Hello! I love this board and am kind of addicted to coming here for help haha. We have been going to an educational therapist doing the Wilson Program for my 9 year old daughter with dyslexia and executive functioning issues. Needless to say, it's been an expensive summer. Due to my work schedule coming up, homeschooling is not an option unless I quit and do homeschool full time. We found a great Montessori school that is about 40 minutes away. They seem to have worked with kids with EF issues and I love that their program is strength-based and focused on experiential learning. All words I have never heard at public school (which I took her out of last year after all of you wonderful folks gave me great advice). My concern is she will be in a class with 3-5th graders....which seems like a pretty distracting situation. Has anyone else had their dyslexic child in montessori? Any words of advice? How about grants for Elementary Private School for kids with learning disabilities? I just sent out a bunch of emails today to our state government education and other services, asking questions. Thank you for your ideas and good luck to all of those whom are starting school next month! How did summer go so quickly?!

Well, it's been a long time since I've been here! Good to be back. Our 2 oldest have graduated, married (both this summer!!) & now we've got littles to educate ;0) 1 year old, (new) 6 year old & 8 year old. I'm thinking about doing a semester more of kindy w/ the 6 yob & starting 1st in January. 8yog is solid third although math always needs more help! Has anyone tried to combine this many different styles?? The notebooking/narration part of the classical approach using SOTW that we did with our older ones is very similar to Waldorf's (somewhat) unit study approach to Main Lesson Books, although my brain needs workbooks for spelling, most of math, & handwriting (sorry about that sentence, not even gonna correct it bc it's too late at night)! We'll be on SOTW book 3 this fall but I really would love to encorporate the Waldorf studies of gardens, shelters, fiber arts & Native Americans. Any ideas welcome! Shannon mama to 5 ages 1-22, homeschool mama since 2002 instagram mamaj41

Hi There, I'd love to know how a Montessori School for Upper Elementary usually looks like. Wondering if you have set curriculum available? Is it devise your own each year/week/day? I'd really love it if some of you could tell me the good and bad of Upper Elementary Classrooms..... Hope there are some Montessori Teachers on here! :)

The school year is off to a phenomenal start for my older two children (8 and 6). My youngest, however, is feeling really left out. I had planned for her to sit in with her siblings as much as she wants, with small activities for her to do during our longer lessons (finger paint/lauri toys/etc). She is also doing ETC primers, Singapore Essentails Math, The Reading Lesson, and Rod and Staff ABC workbooks. The problem is, she finishes her math worksheet in a few minutes, while my olders work on math for 30-45 minutes, and I am typically in and out of working with them during that time. All the while, youngest is tugging on my legs, wanting to do more school. She does not want to work independently, she wants interaction. And I cannot overlook the reality that she is really getting the short end of the stick. All that said, is there a preschool/kindy program out there that is very open and go and Montessori based? I need to add more FUN, not more academics. She loves any Montessori concepts/games we've done in the past but I don't have a lot of time to prep and plan a years worth of activities. If teacher prep is needed BEFORE, like all at one time for the year, I can do that, but I can't spend much time weekly. Any help/suggestions would be much appreciated! Also, any thoughts on what you do with your youngest while you are working with olders would be very helpful as well.

If you were to pick 1 or 2 must-read books on Montessori education for 3-6 year old, which books would you pick? What would be the top toys/ activities that you would recommend to buy or make for a 3-4 year old? Any tips, tricks or advice on a homeschool Montessori education?

If you were to pick 1 or 2 must-read books on Montessori education for 3-6 year old which books would you pick? I would love to be able to download the book on my iPad. What would be the top toys/ activities that you would recommend to buy or make for a 3-4 year old? Any tips, tricks or advice on a homeschool Montessori education?

So I'm on the parenting board at my Montessori school and we just heard about this interesting new system called MontesScoring. We've tested the system in one of our classrooms and parents really seem to like it. Before we subscribe to it, I was wondering if anyone else had any experience with the MontesScoring system? Their website is at http://www.montesscoring.com

Hello I've moved to the Lima Ohio area. Anyone here?

