Here is another post from Lisa about this age group:


Is it too late to start Montessori?

Thank you, Lisa!

Be sure to visit the other ladies taking part in the blog hop!  There’s only one day left!

10 days of socialization for mom | The Homeschool Chick
10 days of classical education | Milk and Cookies
10 days of large families | Chocolate on My Cranium
10 days of special needs | Special Needs Homeschooling
10 days of struggling learners | Homeschooling the Chaotic Family
10 days of homeschooling girls | Homegrown Mom
10 days of homeschool enrichment | Confessions of a Homeschooler
10 days of building a spiritual legacy | Mommy Missions
10 days of frugal homeschooling |The Happy Housewife
10 days of Charlotte Mason | Our Journey Westward
10 days of unschooling | Homeschooling Belle
10 days of organization | Confessions of an Organized Homeschool Mom
10 days of getting started | Blog, She Wrote
10 days of homeschooling boys | The Tie That Binds Us
10 days of homeschooling Montessori |  Fruit in Season
10 days of preschool |  Delightful Learning

Welcome to Day 8 of 10 Days of Homeschooling Montessori!

• Counting Coconuts- some really creative things here
• What DID we do all day?- This blogger’s sidebar are chock full of Montessori links galore!
• My Montessori Journey
• The Adventures of Bear
• The Montessori Goldmine- a handful of linkups from around the web each day
• One Hook Wonder- with Montessori Monday
• Living Montessori Now- lots of great information and links to explore, as well as a sidebar of book recommendations
• The Work Plan- a Montessori teacher chronicles her days with her students
• A list of 50 Montessori blogs
• Confessions of a Montessori Mom- this blog is written by a Montessori teacher, Lisa Nolan, who will be guest posting tomorrow on continuing Montessori through the elementary years
• Montessori Print Shop- Montessori materials for purchase in printable form
• Montessori Materials
• A wonderful set of photos of a Montessori classroom
• Montessori for Everyone- printable materials for purchase, and some for free
• A post on where to purchase materials

Our schoolroom space:

These are the shelves that my husband made, along with a small table and chairs, 

and a large, low, wood table that the kids kneel around to do work.

Here is the left side of that space where I have plastic drawer organizers

for the young ones’ work.  The drawers are labeled with their names.  I also use the little

wooden Ikea drawer unit for crayons, pencils, colored pencils and markers.  The drawers come completely out and the kids can take an entire drawer to work with.

Our schoolroom also has these cubes from Target where we store puzzles

legos and other building toys, and educational games.  Don’t mind the poster

that is falling down in the back.  :) 

Our circle time area has….circles!  These little circle carpets are from

Ikea and go a long way toward keeping everyone in their own space.  

You can see our calendar board.  I got many ideas for calendar time from the creative ladies at 1+1+1=1, 

Homeschool Creations, Mama Jenn, and Confessions of a Homeschooler.

We got this Antonio set from Ikea and love it.  We got the frame, the wire shelves, 

and a few sectioned plastic bins to go inside them.  

Our antique book case which holds all of my trays, baskets, pitchers, glass jars, tongs, spoons, 

funnels, and all sorts of other random things great for Practical Life work.

More Antonio shelves from Ikea.

Just a plain over-the-door shoe organizer for scissors, glue, yarn, dry erase markers, etc.

Please feel free to email me with any questions.  I am not an expert on Montessori (and I didn’t even stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night) but I can offer some tips based on how we have incorporated Montessori methods into our home.

Tomorrow Lisa Nolan will be guest posting about the philosophy of 

Montessori education for older children.

And Friday we end the Blog Hop with a giveaway!  

Be sure to stop back and enter!

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And visit the rest of the blog hop ladies here:

Once the child has learned to consistently count well, it’s time to introduce the teen numbers, and the decimal system.  The Montessori bead materials are wonderfully designed and beautiful to look at.  They provide everything needed to learn the decimal system, skip counting, squares, and multiplication tables in a concrete, hands-on way.  You can make the bead materials yourself with pony beads and pipe cleaners.  Make sure, however, that each number is a different color, 1-9.  You can see a post about making the materials with wire and beads, and also see which colors are for which bead number here at Homemade Montessori.

Lessons are designed to identify each step in learning about numbers in a very simple and non-frilly way.  You can see a video example of a teen bead lesson here.

