Supplementing home Montessori with "regular" preschool

[ochoco]

Hi there,

My son will not quite be three in the fall, and we had hoped to send him to a Montessori school here in town. Turns out that this year, for the first time, there was a huge waiting list, and there's no chance we'll be going. Unfortunately, in our area, we just don't have great Montessori resources.

Well, not a huge problem, I am Montessori-trained, and have been raising him in an M.-inspired environment. I'm really happy with how it's been going. (Montessori potty training works!) I plan to invest in some language, math, and sensorial materials and continue lessons as he gets older - it's all been Practical Life so far.

However, one of the important aspects of the M. environment is other children, and social skills are such a huge part of the experience. We see other children in music class and storytimes, and will be taking different classes, so that's great. But I'd like for him to get social interactions without me right there with him all the time, and in an environment that's not as heavily structured and teacher-centric as a music or swimming class. I have been trying to think of ways to do this, and all I can come up with is putting him into preschool for a small amount of time. Not necessarily this fall, perhaps when he's a bit older.

I was just wondering if any Montessori teachers have thoughts about this, and if any parents have experiences with doing Montessori at home while their children attend preschool.

Thanks!
Jenny

[teagansmama]

I guess it depends on what you are wanting. Me, personally, I would just take him to the park as much as possible, the library or any other places where other children would be.... that is more than enough exposure.

It sounds like you are doing a wonderful job w/ the Montessori! Lucky him to have you.

[ochoco]

Oh, thanks! I think I have found something, actually: a co-op preschool that meets twice a week, for 2.5 hours a day. It's really just an organized playtime, with snacks, art, outside time, and some singing. Parents help out once or twice a month in the classroom, and are welcome anytime.

My husband was teasing me, because it's really the opposite of a Montessori classroom...but I actually feel that rather than go to a preschool that will have some sort of curriculum, I'd rather just give him time to play, meet other adults and children, and broaden our own community. We can continue our Montessori home setup, and I can get some language, math and sensorial stuff, too, since we're saving so much money...

[3girlmom]

Any chance you could write a little refresher post on Montessori potty-training? It would be great to have someone who has Montessori training do that....

[ochoco]

Oy

I just wrote you this very long, very detailed response about potty training, and when I went to submit it, it disappeared completely! So frustrating!!

DS is wanting me, so I'm going to go, but I'll come back and write about it later on.

[Lillianna]

My thought was try to find other children to bring into your home on a regular basis such as a babysitting swap with another Mom nearby (you watch her kids for two hours while she exercise/she watches yours while you shop) or to open a small in-home day care (2 to 6 children). Each of these options would allow your child to interact with the Montessori materials uninterrupted and allow for some mixed ages and social grouping.
I see by your previous post that you already have an idea for a playroup but thought I would add my two cents =)

[ochoco]

Hi Lillianna,

You know, I've really thought about taking in a few children, even wrote up a Craigslist post on it! I have reservations about it - how the house would work, how the pay would work, how I would feel being the sole caretaker of children...I do think that in this town I could be picky and take only a few children for a few hours. Honestly, though, I am a little intimidated by it, and I'm not sure why.

So, I don't know. I do have this education, and it does make me sad to not only not be teaching, but not having my son in a Montessori school. On the other hand, I do believe that having a great home environment is better than anything (can I just tell you, my son got out of the bath, ran to the linen cupboard, and started stacking and "folding" the sheets)...I'm also planning on going back and getting a master's degree in another field. Not so far removed from Montessori in some ways, but, I hate to admit this, the pay and benefits are so much better. It shouldn't be that way, but you know how it is.

Anyway. My compromise was to do Montessori things here and then treat these couple days a week as a glorified playtime, really - kind of the equivalent of going to the playground, but inside. One of the hardest things where I live is finding friends with children close in age (nobody in this neighborhood), and I have heard from another parent that this group works closely together, and that it has been a great group.

I seem to remember that you have AMI training, is that right? We are in a town that has zero AMI schools, although the one we tried for does have AMI teachers and actually has a three-hour worktime and other nice things. We're a couple hours south of Portland, which has such a wonderful community, I'm envious of them!

[Kirsten]

My dd1 refused Montessori, so I don't have any specific experience other than the one hour visit we did. But all three of my girls did attend co-op preschool! In my experience, it was very reasonably priced, and the kids and I all made great friends that we have to this day. That was almost nine years ago for my oldest dd.

