood and cornhusk broom, and towels under the sink so they can clean up spills themselves.

Maria Montessori described the classroom enviroment in her book, The Montesori Method:

"With this in view, I first turned my attention to the question of environment, and this, of course, included the furnishing of the schoolroom. In considering an ample playground with space for a garden as an important part of this school environment, I am not suggesting anything new.


The novelty lies, perhaps, in my idea for the use of this open-air space, which is to be in direct communication [Page 81] with the schoolroom, so that the children may be free to go and come as they like, throughout the entire day...


I have had tables made with wide, solid, octagonal legs, spreading in such a way that the tables are at the same time solidly firm and very light, so light, indeed, that two four-year-old children can easily carry them about...I also designed and had manufactured little chairs...Another piece of our school furniture consists of a little washstand, so low that it can be used by even a three-year-old child....

In each of our schoolrooms we have provided a series of long low cupboards, especially designed for the reception [Page 82] of the didactic materials. The doors of these cupboards open easily, and the care of the materials is confided to the children. The tops of these cases furnish room for potted plants, small aquariums, or for the various toys with which the children are allowed to play freely. We have ample blackboard space, and these boards are so hung as to be easily used by the smallest child. Each blackboard is provided with a small case in which are kept the chalk, and the white cloths which we use instead of the ordinary erasers...

Above the blackboards are hung attractive pictures, chosen carefully, representing simple scenes in which children would naturally be interested...

Our little tables and our various types of chairs are all light and easily transported, and we permit the child to select the position which he finds most comfortable. He can make himself comfortable as well as seat himself [Page 84] in his own place. And this freedom is not only an external sign of liberty, but a means of education. If by an awkward movement a child upsets a chair, which falls noisily to the floor, he will have an evident proof of his own incapacity; the same movement had it taken place amid stationary benches would have passed unnoticed by him. Thus the child has some means by which he can correct himself, and having done so he will have before him the actual proof of the power he has gained: the little tables and chairs remain firm and silent each in its own place. It is plainly seen that the child has learned to command his movements."

Along these last lines, everything in the house was real, made of glass, and breakable. If a wood or plastic bowl is dropped, nothing happens. If a glass one is dropped and broken, the child saw immediately that they needed to be careful or else lose the bowl.

I have done this with both of my children, and broken a couple of glasses in the process, but they both learned very quickly to be careful with cups and bowls and pitchers.

It is the job, the DRIVE, of a small child to imitate his parents and the adults around him, to copy them in order to learn how life works, what it means to be a person. When we place them in a playpen, or restrict them to a walker, or keep everything out of their reach, it hampers them in negative ways. It goes against their very nature.

"During the first three years the child will absorb, like a sponge, whatever is in the environment, ugliness or beauty, course behavior or gentleness, good or bad language. As parents, we are the first models of what it means to be human." - SunriseMontessori.com

One of my favorite catalogs to browse through is For Small Hands, which sells real things in child size. No plastic vacuum for pretend vacuuming - everything in here is real but smaller; small baking pans, safe graters, little colanders, mini clothesline, small hammers and saws for woodworking, a steel kid's wheelbarrow instead of a plastic one, everything scaled down for a child, everything really cuts and rolls and bakes and picks crumbs up off of the floor.

My kids love to play, but when I bake bread, they want to help. When I garden, they want to help. When I hang clothes, they want to help. When I sweep, they want to help. It's their job to do what I do and what Bryan does.

This is something every parent should do for their babies and children, whether crunchy or mainstream, homeschooling or public schooling, natural or technological, stay at home or gone for work. When we force independence on our children before they are ready, we harm them, but it is the same when we hamper it when their time has come.

“Never help a child with a task at which he feels he can succeed.” – Maria Montessori

For additional reading, I love how this mama describes preparing her apartment for her daughter.

This is also a good article called “Oh, Baby! Preparing a Montessori Environment for the Littlest Ones”

For life rather than earning a living

"But the people themselves begin to understand and to clamour for an education which shall qualify their children for life rather than for earning a living. As a matter of fact, it is the man who has read and thought on many subjects who is, with the necessary training, the most capable whether in handling tools, drawing plans, or keeping books. The more of a person we succeed in making a child, the better will he both fulfill his own life and serve society."  
-Charlotte Mason

Our Autumn Nature Table

I've turned our kitchen hutch into a nature table.

