Montessori at our home - 1

After a long gap, I am posting. This is just to record my activities with my son Ananth.

Ever since we moved back from Phoenix, I have been on the lookout for Montessori schools in Pune. Unfortunately though, I do not have the luxury here. Hence, I have put him in a regular school. I have been introducing things to him so that he can continue from where he left. His Montessori schooling has been a huge learning process for me and reading through Montessori has and is transforming me far far more than my son. I feel deeply connected and thankful to Maria Montessori.

At 5 1/2 years, Ananth was already familiar with multiplication. He could even recite the tables from 1-12. Hence, the next logical extension was to keep him going along that path.

To my great relief, I found Montessori supply India very much here in Pune. The materials are authentic.

I purchased the
a) Multiplication board
b) Division board

I have introduced the basic division and he quite likes the division board much much more than the multiplication one! (Obviously it is the later lesson)

With the blank pages of his Mathematics notebook, we are currently making Decanomial set ourselves. Ananth found it way too interesting to cut the squares himself.

And, well, what a great great way to explain the concept of squaring a number! Now, he has the visual sense of 1 square, 2 square etc. We wrote down

1^2 = 1
2^2 = 4
etc all the way up to 100.

Since it is all in paper, I plan to stick it to some card stock so that while he has the squares on one side, he would have the "colours" on the other.

Other than that, Ananth himself picked up Hindi reading and writing. Today, he moved ahead to chandrabindu, visarga and ru matra. He was quite excited to pronounce Krshna the correct way and not as Kreeshna!!! :)

And, I sensed that his musical sense improved with a simple chinese toy that I had purchased over 2 years ago. He himself tapped and said - "Amma, this is sounding like Do re mi...". Then, he went over and over again a 10 times and discovered that Do re mi and Sa ri ga are sounding the same! And, wonder of wonders today he could actually sing it fully using the toy. He said, I feel so happy to have sung it perfectly. It is such a joy to see a child discover for himself - being allowed to figure out and discover. What greater joy than to let the child's innerself unfold itself.
For the first time, I could actually feel what Maria Montessori has been talking about the "moment of discovery".

My next plans
1) Complete the decanomial
2) He seems to ask lots of questions on geography and history - figure out some different way of presenting it
3) See how we can get to talk abt the animals/plants of the geographies....
4) Make the bead bars myself from some wonderful sites
5) How to better explain the anomalies in English - like why do we have w in write that is silent, k in knife that is silent!

More as and when I have something to pen down and to keep track of myself. My humble thanks to all those who have painstakingly recorded their journeys.

Living Montessori Now
Montessori at home
Youtube - Montessori Presentation Videos
Teaching from a tacklebox
Montessori Elementary material
And his school
Heritage Montessori School Phoenix

And, many many more that I have not been keeping track of.

Thank you.