Friday 5 | Feb. 3rd
❌ Toy of the Week: Tracing Boards
Literacy is so important to the child’s freedom and intellectual independence later on. And Montessori found that with the foundation of sounds, children began teaching themselves to read and write. Much of this literacy progression is misunderstood. This toy (or toys like it) is a good example of a misaligned toy/activity for the child. In Montessori education in general, tasks as broken up in to isolated skills that the child works on separately and then puts those tasks together themselves to learn the skill on their own (she called this “auto-education”). It’s a little like making a new recipe. If you don’t know how to peel and chop garlic or make the stock for the soup, it’s going to be complicated to make the whole recipe. Whereas, if you practice each of the skills first, by the time you want to try a new recipe, you will be well positioned to be successful. For this kind of toy/activity, there are so many skills being put all in one - pencil grip, accurate pencil use, letter sounds, letter shapes, lower-case letters, upper-case letters, oh my! Moreover, when the child does initial work toward writing, it is essential to get feedback on their movement (i.e. making actual marks on paper or chalkboard). Instead, in Montessori, we use… Sandpaper Letters.
✅ Toy of the Week: Sandpaper Letters
Sandpaper letters are a set of large letters that are made with sandpaper. This allows the child to use their natural attraction to get feedback about their world through touch to be guided toward the muscle memory of the letter shapes. Moreover, when presented, we make a simple sound of the letter (“juh” for the letter “J”) so that the child’s brain associates the muscle memory of the letter shape with the sound that the letter makes.
Practical Life Idea of the week: Making a Bed
Practical Life or “daily living skills” are essential to parenting and anyone’s day-to-day existence. This week’s recommendation is making the bed! Whether the child is an infant, toddler, or preschooler, they can participate. As an infant, they can see made beds (and will absorb that as a natural state of being to aspire to later). As a toddler, this is the key time to invite the child to start to do Practical Life activities. As a preschooler, this can now become an expectation.
Children’s Book Recommendation of the Week
Purchase from local Black-Owned Bookstores for Infants/Toddlers centering Black Characters, Black Authors, and Black Illustrators, linked to Marcus Books, the nation’s oldest Black-owned independent bookstore in Oakland, CA (where The PEACE Program is based).
Parent Question of the Week!
Great Question! The child starts to create external order best when that external order is visible to them. That means that the best way to support the put-away timeline is to first make sure that the child’s space is simple and orderly: a place for everything and everything in it’s place. Developmentally, the child has capacity to start putting their things away after walking. What helps the most is an orderly environment and with fewer items than you might expect! Try having out however much the child is willing to clean up (after walking). Then, once they understand how to clean up their mess, you can increase the quantity of toys.
➡️ Masterclass Lesson Spotlight! Key Ideas: The Environment, Lesson 5: Restoring Order for more information about the developmental timeline for putting toys away, watch a video on how to do this in action and get clear next steps for this task! Learn more & Join!
About The PEACE Program
Our Montessori Masterclass lives into our values of self-reflection, self-care, responsiveness to being/becoming Anti-Bias / Anti-Racist, and a deep commitment to the whole child within the whole family. We offer a holistic program meant to provide inclusive, practical, and supportive guidance for parents & educators from birth to six.