Introducing the decimal system is just a small step further, and a Montessori child who has already been familiar with numbers 0-9 and one-to-one correspondence, is ready to learn that when you have ten of something, you trade the ones in for a ten.  Then when you have ten tens, you trade them in for one hundred, and trade ten hundreds in for one thousand.  The bead materials make this very clear in the way they are created since ten ones wired together is a ten, ten tens wired together is a hundred, etc.  Laid out in this fashion, and with the concrete, hands-on materials, the decimal system is easy for even a 4 or 5 year old to grasp.

Here is a video example of the Montessori Bank Game.   We have some of these materials (ones, tens, hundreds, thousands) but not the exact Montessori materials.  These are a very important addition to your homeschool, so I would suggest having these in your home.  There’s really nothing like being able to manipulate these tangible examples of an abstract concept such as our decimal system.

Once you have worked with your child and he understands the ones, tens, hundreds, and thousands and how they function together to create larger numbers, the next step is addition, and then subtraction.

Here are some other math activities:

• We have this hundred board which you can make yourself using any number of different materials.  It is wonderful for skip counting, ordering numbers, etc.
• Pattern blocks: make hexagons using triangles, rhombuses, and trapezoids, use these templates, printed and laminated.
• Fraction insets for exploring parts of a whole.  You can also find plastic ones cheaper here.
• Number rods for number comparison and adding.
• I love the book, “Games for Math” by Peggy Kaye.  I find that the games I play with my children go a long way in reinforcing what we are exploring in our Montessori time.  There are many great games for working with the decimal system, for example.

Whew!  I’m pooped!  I know that’s a lot to take in, but more research and reading will help you get more familiar with the wonderful math methods of Montessori education.  You can read a more detailed post about Montessori Math here.

Monday we’ll look at the Language materials and learn about how to use them.

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And now for the giveaway!!!

If you’re not going to the HOTM Online Conference, you should be!

I’m giving away one ticket to the conference to a random reader and commenter today.  To enter, simply leave a comment on this post telling me what interests you most about the Montessori Method.  I will draw a name at random on Sunday, February 13th before I go nighty night.

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Don’t forget to visit the rest of the blog hop ladies today!

10 days of socialization for mom | The Homeschool Chick
10 days of classical education | Milk and Cookies
10 days of large families | Chocolate on My Cranium
10 days of special needs | Special Needs Homeschooling
10 days of struggling learners | Homeschooling the Chaotic Family
10 days of homeschooling girls | Homegrown Mom
10 days of homeschool enrichment | Confessions of a Homeschooler
10 days of building a spiritual legacy | Mommy Missions
10 days of frugal homeschooling |The Happy Housewife
10 days of Charlotte Mason | Our Journey Westward
10 days of unschooling | Homeschooling Belle
10 days of organization | Confessions of an Organized Homeschool Mom
10 days of getting started | Blog, She Wrote
10 days of homeschooling boys | The Tie That Binds Us
10 days of homeschooling Montessori |  Fruit in Season
10 days of preschool |  Delightful Learning

• Pink Tower- 10 pink cubes which are graduated in size (you could use cube nesting blocks for a similar exercise without the expense)
• Brown Stair- 10 brown rectangular prisms, graduated in size
• Knobbed Cylinders- four sets of cylinders each in a wooden base; each set graduated by diameter, height, or both
• *Knobless Cylinders- four sets of colored cylinders; each set graduated by diameter, height or both; you can buy some extension cards here for a modest price
• *Geometric Solids- a box of wooden solids including sphere, cube, rectangular prism, triangle- and square-based pyramids, ovoid, ellipsoid, triangular prism, cylinder, and cone
• Geometric Metal Insets or *Geometric Cabinet- for exploration of shapes; used also for stenciling as a fine motor activity that is a precursor to writing

• Red Rods- 10 rods graduated in length, from 1 dm. to 1 m. (can be homemade).
• Color Tablets- I’ve made my own from paint samples at the hardware store.  Get two of each color, cut them apart and laminate them.  The child then either matches them, or orders them by shades
• Mystery Bag- this one is very well made and affordable and we love the feel of these little smooth solids, but I have also just used a fabric bag and put household objects and small toys inside
• Sandpaper Tablets- use different gradations of sandpaper, two of each, and have your child match them by touch only
• Matching fabrics by touch- corduroy, velvet, fabric with little bumps, satin, denim, etc.
• Sound cylinders- make them with film canisters or other similar-sized containers; fill with rice, sand, shells, confetti, etc. and have two of each kind to match
• Weight discrimination by touch alone (blindfolded)- use stones, or other like items and have your child put them in order by weight alone
• Sorting- by color (buttons, premade manipulatives, etc), shape (shells, coins, etc.; use a blindfold), size, or other characteristic
• Pattern blocks and templates
• Scent bottles- glass herb jars or other small jar can be filled with different items for olfactory exploration
• Taste exploration- with eye-dropper bottles filled with different tastes to discriminate
• Sensory bin- great for sorting, tactile exploration, etc.  Here are some fabulous ideas.

