It has been a really long time since i sat down to ‘write’ something. But today i just could not stop myself. I have always been fascinated by the concept of ‘Montessori’. I try and include some aspects of it, here and there, in our day-to-day life and on my son’s activity shelf. If you are a first timer here, you can subscribe to my Youtube channel to follow our Montessori-inspired journey!

I truly believe that Montessori is much more than just the materials or works that we often read about. It is a beautiful philosophy. It goes beyond the shelf. It is about ‘observing’ the child and giving him freedom and independence (within safe boundaries) to grow and enrich. I recently wrote a guest article on bringing montessori home. In that article i wrote about how we as parents can involve our children in day to day activities to keep them creatively engaged at home.

Practical life is perhaps the most important aspect of the Montessori philosophy. It is about allowing your child (or rather giving him a chance) to help you in daily home chores be it cooking, cleaning, laundry or gardening. I often like to supplement this with our shelf activities in the form of spooning, scooping, pouring or transferring works. These have been a part of our shelf ever since my son was 15 months old. One year down the line (with quite a few spills and messes), it still is one of my son’s favorite activity!

Last week i set up his shelf with these two activities – wet pouring activity (transferring water from one beaker to other) and dry transferring activity (transferring craft eggs from one creamer to other).

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I love to sit and observe my child when he does his shelf activities. I rarely guide or prompt him unless he asks for it or if i’m introducing a new concept to him.

Even for these two activities, i remained a silent watcher! And it was a delight to see him mix and match & create his own style!

After finishing his usual work of dry and wet pouring, my son combined both these activities together. He had so much fun adding water in to the egg container, and then transferring it from one creamer to other! It is amazing what a child can do, if we just let him explore without interrupting 🙂

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This ‘combined’ work kept him busy for good 15 minutes! Yay, because it also meant a breather for me 🙂 After all the pouring and transferring, he cleaned up the water mess with a sponge. I love montessori for such small , yet powerful teachings!

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Next, was his own imaginative play! He created his own little kitchen – the sponge became the gas stove, the creamers became a ‘mixer’, the beakers were his vessels to make some egg dish for mumma <3 This was my most favorite part!

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The purpose of this post is simple – to share with you the beauty of Montessori. It has helped me understand my child better. It has helped me slow down. It has taught me to always ‘follow’ the child and let him explore and self-learn.

Not everything you do for your child needs to have a ‘purpose’ or be ‘educational’…because a child imagines, explores (and in the process learns) from such simple, frugal activities.

Do write to me if you had any such ‘aha’ moment. I would love to hear from you.

Cheers,

Amruta