I heard someone at our co-op say they were doing Montessori math, and that it was great. Can anyone tell me what is Montessori math? We are planning to do FIAR with our kindergarten age daughter next year and are looking for a math curriculum. What makes the Montessori math special, and where do I find this curriculum? Is this similar to Cuisinaire rods? Amy

I'm interested in finding more Montessori home-schoolers and am having trouble tracking them down over the internet. I have found a few blogs with Montessori inspired nursery or preschool stuff going on in the home, but they aren't like a blog of a homeschoolers day-to-day or grade by grade day. Where can I go to find them, or is there a list of blogs that someone could link me to to start my search.

looking to form a nature school co-op with other mothers (and their ideas) a few days a week 45-90 mins each meeting . our focus (hopefully:) ) "loosely structured explorations and play in natural settings. The children's own interests and discoveries guide these daily explorations, rather than any predetermined activity outlines or academic goals and objectives. The excursions normally last 45 to 90 minutes each day, and are done in any weather conditions that are not dangerous.parents understand that these outdoor activities will often get the children wet, dirty, hot, and/or cold.".. we live off malabar road walking distance to "play park" with time to do nature walk on the way

Anyone from the Lima Ohio area? We just bought a home in the Shawnee area. Soon we hope to be in our home. I really need more support and social networking for my children kinder and 2nd. Thank you Shannon

Hello, Thanks so much in advance for reading. Any and all opinions are greatly appreciated. I'm spending this year lurking on this board (and reading some of your blogs as well) in order to learn about the various approaches, styles, sources of material, and implementation plans for a WTM approach to homeschooling. I should flag that I work outside of the home but I'm lucky in that my job allows very flexible hours. I currently work 5am-1pm four days/week. My two children (ages 3.5 and 22 months) and I are together every afternoon and all day Fri-Su. When I'm not home they are with their father or in school (see below) or with a recent college grad babysitter. I would like to continue my career and provide homeschooling (technically afterschooling I guess) for my children using the classical approach. My eldest just started a very strict (in terms of interpretation) Montessori school that offers instruction until 6th grade conveniently located a few blocks from our house. My plan is to send the younger one to this Montessori school next fall or winter and keep them in school until they graduate at age 12 (one or two years apart). I would pick them up around 1:30pm and we would have the entire rest of the day for instruction. We are a no-TV, no computer household. No toys requiring batteries. Right now we spend our time doing a combination of (in order of frequency): 1. reading books (lots of Richard Scarry, Marjorie Flack, Eric Carle, Leo Lionni, Uri Shulevitz, E.B White, William Steig, Kenneth Grahame), 2. building things with blocks, bungee cords, springs, rope, magnets, etc., 4. nature walks and digging for/identifying worms and bugs in our local park (we caught an ichneumon wasp last month!), 3. taking trips to the American Museum of Natural History (a 20 minute walk from our house, wonderfully) and other places around NYC. I'm looking to manage my own expectations regarding what I can accomplish with homeschooling given my somewhat limited time. I could imagine 'going for' a full hs experience using, for example, Friday and Saturday as full days and spreading further instruction across several days within the Mon-Thur 1pm and 6pm block of time. (Clearly we would ramp up from a base of one hour or so per day of instruction at the K level.) Or I could imagine veteran Homeschoolers balking that this is doomed to fail/too ambitious and that I should aim to select a few subject for a deeper dive at home. * I'm *passionate* about science, engineering, math, reading, comprehension and writing. * I'm *very interested* in grammar, world culture and history * I'm *keen on* (but not qualified to teach, perhaps) non-English languages (though I've studied ancient Greek in college), art and music. And that's where I'm at. Any comments, recommendations (especially of curriculum/instruction material that would complement a Montessori approach to learning, or 'you should read X's blog') -- would be really welcome. Many thanks.