sorting glass beads by touch alone

fall sensory bin with various tongs, bowls, and spoons

sorting a button and bead sensory bin

Many of the above materials are even more challenging when the child is blindfolded!

You’ll notice that the works on the floor are all done on a mat.  I purchased towel bath mats and we keep them rolled up in a basket.  One of our first lessons in getting out a work was to demonstrate and practice how to unroll and reroll a mat.  This mat becomes the child’s work space and the other children know not to interfere with or step on someone’s mat.

• transferring pompoms with tweezers from bowl to bowl
• transferring beads using a spoon and ice cube tray
• transferring using tongs
• transferring using chopsticks
• transferring water using a dropper
• transferring water using a baster
• transferring using a clothespin
• transferring water using a sponge

Life skills-

Felt button snake

Symmetry cutting work

• tweezing kernels from a dried ear of corn
• arranging silk flowers in a small vase
• rolling cloth napkins and applying napkin rings
• hole punching with colorful paper
• sorting and folding socks
• sorting buttons, shells, beans, etc. by color, size, type, number of holes, etc.
• hanging laundry with clothespins
• using a padlock and key
• opening and closing different types of bags and jars
• opening and closing twist-off bottles
• screwdriver and screws
• hammering golf tees into a pumpkin
• cutting (there are many levels of this skill, begin by cutting an index card into small strips)
• sewing buttons (for older children)
• using a crumb brush and tin on a tray
• polishing silverware
• stringing beads
• buttoning with a felt button snake
• assembling a flashlight
• using nesting dolls (matryoshka dolls)

• slicing apples
• using a whisk in a bowl of water with a couple of drops of dish soap
• peeling carrots
• washing dishes
• dusting
• washing potatoes with a potato scrubber
• using cookie cutters with playdough
• setting table (make a template on a place mat with a sharpie and use child-sized plate, cup, utensils, etc.)

• washing hands
• filing nails
• dressing frames
• buttoning
• zippers
• hook and eye
• tying a bow
• buckles

• walking the line (use masking tape to make a large oval on your floor and have each child practice walking on it silently and deliberately)
• silence game (my version of this has me asking the children to go do a task quietly and then come back to our circle- ex. “Go to the stairs, go to the third step, count to 5, come back down and crawl to your spot.”  I’m always amazed how even the youngest child who understands direction will be so careful and quiet with this game!)

“Hi, I’d like to find out more about organising space for the Montessori style method. I don’t have a separate school space and will be using my living room to home school. I was wondering how to organise the whole thing, should I just put “school” stuff on the shelves or all of my sons stuff like Lego, cars etc? Or would it even be better to do the schooling in his room so he has all the toys there too?”


I responded:


“What if you were to have work “areas” in both rooms?  I would keep the school area separate from the toys, but they don’t have to be in different rooms.  Even in our school room, we have shelves of works and shelves of toys and games.  The toys and games are mostly educational, though, so sometimes I let them build with Lincoln Logs, or play with dominoes, as part of their school choices.

You can get a small 2 or 3 shelf bookcase for each room, if you can find space for them.  Each one could then fit 4-6 work trays that you could rotate every week or two.  Make it an attractive space with maybe a scented candle used only for school time, or a pot of potpourri and some flowers.  The more attractive the space, the more likely your children are to see it as a special experience.

You could have different categories of works in each room, or switch them around depending on your week.  I’ll be posting lots of specific ideas for works in each category the rest of this week and into next week.  I’ll also be posting next week on where to get materials and resources and ideas on how to store them.”


If there are any more questions throughout the next week and a half, I’d love to help if I can.  Email me, or leave a comment and I will get back with you.

