Blending Montessori and Non Montessori Approaches

I started writing a reply to one of the comments I received on the Dwyer Post and figured that I would rather write a post about it. The question was how I was blending the Montessori Dwyer Approach to the All About Spelling program that we are doing and how we are accomplishing all this with a curious 18 month old toddler in the same house!

The answer is that we are not really blending the approaches. The days that we really get into our school room during my toddler's nap time is when I do presentations as there is no way I can do presentations with constant interruptions from M. I usually plan any new presentations over the weekend and present it early in the week either on Monday or Tuesday during M's nap. Then D is free to choose the work anytime we are in the school room. The beauty of the Dwyer approach is that other than the "Reading Folders" portion there is not much preparation in terms of materials, so it was/is a perfect fit for us.

I am NOT using the All About Spelling program for phonic instruction, but rather for spelling and handwriting work. As of now, D is breezing through Level 1 of the program as this is covers all CVC words, initial blends, ending blends and use of c vs k, most of which we have extensively covered in the Sound Games and Moveable Alphabet works. We are taking it very slow and focussing on the dictation recommended in the program with D actually writing out 4-5 words that I dictate to her. We do this twice or thrice a week for 10 mins at a time. At this time we are just focussing on D listening to the word, segmenting it in her head and trying to figure out the correct symbols and translating that to actual writing. As to why I am doing this program, this is for myself. The days that we never get to the school room, we still spend 10 mins on this and this gives ME the satisfaction that I am doing something with D instead of wasting the whole day doing nothing. This is not much work for me at all, as each lesson is scripted and I just follow that.

While we are at this, I would also like to describe the Right Start Math program and how we are doing that. This program is very hands on just like the Montessori math work. The one difference is how there is emphasis as seeing numbers under 10 as 5 + x. I don't follow the scripted lessons to the dot from the manual and instead try focus on one skill try to present it the montessori way. For example, addition and subtraction under 10 is taught by means of the whole-part circle combination initially using the abacus. So after making sure D understood the concept via a presentation, I left a couple of problems and the abacus on the math shelf free for her to choose. We are still continuing with the Montessori Golden beads, I am just trying to cover any gaps (concepts like the whole-part circle combinations) through the program.

It is a lot of work and there are tons of great ideas out there. I wish we could do much much more, but I am happy that I am providing a happy and nurturing and inspiring environment for the kids to grow and learn in. We are just doing what is working for us now. Sure there are days when we don't do anything at all and there are days when we speed faster than a missile and learn so much more. If I had only one child and the time to let her learn everything by herself then I would only do Montessori based home-schooling. Since the reality is much different, I have these additional programs that we do just to make sure we are covering everything and lets face it, it is a lot less preparation on my part. I still try and follow the Montessori principles by following what D is interested in and letting her take the lead and tweak anything and everything into a Montessori learning experience!

Our School Room Setup

After weeks of hard work finally here is a peak at our school room.  This room is our library that is right at the front of our house.  I chose this room because I can close the door and secure it out of my curious little M's reach.  Another reason I love this room is the large window that allows so much natural light into the room.

Here is a look at the doors to the room.  As you can see I have it closed and secured using a hair band!

Here are some overview shots of the room starting counter clock wise from the door.

After you enter the room, to your right is this large shelf from Ikea that we already had.  The top shelves are for my supplies.  In the bottom left are the books that are used during school time (both D's and M's) and to the right is where I keep M's montessori works. This way when M is in the room I can contain her to this area and let her not mess with D's other shelves.

Just next to this shelf in the corner is our practical life area.  I didn't have enough shelves so had to use this end table that was sitting un-used in our basement.

For now I have this table for D placed near the big window, but we move this around the room depending on where we need the space.  This is a big Ikea table and the Ikea Chairs.  I love that the surface is white and wiping and cleaning the surface of this table is a great practical life activity for D.

The other corner in the room is our Math area.  Again, I re-used an old TV shelf for this area.  I love this TV shelf as most of the Math trays are large and this long shelf serves it right.  I had these Clock and Money Posters that I had bought in the Dollar Store a long time back and now it hangs behind this shelf. Also on the wall you can see our Large Number Cards displayed for easy access for our golden bead material work.

Right next to the Math area is our Language Area.  The bookshelf I used for this has only two shelves and kind of small, so I have the sandpaper letters and our salt tray on the floor.  On the wall above is the first finger painting from D.

This is another old TV cabinet re-purposed for the sensorial area.  Between the language and sensorial area is our bin for rugs.  On the wall above the shelf is a picture of Maria Montessori that I cut out from an old NAMTA journal.

Up next is our cultural shelves.  You can see our continent boxes on the floor.  On the wall are posters that I got for a buck at the dollar store and laminated at Lakeshore Learning.  One the other corner are two more boxes that are used for storing some of my supplies.

This is the initial setup that we are going to use to start our school with.  As time goes by we might switch things around.  I am pretty sure once M hits eighteen months there would be a lot more she would be interested in and I would have to move the shelves around.  May be I will win the lottery and will be able to afford new shelves or may be a newer house with a bigger school room! Dreams!

It is still not as perfect as I want it to be, but for now it works and it is way better than our old setup.  I don't have before pictures, but our previous set up was very cluttered.  In the ideal world I would have matching shelves for all the areas and would have moved the supplies out of the room into another area that is accessible easily, but I did not want to spend any money and so re-used what we already had.  The important thing is that D and M love this and have been having a blast in there!