This is a great reminder from Maria Montessori herself: It's perfectly fine to MODIFY your albums to meet the needs of the child. We can do floor materials on a table and vice versa. With all the physical and sensorial challenges children face these days, the best tool you have for helping children is... flexibility!
Always remember the three D's for deciding whether or not a child's behavior is acceptable: destruction, disrespect, and distraction. If the child uses a material in a way that leads to the 3 D's, then it is time to intervene. If not, see what happens - watch their exploration. If you see that there is fantasy play going on, it doesn't necessarily mean the behavior must be stopped immediately, it just means you need to spend some time thinking about what is purposeful for that child. How can we bring the child back to reality using something he is interested in?
Most importantly, keep in mind that....
You're albums are a STARTING point for your classroom, not the ending point. Even Maria Montessori herself showed us that we can and should modify our lessons if it is purposeful to the child.
Join me for Montessori-inspired lesson plans and ideas to challenge young readers with phonetic books. I will show different ways you can use phonetic books to assess if your child is reading or simply memorizing these booklets. These lesson will help your young reader think critically with simple phonetic booklets.
I'm currently working on the Math Group 4 video series, but after that I would like to spend some time working on a series about the development of the hand for writing. This should take us through Christmas. After that, I plan to begin a series on sentence analysis in January. Here are my goals for my series on hand development:
1. I want to make some videos on the "prepared adult" for the topic of sewing and show you how to embroider and give you some resources on how to sew some things for the classroom. This is essential for anyone who is or wants to go through AMI training, so I want to make some videos supporting people who need to gain more confidence in this area. Most training centers expect you to sew, even if you've never done it before, and I want everyone to be successful in their handmade materials. I also want to encourage all of you to incorporate more sewing into your classroom and homeschool environment if you haven't done that because it is great for hand ...
I'm hoping to start a book club with livestreams here on Locals. I plan to start with The Child in the Family. I'll drop a link to my affiliate link with Amazon down below if you would like to purchase it (I will suggest 2 different version depending on if you want the AMI version or the Free shipping version). I'm hoping to have guests on my livestreams, but that depends on availability throughout the year. If you can't afford the book, don't worry. I'll provide slides of my favorite quotes so you can join in the discussion (same as I do for The Absorbent Mind on YouTube). The Child in the Family is a smaller book with short chapters, so it's an easier read than The Absorbent Mind.
AMI Version: https://amzn.to/40g46Jj
Free Shipping Version: https://amzn.to/45Z9cgO
This is a free template you can use for the logical adverb lesson. I'm currently filming lesson 9 (introduction to the adverb) and then lesson 10, which will be the logical adverb lesson. This template is something you can use along with my adverb videos that I am preparing to film.