I think you should go ahead. You could drop out at any time, and the price is (at least here) such that it isn't a big money commitment. It might be a great solution.

[ochoco]

Potty training

DH is getting DS ready for bed and I feel guilty, but I'll try to post a bit about potty training. This isn't anything official, and I know lots of people do similar things. I cobbled this approach together from some things I learned in training, some advice I received in this forum and in another, and a little bit from one of Dr. Spock's books!

1.) We brought a potty chair into the house at about 15 months. We talked about it, showed him how he could sit on it, but nothing else. He didn't like to sit on it at first, so we didn't push it.

2.) About the same time, I started letting him go diaper-free at home. He really didn't have the concept at all at first, and I think I re-diapered until about 18 months, when I noticed that he was holding his urine for longer periods of time. Then we went straight to 'big-boy undies', those thick cotton ones. The point of this was to give him feedback, so he could feel what happened when he needed to pee. At this time, he had a pretty regular pattern for pooping, so I'd try and put diapers on when we noticed the signs. We did have some pee on the floor, and poop too! I would give him a cloth to help clean himself with the pee (not poop), and to help clean the floor, but that was just to involve him - I did the real cleanup, and of course when having him help, there was nothing punitive about it, it was very matter-of-fact, like, "Hey, here's a cloth, let's clean up the pee now!" He loves to clean spills, so it never seemed sad or anything. Obviously if he wasn't interested, he didn't have to, ever. (Self-cleaning sometimes weirds people out.)

3.) Somewhere in here he got the concept of peeing on the potty, and really started liking it. He'd have me read to him, he'd spend some time looking at a book. We brought the potty into the living room so he could hang out with use. Now when he pooped, he'd start hiding, he'd get upset and shake his head at us if we looked at him. So I didn't push that on the potty either, although I did mention at other times that he could poop on the potty, that Mom and Dad pooped on the potty, etc. Again, always upbeat and informational rather than trying to coerce him.

4.) I don't know how this happened, but I think he accidentally pooped in the potty one day. I kind of celebrated that with him, and from then on he got it. It was right about when he hit two, and he went from hiding to coming and telling me when he needed to go. After he made the connection, he woke up with poopy diapers on two days - he had loose stools, so possibly had a stomach problem - and after that, he's only used the potty. So he became fully potty trained within a week. It's amazing.

5.) I invite him to use the potty every couple of hours or so - I have to do that for pee, because he will hold it for ages and then not make it to the potty in time. He does wake up with dry diapers, interestingly, so I know he can hold it for quite a long time. We also go out diaperless, and I bring one of those potty seat rings. He loooves public bathrooms, and adores washing his hands. Funny.

So that's really it! I know the same process works for older children, maybe there'd be some tweaking. But this was so easy - no power issues, no rewarding, just a really natural process.

Sorry, I know this is really long, but it's hard to describe in just a few words. I'm also incredibly wordy, as you may have noticed...

[ochoco]

One more thing - in a Toddler Community they would use the words "urinate" and "defecate", and "urine" and "feces". I didn't do that. Their reasoning is that they want to give the children the real language, and they don't want to make it babyish, and I totally understand that. But honestly, my DH and I and most people we know use the baby words for it, and we couldn't keep a straight face and use the words the way I could if I were in a classroom! So our child has the usual silly words for the process.

[ochoco]

Originally Posted by Kirsten

My dd1 refused Montessori, so I don't have any specific experience other than the one hour visit we did. But all three of my girls did attend co-op preschool! In my experience, it was very reasonably priced, and the kids and I all made great friends that we have to this day. That was almost nine years ago for my oldest dd.

I think you should go ahead. You could drop out at any time, and the price is (at least here) such that it isn't a big money commitment. It might be a great solution.

Oh, thanks, this is great to hear. You are right, the money commitment is very reasonable, and I really like having so much parent involvement - nice to have some sort of community, it's one thing that's really been lacking for us here. Very few of our friends have children, and it is difficult for me (like many of us) to meet new people in a sort of unstructured environment.

Also, I actually went to this preschool as a child, so there's something kind of sweet about sending him to the same place. My mother has fond memories of it. I'm excited, it's good to feel that we have a good option.