Nature tables are used in both Montessori and Waldorf education, but they are generally made up of different things.

Waldorf ones tend to have a lot of homemade crafts in addition to articles from nature. The crafts reflect the season, and often include dolls, little people, gnomes or fairies.

Montessori ones are made up entirely of things found in nature by the children.

Both tables are supposed to be completely accessible to the children and none of the items are off limits.

Ours is a mix of the 2. We have some of the smaller pumpkins the children picked at a pumpkin patch, plus some mini pumpkins we bought at the store. There's also what's called a finger squash, which we also found at the pumpkin patch. Then, there are crafts and decorations - a wood pumpkin bowl with mini skulls in it for Halloween, my homemade plush candy corns, crocheted buttterfly dolls in fall colors, plastic leaves I found for $1.00 a package, and my quilted pumpkin Trick or Treat bag from when I was a little girl that my mother sewed for me.

I just completed a crochet slice of pumpkin pie to add to the table, and some crochet mushrooms, since we've been finding those a lot around the woods. After Halloween, I want to put together a cornucopia of crochet fruits and vegetables. I've decided to skip the pilgrims, because, quite frankly, I'm mad at them.

Homemade Felt Counting Mats

I wasn't sure if I should put these here or on my craft blog, but here we are. I got this idea from a preschool supply catalog.

They place an item on each big red dot and practice counting out loud. I'm working on numbers 6 - 10.

It was really easy and cost under $3.00, though I will say it was a pain to sew on the numbers. Also, as I have mentioned before, I am not good at either cutting out or sewing circles. Luckily, the kids aren't critical!

Frankenssori, or, What Makes Montessori "Montessori?"

Deirdre exploring our homemade sound bottles

Our homeschool style is "eclectic:" Montessori here, Waldorf there, unschooling a lot, everything in between. Aside from a few unmistakeable Montessori materials, one might wonder if we can call it Montessori anymore.

In fact, many Montessori purists believe no homeschool is truly "Montessori," because one hallmark of a Montessori education is several age groups together, the older ones helping the younger ones.

However, Maria Montessori never intended for her methods to be only available to priveleged children in expensive private schools. As a physician and scientist, she began her work with children designated as "idiots," and then furthered her work with "normal" children whom she suspected were equally repressed and underestimated. It was her intention that the public school system at large adopt her methods for the advantage of ALL children.

As we all know, however, the ultimate goal of public education is to cater to the lowest common denominator in the largest quantities possible. Democratic schools that offer alternative educations are only available in the private sector, or for the lucky few selected by lottery for the rare charter school willing to go against the status quo.

And so, many of us who want to raise up our children using Maria Montessori's methods need to do it at home, without the benefit of thousands of dollars to purchase top of the line Nienhaus materials. We piece together our own educational Frankenstein with the resources that we have, and we call it Montessori.

Because we can.

And not just because the name "Montessori" is in the public domain and can be used by anyone.

We call our homemade Montessori homeschools "Montessori" because a true Montessori education lies in the method, not the materials, no matter what the purists say.

I believe 5 principles are the heart of a Montessori education, and if you have those 5 things, you can safely claim you are giving your child or children a Montessori education. I want to write at greater length about each, but this is the summary:

1. Everything child sized and child accessible, with a minimum of restrictions on movement and exploration, even from birth.

2. Use of the 3-Part Lesson.

3. Manipulatives and materials designed to utilize the senses in learning.

4. Lessons have a "Control of Error," or way for the child to tell if they have done it right or not, without the help of a teacher.

5. Freedom to go at one's own pace and choose one's own activities.

I don't think there is anything wrong with adapting Maria's lessons. One of her prime objectives was to help the children achieve independence, to participate in regular home and family life. It was useful to teach children to shine a shoe or wash their hands in a basin 100 years ago, but that doesn't count as "practical life" in my house. My children learn to unload a dishwasher, hang clothes on a hanger, and wash their hands at the sink.

Maria was also a product of her time. Her materials were made from the materials she had to work with - metal, cloth, beads, wood. It's true that she believed that children were more likely to use beautiful, well-made materials, but I scarely believe that it will matter in the end if a child learns Base 10 math using plastic instead of glass.