Hello all! So thankful to be here. We've just found out we'll relocate to Ohio and in a few weeks! Currently we live in Texas. I've had zero pressure here doing what I believe to be in alignment with my children's needs. Specifically we'll live close to the Lima area. I'm traditionally trained and Montessori trained. I would of course love to find other families who are homeschooling using Montessori! However we can learn from all and I'm thankful to make local connections with other homeschool families. We'll likely live in a corporate apartment and up to 3 months while we work to buy a home etc.... Do I need to report to the school district as soon as we step foot into Ohio, or can I wait until we are settled in our new home? I plan to continue to homeschool while "on the road." But this won't of course reflect our true home program. Especially since Montessori moves from concrete to abstract and beautiful materials are part of the process. My children are Kinder and 2nd and excited for this new change! I'm a bit scared of the cold, but did grow up in PA so we'll survive! It's still in the upper 90s in Houston!!!! Thanks all!

hello we we're wondering if anyone knew of an affordable montessori homeschool program ..that is not too intimidating ..I'm a little overwhelmed and the internet has been less than helpful and defiantly not affordable..:lurk5:

Hi everyone, I know there are a few of us here interested in Montessori so I thought I would share. Montessori Services and For Small Hands is offering free shipping on orders over $50.00 until March 31. I have ordered through them before and was very pleased. Their website is www.montessoriservices.com or www.forsmallhands.com. There goes my budget for the month :lol:! Marisa I also posted this over at the "Exploring Montessori" social group :001_smile:.

Has anyone used this? I'm just getting my toes wet, learning about Montessori methods. So I wonder if this Homeschool Program would be something a parent with no Montessori background could easily implement. They *say* you need no Montessori background, but I'm wondering if anyone has actually done it. It's crazy expensive and only has a 3-day refund policy :001_huh: so I'd really love to hear some BTDT experience with it. http://www.montessori-home-schooling.com/

Should I get the sandpaper letters or the moveable alphabet? This is mainly for my 5 yo daughter who is forming letters ok, learning to spell with SWR and starting to read a bit too. But I also have 2 more coming up the ranks(so far...) and I know the next one down is going to need LOTS of multi-sensory help with language.

I am looking for a free website that will give me ideas to do with my son using the letters of the alphabet or numbers. Something that will give him hands on activities. I also would love to find free Montessori or Waldorf activity idea links. Thanks so much!!!

Just wondering how many out there agree with Steiner/Montessori's ideas about education for Kindergarten through 1st or 2nd grade (or further?) I don't mean the origin of their ideas, but what they are in practice.

Hey there! I am brand new here. My friend recommended that I direct my questions about the Right Start Math Curriculum here. I am planning to purchase Level A. I have some of the manipulatives already and would love to make a few of them as well. 1. My dad is going to make the colored tiles out of wood for us. He is only able to make 160 tiles with the wood he has on hand - instead of 200 tiles. Will this be a problem? 2. I have the Melissa and Doug abacus - can I use that? I remember coming across a blog post once about modifying the Melissa and Doug abacus to suit your needs. I think it was in order to make it more like the Montessori abacus. Could I use the Montessori abacus? I can't find the blog post now of course, anyone know where it is? 3. Is Right Start Math a good foundation for Singapore Math? I like Right Start because it has alot of hands on stuff and covers a variety of areas. Ultimately I would like to switch to Singapore Math. When would be a good time to do that? first grade?

This is the first time I am posting here, but I have been reading these forums for a long time. I am not a homeschooler, but I have been doing a lot of work with my son at home over the past few months. DS (7) is in first grade and was recently diagnosed with dyslexia. He goes to a wonderful little montessori school that we just love. His reading teacher is getting OG trained over the summer just to work with the handful of dyslexic children at the school. I am also considering outside tutoring as I am in school myself and am overwhelmed by what it is taking to tutor DS afterschool right now. His teacher (who he will have for 2 more years) is basically willing to do anything in the class that will help him out. I have read lots of things about accommodations for dyslexia, many of them are already being done in his classroom just by the fact it's montessori (no tests/grades, no time limit on work, teacher doesn't count things wrong that are written backwards or misspelled, etc.). I am looking for anything else that we can do to support his learning in a montessori classroom. I have done tons of web searches but I can't find anything that is specific to montessori. I was wondering if anyone here had any suggestions. I would like to work through the summer to come up with some kind of plan that she can implement in the Fall. Thank you so much, Michelle

