Secular Homeschooling

I know that the baby is only still a baby, and I’m jumping the gun a little, but I’m a planner! So, I’ve been researching homeschooling a lot lately. I want to think of his education from 1 year old on as a type of schooling and I’ve been trying to find homeschool groups in my area to get advice or just meet other moms and their kids. Unfortunately for us, I have yet to find a secular homeschool group.

We don’t consider ourselves a religious family and we want to raise our children as such. That isn’t to say that we don’t want to teach them about religion. In fact, we want our kids to be well versed in many major religions. Understanding a person’s religion can make them much more accepting of differences and different cultures. But I don’t want to be part of a religious homeschool group and that’s all we seem to have around here.

I’m beginning to think that as the baby gets older and we actually get into “real” I’m going to have to make my own. A little scary, but it could be exciting!

Are you a homeschooler or part of a homeschool group? Do you have any advice or tips to give to a new mom?

Semi-Montessori

As I mentioned in my previous post, finding activities to keep my almost 8 month old occupied and happy has been a struggle. He is at the age where he’s aware of the world and wanting to interact with it, but unable to because he lacks the ability to do so. His frustration is sometimes loud and slightly painful to our eardrums. And as much as I would love to help him with everything, doing so would be a disservice to him. Not only does he already want to do everything himself, but by helping him constantly he wouldn’t learn anything. So I’ve been looking into the Montessori method of living/teaching.

Montessori is a teaching method that, when fully implemented, is a way of life for families. It focuses on the child and giving them the opportunity to function at their full potential. Children that most Americans would deem incapable due to their age can dress themselves, make themselves breakfast, help with dinner preparations, and even more. I never thought a 2 year old could chop vegetables (with a dull, child safe ‘knife’ of course) before learning of Montessori. The more I look into it, the more I want to start bringing some of the practices into our lives. I will not be following it completely, but our family will be more conscious of the baby’s abilities and how to encourage self reliance.

This week we added our first Montessori change into our home: we added a baby centered area of the living room where he can get into everything and anything. Baby proofing is done for the whole room, so we can let him explore to his heart’s content. The Montessori area consists of a bookshelf, a mirror, and age appropriate toys. So far, we all love it!

Things have changed slightly from the picture above. The orange bucket is now on the floor and filled with homemade sensory bags (which I will be doing a post on later), Lucky, the stuffed puppy, is also next to the mirror, and the ball on the bottom shelf has been moved to the second shelf and replaced with books.

Calvin is able to access everything on the lower two shelves. He can play with anything, whenever he wants. The second shelf is even helping him with his dexterity as he works to get a toy he wants. I think his favorite part is the mirror though.

He will spend 30 minutes straight staring into it, either looking at himself or laughing at our reflections as we move around the living room and wave to him. His frustration levels have dropped dramatically and the house has become a much calmer, happier place for everyone. I’m thrilled!

Seeing the success of this tiny change towards a Montessori lifestyle has me wanting to follow it more. The baby is such a strong willed little person and I think he will thrive on the independence it gives him as he gets older. I know that we will never implement Montessori fully (I believe in cribs and that there are times when a playpen is necessary) but I truly believe that what we do use will enhance our quality of life and give the baby the independence he already craves.

Have you heard of Montessori? Is it something that you’ve used before or are interested in?