And while I am certain children learn a great deal of self-discipline and motor control from polishing mirrors, they learn just as much from cleaning a toy, or pushing a vacuum instead of a push broom.

Deirdre likes to use her toes instead of her fingers to explore our homemade rough and smooth boards.

Blogger Is On My Hit List Right Now

I spent several HOURS last night in bed writing out a long and wonderful Montessori post (why hours? Because I finally have the flu and am hiding out in bed), and then Blogger blitzed out on me, and now I have discovered that it only save the first 2 paragraphs.

(sigh)

Pictures, links, pontifications...it was going to be the beginnings of a weekend long Montessori adventure.

Well, good thing I'm sick and have nothing better to do (except breastfeed, and I type pretty well while breastfeeding...)

I have changed the title of this blog....

...back to "Escaping To My HAPPY Place."

I was planning on doing this, and then a blog dedicated to ripping up other blogs made fun of the title, and so I didn't want to change it and have them think they're the reason why. Then I remembered, I'm not 12.

What's on the menu this week?

A friend of mine once told me that she likes to see what other people are making for dinner. We actually make a list every week, because it helps us with shopping, and because it helps my brain to have everything set up so I'm not pacing the kitchen and panicking about dinner.

My favorite menu planner, and I've tried a few, is available from donnayoung.org, which has free homeschool and home planning printables.

On our list this week:

Monday: Leftovers. Bryan doesn't get home until 7:00 on Monday nights, so it's a "Choose Your Own Adventure" night.

Tuesday: Dinner in a pumpkin. We were going to make this on Sunday, but we actually left one of our bags of groceries at the store, possibly in our cart, and lost key ingredients. I hate that! Such a waste! We went out today to rebuy them so we'll try this tomorrow.

Wednesday: Cauliflower casserole. We bought some cauliflower to try at the Farmer's Market, and I can get my family to pretty much eat anything as long as it has cheese on it.

Thursday: Crab Spring Rolls. We have some canned crab someone gave us, and we love to make spring rolls. This recipe and most of this week's recipes come from a Cooking Light Magazine cookbook that I found at a thrift store for $2.00

Friday: Boca burgers. We bought a few boxes on sale. We just make up regular burgers with cheese, lettuce and tomato, and sometimes bacon.

Saturday: Open, usually left overs., sometimes just a cheese, bread and fruit night.

Sunday: Sunday is my new designated soup day, and this Sunday we'll be trying a roasted hazelnut soup recipe.

No, Actually, You Did Not Turn Out Okay

One of the stupidest things I read and hear is the "I (or my kids, spouse, dog, whatever) turned out okay" arguement. "I vaccinated my kids and they turned out okay." "I went to public school and I turned out okay." "I was spanked as a kid and I turned out okay." And, most recently, "I was carried around in a car seat and I turned out fine."

Um, no you didn't.

First, though, let's talk briefly about why that arguement is illogical. I broke my wrist as a child and my wrist turned out fine. Doesn't mean I should let my son climb onto the roof. My friend was molested by her grandparents and she has turned out to be a smart, caring person. Doesn't mean child molestation doesn't do harm. A positive end doesn't mean the journey was good and should be repeated.
It's an answer that reinforces my suspicion that you don't think things through and that I should stop talking to you.

Nevertheless, for the sake of humor, let's discuss all these things that my imaginary conglomerate "you" have gone through and supposedly recovered from just fine. For all you folks who like to shoot first and ask questions later, this is not an attack on the people who do these things, it's an attack on using faulty reasoning as an excuse.

"I was vaccinated as a child and I turned out just fine."

When you were a kid, there were 10 vaccines on the schedule. Today there are 36, including a vaccination given immediately after birth that wasn't there 20 years ago. (source link) So, it 's irrelevent if you turned out fine.

"I was circumcized and I turned out fine (or another arguement we have heard, "I don't remember it, so it wasn't that traumatic)."

You lost the five most sensitive areas of your penis when you were circumcized, but since it happened to you before you had a chance to choose for yourself, you have no idea that you are missing anything. The foreskin barely retracts in the first few years of life because it is there to protect the penis from infections, so since you probably peed and pooped on a raw wound for the first few weeks of your life and then had exposure forever after that which was not intended by nature, you have actually spent your life MORE susceptible to infections, not less. Your penis also has scar tissue. Every cut male does.