My husband and I have a disconnect on what curriculum to choose for our son for the kindergarten age 5 this September. It is only a $200.00 investment that I am agonizing over but perhaps my son’s love of learning or lack there of as well. And I wish to have a one mindedness between my husband and I over this. I don’t know what to do. He reads nothing about homeschooling. He just relies on me and then opposes me on certain things now. We have ALWAYS been of one mind on everything until got to this point. Please read on: My husband’s position: (At least it seems to me is thus: What is most important to him I feel is preparation for reality which is ‘everyone hates school’ and things like ‘the love of learning’ and ‘learning style’ are a bunch of hooey and that Montessori is for kids who are mentally challenged. So buck up and do it. It does not matter whether it fits the child or not. We all made it through school some how so what’s the big deal. He definitely wants me to homeschool. Also he feels we need to keep beneath the radar and stay with an accredited curriculum so we will not be targeted by the government. He likes Mother of Divine Grace curriculum for this reason. Mother of Divine Grace is accredited, it comes highly recommended by the founder of Trivium private school (7th and up.) No we are not planning on sending our son there. It is just highly recommended. He would like me to start a program when my son is in kindergarten age (which means this September.) To help explain my husband let me add that my husband is Hispanic and much of his childhood was spent in Dominican Republic during a totalitarian regime where if you said the wrong thing you would disappear. He also feels since our son is darker than both of us and because of our last name, that he/we could be easily targeted. To back up his fear on the playground a little girl of about 5 yrs old wanted to play with me but not my son. I asked her why and she said that my son’s face was too dark! So I guess he has some point. I live in a nice area of southern NJ. In the summer my son can get to a beautiful dark golden color especially on his legs. Also my husband is against having our son repeat a grade. I feel that it might be very good for our son to repeat kindergarten. I explain to him that there is a big jump from 5th grade to 6th grade and a big jump from 8th grade to 9th grade. And if one had to repeat a grade past let’s say 2nd, then people will talk and our son would feel it. Its best to do the repeat in K than later on. He disagrees and says one grade builds on the next, and that is that. He does not believe that there are any big jumps. I don’t know how to back up what I am saying. For me it was just one grade after another. I believe in the trivium fashion it does jump more largely from 5th to 6th and from 8th to 9th. But I don’t know how. I have not gotten that far and I have never experienced it myself. My position: Our son’s learning style is very important to me. I see where he is very much of a kinestitic learner. If money were no object I would add an extension onto my home where I would have all the Montessori equipment needed to help my son be prepared. Up to the present moment I have been going to the library every week with my son since he was 3 months old. I have been reading to him daily or almost daily and following booklists for his age. (great books/Charlotte Mason method)(So maybe my son has some auditorial learning ability too but usually when I ask him to do something that he does not want to do I have to ask him to do it at least a few times, typical kid of course.) I have embellished as much as possible on different books in a variety of ways, etc. I also have ‘Montessori on a shoestring’ and when I have the time I make some Montessori manipulatives for him to use. I also have some real Montessori equipment a Montessori teacher friend lent me and is driving down from MA to teach me for the cost of her gas money to show me how to use it. I am very impressed with Laura Berguist especially after her visit to our homeschool conference. I like her program (Mother of Divine Grace) and how it is based on the trivium, it uses many of the books I have already read to my son, it does not seem to be worksheet driven (I hope), it is accredited, and I would have the security of knowing that I am teaching the right things in the proper sequence. My son is trying to teach himself to read. We have been playing a phonics song since before he could talk and he is just starting to read sight words now. He wants to learn to read better. I assist him as much as possible. I have purchased about 1 month ago ‘Teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons’ and once I got to lesson 2 in the quick paced fashion, recommended by the author, my son had had enough. I like though how Mother of Divine Grace takes this same book and spreads it over 2 years, compared to the author wanting you to be done with it in 3 months! Wow! My son says he likes school and we completed today lesson 1 of the Seton pre-k activities booklet (I purchased this a couple of years ago and tried it a few times here and there, now he seems to like it and states he wants to do school). It took him, it seemed, a good 2 hours. His handwriting skills are pretty lacking which I know is very typical for a little boy, so he is really where he should be. His pencil and scissor grip has improved greatly though. I am seriously considering NOT purchasing Mother of Divine Grace kindergarten curriculum ($200.00 investment) (at least not right now) and instead continue to do what I am doing (I have to repeat what I did all year though (I have exhausted all my booklists and library for pre-k and k and my library is going through a serious budget crunch so I will probably no longer be able to get interlibrary loans) and add to it Sing, Spell, Read, Write for preschool. A $90.00 investment. Then maybe when he is 6 years old I can start him on the Mother of Divine Grace curriculum for 1st grade or K when he is 6 years old (in essence hold him back 1 year to give him a boost later on perhaps.) Still I have a very successful homeschooler acquainance who states that I should just let him be and don’t do school. She believes in unschooling and my husband of course thinks that is a bunch of hooey too. Her claim is backed up by ‘Better late, than early’ by the Moore foundation, and ‘Raising cain: protecting the emotional lives of our boys’. They sight that children are naturally far-sighted, much better suited for climbing tries and catching butterflies and running around outside. One should not engage a child too early with ‘close work’ especially boys. One can strangle their child’s love for learning and make it harder for them. They back up what they say with many studies. They state that their claims based on readiness data are widely disregarded by the USA school. Yet Maria Montessori states that typically children go through a peak time of wanting to learn to read about at age 5 and if you miss that time then learning to read can be made much harder. And if you read the well trained mind it states (if I recall correctly) that art and music is of lesser importance in the early years (where Mother of Divine Grace feels it is very important in the beginning years) and one should be taught to learn to read, write, and do math early. Of course in the end one needs to know their children and see where they are at. My son wants to learn to read. Every day he works with the magnetic letters on the fridge and goes over to the phonic chart and sounds things out. He often will spell out (with magnets) what he thinks are words and we’ll review for a few minutes. So I think he is ready to learn to read. I don’t want to push. My husband is like ‘push, smush, just do it. And stop being so underconfident.’ I am like ‘I don’t want to ruin his love of learning.’ I don’t know what to do. Please help. One thing I can do is put together as best as I can a mock day with Mother of Divine Grace Kindergarten curriculum since I already have some of the materials (maybe between me and my library ½ of the curriculum but I am guessing really) and see how it goes and see if my son likes it. I don’t know. I would like to try Sing Spell Read Write though first. I think for my son’s learning style that might be up his alley. I don’t want to do that AND Mother of Divine Grace at the same time. The day would be too long. So again maybe I’ll do SSRW pre-k in Sept. 2010 and then Mother of Divine Grace k level September 2011. Yet I still have to convince my husband that this is the way to go. I am taking my husband with me to a local upcoming homeschool conference in hopes that it will help us get on the same wave length. Please any advice you can send my way will be much appreciated. My husband truly has no reading time. I read when I can. I can tell him what I read but his opinions are ground in so I cannot change his mind. Help!

