Author: OummAnna

The Five key learning areas of a Montessori classroom

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During my research about Montessori, I have discovered something very fascinating: the five key learning areas. The fact that learning is divided into five subjects and that these subjects are all linked together, I thought it was genius. Then discovering all the Montessori apparatus and all what Montessori has done, I was definitely converted. In a Montessori classroom, you will normally find these five areas separated with the designated materials. At home, depending on the space you have and if you are looking to recreate a classroom, you can try to follow the learning areas or just put things together on your shelves. We are trying to set up a classroom so we are following this as much as we can. So a Montessori classroom is divided in five areas: the Sensorial area: The Sensorial area of the classroom helps children become more aware of smaller details that are often overlooked. Each sensorial activity focuses on one important quality such as colour, weight, shape, size, texture, sound or smell. For examples, the knobbed cylinders and colour tablets. Sensorial activities …

Montessori at Home – How to create an appropriate environment?

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So the first step of our Montessori at Home Project has been to change our environment. The first room where we made the changes was our, what we used to call, Playroom. One of the main aspect of the Montessori philosophy is to keep the environment in order and tidy , the aim of it is to obtain a calm atmosphere. “The environment must be rich in motives which lend interest to activity and invite the child to conduct his own experiences.” Maria Montessori For Maria Montessori, the first three years of life are precious as she called it the “Absorbent Mind”. So the home is the first place a child is going to evolve so we should try to make the most of it first. “The first phase of the child’s development goes from birth to, let us say, six years of age. At this stage the child is partly at home, partly in school. The plane of education should take both the situations into consideration.” (Maria Montessori – Four Planes of Education, p. 2) Maria Montessori observed …

Potty training and kids incontinence in older children made easy thanks to PottyPads by Snuggle Blanks

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Potty Training. Hmm, these two words have the bad habit to usually stress parents. Why?  Maybe because we all want our children to start being independent as soon as possible. But realistically some few things should not be rushed and Potty training is one of them. For #1, as soon as we celebrated her first birthday, people around us were asking if she was clean during the day. I was a bit like this: ?!? She was definitely not ready at one year old, so it was far from any of my thoughts. People have a tendency to rush baby things and put a lot of pressure amongst parents and then by extension towards babies. Wow, slow sown a bit and appreciate what you have. All children grow at their own pace and never forget that a child cannot achieve something naturally and easily if he has not acquired the physical capacity to do it. So asking a one year old child to have a full control on his sphincters is just not “anatomically” logical. …

Lamazuna: des produits Bio et Vegan pour une Beauté au naturel

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Cela fait super longtemps que je n’ai pas parlé beauté au naturel mais aussi et surtout que je n’ai pas écrit en français! Du coup, tu vois, cela me fait tout drole. Lamazuna, c’est mon coup de coeur. J’aime la personnalité de la marque et son engagement, j’aime les couleurs exotiques, le logo et tout le dynamisme qui s’en dégage. Ok, tu vas me dire c’est bien d’aimer le branding mais ce n’est pas ce qui fait le produit. Attends, j’y arrive. Lamazuna c’est une marque française qui propose des produits écologiques et naturels de soins de beauté. Je ne sais pas si tu te souviens de mes poudres ayurvédiques de chez aromazone et de mes essais de savons. Moi, je m’en souviens et avec l’arrivée de Bébé numéro 3, j’ai du mettre de côté mes tubes à essais et faire confiance à une marque écolonomique. Il était hors de question pour moi de retourner au shampoing industriel et autres donc j’ai fait quelques recherches et j’ai trouvé Lamazuna! Et quand j’ai découvert leur superbe gamme …

Montessori at home

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In September last year, #1 started at reception year and she was five. One of the challenges was to teach her reading. She knew her alphabets and was eager to learn but quite rapidly we realised that she was struggling with the concept of blending. It was just like putting some toothed wheels together and not knowing how and where to start the mechanic. #1 suffers from ASD, she is high functional which means that her struggles are more subtle but they are here and we try to help her as much as we can each time we have one in front of us. Since baby, I used to work with her with the Montessori pedagogy but just by doing some Montessori inspired activities. I never drown myself into it properly. I just liked the fact to involve a young child in our day to day life and let her be. At two, she was folding the clothes with me, cooking with me and able to snack by herself. All these little engaging things we …

Ewan The Dream Sheep, a magical sleeping aid?

