showeredwithgrace

Our basket of open & shut items always delights.  You can pick up these little items anywhere.  It always surprises me how challenging some of them are to open and shut for our wee ones.  Rose Red has gotten quite good at them now. 

Rose Red enjoys washing the windows ~ and it's only fair as all the handprints are her own!  This is a little more practical life we are incorporating into our week ~ made a little sweeter with the help of her big brother.

Be sure to check out Regina's 'House Art Journal' if you'd like to see some pics on how we are organizing Rose Red's toys here in our very small apartment ~ very small for a family of five at any rate!

We have been working on our coordination and concentration skills with this practical life work ~ pouring water from one cruet to another.

 

When we get nice things we have a responsibility to care well for them don't you think?  How fortunate that grandad makes Rose Red lovely wooden toys that we can care for beautifully with a little wood cleaner/polish and take the time to remember with gratitude the gifts we have been given.  Thanks grandad!

I just had to post this picture of the  homemade sand and water table my friend's husband made their little one ~ so simple ~ just pvc pipe and mortar mixing tubs from the home depot.  I love it!

   

I've finally decided on our course for our Art Appreciation Series.  Rose Red is so young that I didn't feel an artist 'study' was in order ~ but really wanted to begin exposing her to lovely works of fine art.  These are my selections for this spring.  I shall simply place these beautiful artworks in her environment for her to begin to appreciate.  I'm thinking that perhaps I'll purchase a simple easel and place it on the table for easy viewing during 'tea time'  as well ~ which is basically her afternoon snack time.

I had a difficult time deciding where and how to begin with an art study for Rose Red ~ and then I remembered ~ I must follow the child.  Rose Red currently has a strong interest  in the mother child relationship ~ and in particular  the nursing relationship.  I've chosen to begin with these paintings for their subject matter ~ and also I think they are beautiful! 

Through the gentle guidance of the Blessed Mother  and simple attachment parenting practices Rose Red has developed a desire to nurse for comfort and closeness.  We have read how healing and wonderful it can be for an adopted child to have this experience and feel quite blessed.   So it is possible for an adopted child, no longer a newborn, to have a nursing relationship with their adoptive mother.  Isn't that wonderful?!

These darling little soaps are each about the size of a pecan.  They have delicious pungent aromas ~ grapefruit, lemon and mint.  Rose Red was entranced by them and for $1.20 we have a pretty inexpensive sensory activity!

 

We are working on developing our manipulative skills with this work ~ I think Rose Red is most definitely left-handed, don't you?

Isn't it wonderful when cleaning up is still great fun for them?!  Rose Red loves wearing her little apron and sweeping up!  Wearing the apron serves to help 'focus' the activity ~ maybe mommy should wear her apron more often!

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

This beading snake was so adorable I couldn't pass it up!   You can see Rose Red's concentration as she works with this.

                                               We are finally home from our adoption journey!  It is so wonderful to be home!  We are loving every minute with our new daughter and are happy to report that her big brothers just adore her!                                                                          Rose Red and I have been starting our day with a Morning Music Hour.  We have begun with Vivaldi's 'Four Seasons' (one of my favorites).   Rose Red is working on her puzzle of musical instruments in this picture while we listen.  I think I'd like to just immerse her in the arts and language during these first years.

The toyshelf was made by my father.  Isn't it gorgeous?  It is a perfect montessori infant toy shelf.

"(Maria) Montessori recognized that meaningful learning requires a willingness to follow each successive step in the process of acquiring new information.  It is essential to repeat each one of those steps as many times as necessary to know and to understand the specific learning involved on the deepest level.  To complete such a cycle of activity requires a 'depth of engagement' on the child's part.  It is just this engagement of the whole personality that is necessary to all meaningful learning throughout life.  .  .  Montessori suggests that the appropriate time to address the challenge of engagement is when the child first achieves independent action at approximately fifteen to eighteen months old.  What the child now needs is 'work with structured materials' that follows his natural interest in completing cycles of activity and in imitating the adults in his environment."

*excerpt from 'Montessori from the Start' ~ The Child at Home, from Birth to Age Three by Paula Polk Lillard and Lynn Lillard Jessen

This is a "cycle of activity" that Rose Red can't get enough of!

.  .  .  For 'this new kind of play,' as montessori called it, toys will not do.  The child needs items that are real and relate directly to the adult's everyday activities.  Montessori called these items the practical-life materials.  .  .  .  The exercises of practical life should involve manual activities that the child sees adults engaged in on a regular basis in daily life.  Therefore, parents select from among their occupations the ones that 'they have to do anyway in their everyday life,' and by doing so, parents avoid the feeling of pressure to do even more for their child than they have hitherto been doing.   They are simply including their child, according to his interests and capability, and as time allows, in setting and clearing the table, unloading groceries, preparing food, baking pouring water and juice, wiping the table, washing dishes, sorting and folding laundry, putting away clothes, dusting, sweeping and mopping, washing a mirror or window, polishing a vase or shoe, picking up a room, emptying wastepaper baskets, watering plants inside or outside, and arranging flowers.  When the child is somewhat older, this may even include ironing, sewing, weeding  the garden, and raking leaves."

*excerpt from 'Montessori from the Start ~ The Child at Home, from Birth to Age Three by Paula Polk Lillard and Lynn Lillard Jessen

"Obviously, by including the child in their own work, parents are slowing down their own efficiency and the time of accomplishment.  Why would Montessori, in other ways such a practical woman and one of great personal achievement, recommend such a seemingly impractical approach to children once they become fifteen months old? She suggested making the child the adult's daily companion in these simple activities of home and family for one reason only:  out of respect for the possibilities of human life as found in the small child."   

*excerpt from 'Montessori from the Start ~ The Child at Home, from Birth to Age Three' by Paula Polk Lillard and Lynn Lillard Jessen

How beautiful the Montessori way is!  Her pulse on the divine spirit one can find within the child is inspiring.  How easy it can be to forget that one can find Christ even in these His humblest! .  .  .  .   And how much easier still to remember ! !