10 days of socialization for mom | The Homeschool Chick
10 days of classical education | Milk and Cookies
10 days of large families | Chocolate on My Cranium
10 days of special needs | Special Needs Homeschooling
10 days of struggling learners | Homeschooling the Chaotic Family
10 days of homeschooling girls | Homegrown Mom
10 days of homeschool enrichment | Confessions of a Homeschooler
10 days of building a spiritual legacy | Mommy Missions
10 days of frugal homeschooling |The Happy Housewife
10 days of Charlotte Mason | Our Journey Westward
10 days of unschooling | Homeschooling Belle
10 days of organization | Confessions of an Organized Homeschool Mom
10 days of getting started | Blog, She Wrote
10 days of homeschooling boys | The Tie That Binds Us
10 days of homeschooling Montessori |  Fruit in Season
10 days of preschool |  Delightful Learning

“When Montessori discussed freedom, she invariably mentioned its relationship to responsibility and self-discipline.  We need freedom to exercise responsibility; we need the ability to be responsible before we can be truly free.”
~Paula Polk Lillard 

Freedom with responsibility:  In a Montessori classroom, children are not told what work to choose.  The are taught, by demonstration with very few words, to use materials and then left to explore them as they wish.  They can work alone or with a partner, or observe quietly someone else working.  But along with this freedom comes the responsibility to care for the space, the materials, and the other students.  The freedom Montessori speaks of is not born of a child’s whim or emotional desires, but his intellectual curiosity. 

“We discovered that education is not something which the teacher does, but that it is a natural process which develops spontaneously in the human being” ~Montessori

“Learning is made possible for the children, it is not forced.” ~Paula Polk Lillard 

Interest-led work choices:  Montessori came to believe through observation of children that they could be trusted to choose what they needed developmentally, and repeat that task until they found mastery.  Children were not interrupted in their work but were left to their own concentration and focus.  On occasion, a teacher would guide a child to a different task but great respect was given to their choices.

Well-constructed, self-correcting materials:  Montessori believed that children were attracted to beauty, and that they wanted to have a part in the adult world.  Children mimic, and that is how they learn and adapt to their environment.  Montessori’s materials, developed during years of observation and work with children, are child-sized, aesthetically pleasing, and well-made.  It is not necessary to purchase all Montessori materials, but the basic premise must remain true.  Each work has an element of self-correction, meaning that when the work is completed properly, the child can see for himself if he has done it correctly or not.  For example, in a one-to-one correspondence counting work, a child might have tiles with the numbers 0 to 9 printed on them and manipulatives to count.  The teacher will have specifically set out the exact number of counters needed (45) so that there would be none left once the child has completed the work.  This allows for accuracy and independence in the task and leads to self-confidence in the child’s own abilities.


Respect for others:  Visitors who are unfamiliar with the Montessori classroom are usually surprised at the calm and quiet that reigns even at the preschool level.  Children are taught, and then expected to follow, clear guidelines of respect for the school environment and their peers.  Children are to wait patiently for a work they’d like to use, walk around and never on another child’s work space, put work back as they found it and in the proper place, use each work purposefully, and use politeness when dealing with others.


The teacher’s role:  Montessori teachers are guides and examples for the children to follow.  Their role is to demonstrate the correct way to use a work, and then step back to allow the child to learn from it herself.  They are to observe the children to discover their individual developmental needs and interests and guide them to reach their full potential as a whole human being.

These are some of the main tenets of Montessori’s philosophy, and the framework we will use to discuss homeschooling young children in the next two weeks.

If you have any questions you’d like me to answer, please leave them in the comments and I’ll be happy to address them.

Join me tomorrow when I will post on the categories of works and how to use them in your homeschool.  And stick with me till the end of the ten days and I’ll have a giveaway too!

10 days of socialization for mom | The Homeschool Chick
10 days of classical education | Milk and Cookies
10 days of large families | Chocolate on My Cranium
10 days of special needs | Special Needs Homeschooling
10 days of struggling learners | Homeschooling the Chaotic Family
10 days of homeschooling girls | Homegrown Mom
10 days of homeschool enrichment | Confessions of a Homeschooler
10 days of building a spiritual legacy | Mommy Missions
10 days of frugal homeschooling |The Happy Housewife
10 days of Charlotte Mason | Our Journey Westward
10 days of unschooling | Homeschooling Belle
10 days of organization | Confessions of an Organized Homeschool Mom
10 days of getting started | Blog, She Wrote
10 days of homeschooling boys | The Tie That Binds Us
10 days of homeschooling Montessori |  Fruit in Season
10 days of preschool |  Delightful Learning