I made a fabulous discovery this past week. Well, I say that. Really, I've known it all along, but it was definitely confirmed this week. Here it is:
About 90% of Bella's disciplinary problems stem from boredom - lack of cognitive challenge and/or physical and metal stimulation.
I mean really, I've known this. The kid will wander around the house or follow me around like a puppy dog...drives me crazy... I'll tell her to go find something to do, but playing just isn't enough for her. And let's be honest - I have been horrible about challenging her. Yes, we've done "school" but not super-consistently. And once Isaiah came - yeah...didn't happen. Anyway, so on Thursday I decided to do an experiment (on my children...mwah-ha-ha!) I was going to have Bella and Balian paint, but Bella said she wanted to do play-dough...so they did play-dough at their "little table" while I was feeding Isaiah...(the first time I've included Balian) and lo and behold - they played together! they shared! there was no fighting! Bella was actually helping her brother, and Bella probably worked on play-dough for a good hour or so. seriously. Then, I tried to make a point of letting Bella do as much as she could all by herself. She made her own sandwich for lunch, cleaned up her own messes, and helped me with various things (not that she doesn't do these things on a typical day...just trying to over-emphasize it). That afternoon, I pulled out the mega-blocks, and Bella built towers for over an hour that afternoon.
Over the course of the entire day I had little to no disciplinary problems with her. I know that all of these activities seem elementary for her, but the point was that she needs direction to get her started on something, but once she got started, she would work diligently for over an hour without a fuss, a fight, or wandering around aimlessly...
The odd thing is that I suppose I have been wandering pretty aimlessly myself, so to speak. I mean, I've had this idea of what I want "school" to look like, but I haven't been able to achieve it. I tried getting a curriculum, but every day as I'm looking over the activities for the day, most of it wasn't challenging for Bella at all. And I am so not good at coming up with my own activities - that takes a special kind of creativity, and I don't have it. I actually was thinking about giving up the whole homeschooling thing for this next year and enrolling Bella into a PK-4 class. I was actually looking at some websites for some local places...but I couldn't seem to find what I was looking for. Then, just out of curiosity, I checked out the Montessori schools - and I realized then that my whole way of doing things (teaching, potty training, etc.) all seemed to be rooted in this "Montessori" approach. The ironic thing is that over a year ago my mom had given me a book called "Teaching Montessori in the Home" - I just never took the time to look at it. So I suppose a lot of my ideas about potty training and teaching my kids in general have stemmed from my mom's way of doing things, which came from the Montessori approach. Totally makes sense. The more I looked into teaching Montessori at home, the more I liked it - and the more I saw that I really could do it - and how perfect it is for ALL of the kids, because it is supposed to be used in a context of multiple ages.
So now, we have a plan for next year (or as soon as we can set it up) that is much less stressful, and much more challenging for Bella. It helps her to work at her own pace and teaches her to become self-disciplined in all that she does.
In the meantime, I'm trying to incorporate as much of the Montessori approach into everything that we do here, at home, as much as I can. Now that I know what I want, I have much more direction (and motivation) to do it.
This week we've done a lot of "small" things.
Building towers with blocks:
And learning how to set a table properly:
Bella also learned her months of the year and can officially count by 10's on her own. It always amazes me how much more easily kids learn when you put something into a song. We learned the months of the year to the tune of "5 Little Indians." The words all fit (if you add a couple of "and"s in there)and she learned it in about a day. Works for me!
January, February, March, and April
May, June, July, and August
September, October, and November
December