Whether or not you remember it is, like the vaccination arguement, irrelevent. When you were a child, it was still common practice to perform circumcisions without anesthetic. It was VERY painful and VERY traumatic, and research is only now starting to uncover what that does mentally to a child that carries over into adulthood.

"I was spanked as a child and I turned out fine."

This arguement is infuriating. Lots of people recover from childhood abuses. And lots of people think they did but still have problems they don't recognize, such as your insistence on not breaking the chain but carrying on this unloving and unpeaceful practice.

First of all, society suffers. "the percentage of children spanked has dropped from 90% to 10%, youth crime has decreased in Sweden since the mid-1990s, and violent crime has not gone up."

If you live in a state where corporal punishment is allowed in schools, your state also has higher murder rates, higher incarceration rates, more children living in poverty, and less adults with high school diplomas. (source link)

Second, if you are woman and were spanked as a child, you are more likely to accept violence from a male partner, and if you are a man spanked as a boy, you are more likely to use it against your female partner. (source link)  Let's not forget, violence includes emotional abuse. "...spanking by parents also has negative emotional consequences for girls. "The intention of spanking is to cause pain and the causing of pain to girls and then saying 'I love you' is not healthy."...

"It is important to note that not all children who are spanked will develop negative social behaviors, just as not all heavy smokers will develop lung cancer, says Straus.

"But the potential risk is certainly increased," he says. "And it isn't worth the potential for long-term negative effects." (same source)

"I was carried around in a car seat instead of a baby sling and I turned out fine."

But your mother didn't. From Consumer Reports:

If you opt to use your infant car seat as a carrier, realize that it can be a killer on your wrists, elbow, lower back, and neck if you tote it by the handle or if you string it on your forearm like a handbag. “The greater the horizontal distance from the weight you’re carrying to your torso, the more stress on your joints, discs, ligaments, and muscles,” says Mary Ellen Modica, a physical therapist at Schwab STEPS Rehabilitation Clinics in Chicago, IL. “It’s equivalent to walking around with three or four full paint cans in one hand--something most people wouldn’t do, but they’ll carry a car seat that way.”


And it's possible you didn't really, and neither is your baby now:

"Infants transported that way use their head, neck, and shoulder muscles to stabilize themselves and establish stronger trunk stability. Those muscles may develop sooner in babies who aren’t carried around in a car seat."

(source link for both quotes)

As an added bonus, the person who recently said this called bucket car seats "super convenient." Really? Try carrying your sleeping infant in one of those through a security check point in an airport terminal.

In addition, you missed out on the documented benefits of babywearing. Babies who are frequently carried, either in arms or in a sling, cry less, show "enhanced visual and auditory awareness," experience less anxiety and frustration, receive more exposure to language and the day to day activities of family life, and Dr. Williams Sears even claims they are smarter. (source link)

Also, seriously, don't try to get through an airport without a baby sling.

"I or my baby was formula fed and I/he/she turned out fine."

First of all, be glad that you live in an industrialized nation where you have the luxury of "choosing" between breatfeeding and using clean water and sterile bottles to give your baby formula.

Secondly, whether you like it or not, thousands upon thousands of babies die all over the world because of formula, including in the United States.

"A recent study published in the journal Pediatrics, (May 2004), titled "Breastfeeding and the Risk of Postneonatal Death in the United States," reports a 21% reduction in infant death for having EVER breastfed, meaning 27% more infant deaths occur when no breastmilk is provided. The impact is underreported for two reasons. First, deaths in the first month, the greatest amount of deaths, were not counted. Second, the exclusiveness of breastfeeding is a huge factor and is not part of this measurement.

When they compare 3 months of any breastfeeding to less or no breastfeeding, the reported reduction is 36%. That translates actually to 56% more infant deaths for those receiving mostly formula! If they were to compare 3 months of exclusive breastfeeding to no breastmilk, the reduction would have been closer to 50% — meaning Double the deaths for withholding of breastmilk: The same number as in my prior analysis BELOW:

(ADDED April 2006): This study and my below article are about industrialized nations. A more-recent large-scale study taking place in poor areas of Ghana, India, and Peru found a shocking 10.5 times the number of deaths for those not breastfed versus those exclusively breastfed. Partially breastfed infants had 2.5 times the risk of death as those exclusively breastfed. Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 2005." (source link)

That's a lot of babies who did not turn out fine (or alive).