Ds7, 1st grade, is ready for "more" somehow, and I think doing some Montessori type activities with him would be a good fit-it does advanced topics in a fun way, and an independent learner type of way-this all would really work for his needs and learning style right now, I think. I have one (very brief) book that has cool stuff for older kids (1-3 grade) like put a yellow moon tag over all the nouns, a purple circle over the adjectives, etc. And fun phonogram games, etc. Most of the other stuff out there that I see is Montessori for preschoolers. Weird to ask this on a classical forum, I know, but I think Montessori can be pretty rigorous, but it presents it in a way that a younger child can grasp advanced topics. I'm surprised more of us "classical homeschoolers" don't use some of their methods! :)

Hi I was wondering if any of you were doing Montessori with your kids? Just for the preschool/Kinder level? or the upper levels as well? Do you buy your materials? Make them? Please share your insights- you can send me a PM if you wish... I got a book on Montessori (focused more on the classroom), but is not quite clicking how to do it that at home with my Little one (thinking of my 19 month old boy now... ) - specially because of the materials needed... Do you adapt the materials needed (for example use the MUS blocks instead of the Beads for Math)? Also, do you have a list/guideline of the skills to work on each stage/age? If you do it with the older kids, how different is this from other Student-Led methods of instruction? Thanks.... Kate