Friday 5 | Feb 17th
❌ Toy of the Week: Busy Boards
Children greatly benefit from any one of the items pictured on the busy board. If supports their fine motor coordination, sequencing, cause and effect, planning, and more! However, all this important mind work gets lots with how distracting these boards are. There is simply too much going on. When the child is inundated with this level of variety, not only do we see the child overstimulated and less “deep” in their focus, but the child also ends up developing LESS skills than if they had the opportunity to engage in any of of these on its own. This is why I say NO to busy boards and yes to single isolation boards…
✅ Toy of the Week: Single Latch Boards
This is one example of a busy board alternative: plates for a single action like latches, gears, etc. In this case, different latches are on different puzzle plates so that the child can engage specifically with the one latch they want to work on without all the distraction. Plus, when it’s isolated like this, the child can get into “deep concentration” around how exactly that latching mechanism really works! This allows for that “flow” state of learning where children are more comfortable pushing through challenges to get to the next level of understanding. This is why I saw YES to the single latch boards.
Practical Life Idea: Feeding a Pet
If you have pets, this is a great practical life activity for children to participate in. Once walking, the child can start to participate in feeding a pet and the first place we want to consider including them is with a child-sized tool! Whether it be a dog food scoop or a small pitcher to refill water, children show more skill with tools that are their size rather than asking them to adapt to what feels like enormous pieces of equipment! Once you have the tool ready, demonstrate silently to the child how it works. You you push a button? Turn the wrist? How is the tool used? Once you demonstrate, give the child a turn to repeat. This is an important time not to correct - of course they won’t do it correctly the first time they do it. Of course they might even spill the first time they’re ever done this! That’s ok. If something spills, model how to deal with a spill, “Oh! There’s kibble on the floor. Let’s use our fingers to pick up the pieces like this.” or “Let’s use a brush a dustpan.” With repetition, the child who has the opportunity to practice gets skilled! And once they are skilled, this task is immensely helpful to the family! Side note: give the child as much as you are willing to clean up! Just because they CAN hold a larger picture of water, doesn’t mean that’s the pitcher that should be used to refill the water bowl.
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).
Babies Build Toddlers: A Montessori Guide to Parenting the First 18 Months by PEACE founder, Mariana Bissonnette (also as an eBook)
Features a team of illustrators so that children and their development were authentically represented through the book. Learn more about the illustrative team here.
Parent Question of the Week!
Great Question!
So exciting to have discovered Montessori! The book Babies Build Toddlers (see above) is a birth to 18 months Montessori guidebook so the suggestions are going to center around that age. However, the development is timeless (and that’s half the book)! The book follows the Montessori Method by first explaining the development and then giving suggestions that align with that development. It is just as important to understand where your child has been as it is to understand where they are and where they are going. 14 months and even into toddlerhood is still a great time to read Babies Build Toddlers as a visual, referenced introduction to Montessori principles.
➡️ Masterclass Spotlight! The Montessori Masterclass is designed to give you a comprehensive, in-depth understanding on the Montessori method of education, from it’s history, the method itself, to it’s schools! 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.