But, the reality is, sometimes formula is necessary. Adoption, low or no milk supply (rare but does happen), in these instances, formula becomes the lifesaver. Instead of fighting the reality of formula's inferiority, parents should use that information as a tool for discovering the things they need to do to compensate, to build the immune system, to nourish brain growth, and to supplement with skin-to-skin contact. Don't use tap water (heard in the news about how many pharmaceuticals are frequently found in tap water?), use BPA-free bottles, supplement the DHAs, and stop yelling at facts for disagreeing with your wishfull thinking.

"I had an epidural and my baby turned out fine."

I had an epidural and my baby's heart rate dropped to 55 and we had to have an emergency c-section. Apparently, that's not an unusual risk - epidurals can cause a mother's blood pressure to drop, which causes the baby's heart rate to drop, which snowballs into a lot of other "interventions," and by "interventions" I mean "major abdominal surgery from which it takes weeks and sometimes years to recover." I still have no feeling around my surgical scar.

I can't blame anyone for getting an epidural because my own two labors were so horrific that one of my evaluatiing therapists diagnosed me with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. If I ever give birth again, I am going to get an epidural.

But I don't kid myself about the risks, to both myself and my baby. Respiratory distress is a side effect, and boy did I have it. Babies born under the influence of anesthesia are much more likely to have a difficult time breastfeeding successfully. My son struggled with it for a long time. My daughter, who had much less exposure to anesthesia before being born, was a champion nurser. But that's anecdotal - to read about the research, click here. There is much to be aware of before making the serious decision to be heavily medicated during labor and birth.

"I went to public school and I turned out fine."

If you went to 12 years of public school and managed to avoid all bullying, loneliness, unfair or incompetent teachers, sexual harassment, drug and alcohol abuse, racism, sexism, crowded rooms, outdated or absence of materials, indoor pollution, loss of sleep and social interaction, limits on available subjects, and endlessly boring lectures devoid of creativity or flexibility with regards to different learning styles, then you are awesome, lucky, and probably lying.

Even if you support the public school system, you must accept and acknowledge the many limitations of a system that pays superintendants more than senators while teachers still ask parents to donate school supplies and often themselves qualify for government assistance.

We are endlessly putting money into education and none of that seems to actually reach teachers and students, but gets circulated among the beaurocrats and funneled out to curriculum developers who have no concept of how children actually learn. And now, children are spending weeks and sometimes months just learning how to take tests - a tactic which isn't helping.

""[H]ome schooled minorities and whites both score on average in the 87th percentile on reading tests. In public schools, whites significantly outpace minorities in reading scores (whites: 57th percentile; blacks: 28th percentile; Hispanics: 28th percentile). In math, home schooled whites score only marginally better than minorities do (82nd percentile vs. 77th percentile). In public schools, the disparity is huge: 58th percentile for whites, 24th percentile for blacks, and 29th percentile for Hispanics.


"Public school officials have some explaining to do. Why is that despite their constant lip service to the goal of equal opportunity, public schools continue to deliver abysmally low academic quality to minority students? Home schoolers have broken out of the ugly, demeaning stereotype of racial underachievement. Why can't government schools do the same?

"Whatever the reasons for the dilemma of public-education failure, they don't include inadequate funding. For each home-school child, the average schooling cost is $546 per year; the annual public-school per-pupil expenditure is $5,325.Both figures exclude the costs of the building in which each child is taught."

"...students taught by parents who have not finished high school score 30 percentiles higher than students in public schools."" - Michael P. Farris, President of the Home School Legal Defense Fund

As a personal side note, I can trace a lot of my life's worst decisions to the training I received in public school, including from the Algebra teacher who told me he'd give me a higher grade if I wore shorter skirts. Imagine the useful things I learned from that nugget of wisdom! Who knew corporate America doesn't operate all that differently!

I could go on and on through many more topics, but my point remains clear - you supposedly turning out fine after a potentially damaging experience does not count as actual evidence that something is good or okay. I know, the moment those words come out of your mouth, that we cannot have a reasonable discussion and that, for the time being, you have stopped thinking.

Breastfeeding in the Wilderness

at Whatcom Falls Park