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I have so much to say about Ewan. Ewan, for us, our family, is more than a sheep, more than a sleeping aid, it is a trusty friend the one we seek help from when we are on a crisis. Our love story with Ewan began few months ago, back in December, when I was looking for a sleeping aid to install a new bedtime routine for baby in anticipation to our Holidays, after the Whisbear failure. I was looking for something to help baby settle down and “recognise” bed time. Ewan the Sheep has been suggested to us and I thought why not try? But not convinced at all after our previous attempt.   When we received Ewan The Dream Sheep and Ewan Snuggly, the goal was to give them to baby. Baby responded really well as they were both very soft and great for a cuddle. To my surprise, someone else was really curious about them and clearly very attracted, it was #2. She has never been interested on any other soft toy …

Wild Cotton Organic Clothing Collection by The Little Green Sheep

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The Little Green Sheep have launched in December their gorgeous new Organic Cotton Bedding & sleepwear range, Wild Cotton. This beautiful new range of illustrated bedding and sleepwear in super soft mint and grey melange features rabbits, bears and woodland and has been created using GOTS certified organic cotton. When I received our box full of goodies I was really impatient to discover this new collection and how Little Green Sheep will bring their organic expertise into clothing. What do I love in this collection? Everything really! I should say that with the mint and grey combination they almost won my heart. I am a H-U-G-E fan of these colours. I love them, they are neutral but quite deep and not boring. Then the theme “Woodland” which is quite in vogue, has been here beautifully illustrated with a very unique style. It reminds me Monnet and impressionism with these dots details. Plus, and it is something important in our lifestyle, The Little Green Sheep are supporting the Woodland Trust, with 25p of every item sold from the Wild Cotton …

Mon avis Sur le livre “oh, j’ai perdu Mon mom ” de LostMyName

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Il y a quelque temps je vous parlais de ce livre que j’avais choisi pour annoncer la naissance de notre petite dernière. J’avais également écrit un article où je donnais mon avis sur la version anglaise que nous avions. L’article en question est en anglais. Pour l’anniversaire de notre aînée, nous avons décidé de lui offrir “oh, j’ai perdu mon nom!”tant nous avions été satisfaits par les versions anglaises de nos cadettes. Notre aînée, âgée de 5 ans, est en plus en plein apprentissage de la lecture. Nous nous sommes dit que vu l’engouement de celle-ci pour les livres de ses soeurs, elle serait certainement ravie et pourquoi pas la motiver également? Le site web de Lostmyname est réellement très facile d’utilisation et instinctif. Ce que j’aime particulièrement, c’est cette capacité à pouvoir créer sa propre histoire au travers du choix des personnages, une expérience unique et assez distrayante. De plus, à ma grande surprise le choix des personnages diffèrent d’une langue à l’autre, ce qui a rendu le livre encore plus intéressant pour notre …

 Piccalilly Organic Children Clothing Review : a delightful Rainbow in the British sky

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Last year has been rich for us in new experiences, new discoveres and in the middle of all the excitement, we have been proud to be Brand Embassadors for Piccalilly. Piccalilly are a British baby and kidswear brand designing organic baby clothes and organic children’s clothes from Newborn up to 10 years. They are the leading UK company to develop muslin swaddling blankets and they manufacture all their organic clothing to the highest ethical standards. I have already posted about this brand and the clothes I received but now, after approximately six months use, I thought it was the right time to share my feelings about this brand and my review. You can find here a little reminder of what we received: Piccalilly Haul. Where to start? First, I love the designs, colours, and the British identify of the brand. It reminds me Mary Poppins and for a French girl who grew up in the 80-90’s, it is definitely a huge compliment. The tea dresses are wonderful with an Alice in Wonderland spirit . I have not seen one …

Rainbow box, Montessori philosophy, child’s play and Toy Rotation

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We are lucky to have a spare room in our flat and we use it as a playroom. We have never been satisfied by the way it was looking and found it so unpractical with lots of plastic boxes filled with toys.  It took us few months to decide exactly how we wanted to organize this spare room and how we wanted to use it. We definitely knew that the room needed to be divided in different areas like reading, playing, and study. We wanted to make a class room with a Montessori philosophy. I will explain this later in another post. Basically, we are looking for the child independence and try to encourage it by letting him choose and decide. Therefore, the two essentials we absolutely needed were a child-sized table and chairs and  low shelving unit for materials. We choose the famous Kallax units {Ikea} and used them to divide the room too. We made a reading/Montessori Study corner, a writing/Art corner with a table and a playing/Practical life corner. We now organize any educational …