Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Polishing Shoes

It's not child labor, it's a Montessori practical life activity!




7 comments:

  1. "It's not child labor." Okay, now that really caught my funny bone this morning (I'm easily amused these days, being sleep deprived with an infant who NEVER sleeps and all...).

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  2. Paul would love to try something like that! I will have to find something like that to put together! Along the line of child labor, I had a cashier at walmart the other day claim kids helping around the house was child labor. I thought she was crazy! Paul loves to help, why not encourage it?

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  3. When he's done polishing those shoes, do you think he'd be willing to teach my husbnd? Sigh. (Great for hand coordination!)

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  4. What websites and resources do you use?? I've been thinking about starting more structured learning with my almost three yr old and love the pics you post of John.

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  5. Julie: How sad that the clerk through a child helping out is child labor in the negative sense. Perhaps she had a traumatic childhood in that regard and can't understand easily the merits in reasonable chores!

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  6. Anna: The two best Montessori books I've been working with are "A Parent's Guide to the Montessori Classroom" and "Teach Me To Do It Myself" by Maja Pitamic. I hear that "Montessori On a Shoestring" is great, although I don't own it yet. It teaches how to do many of these activities using household objects when often Montessori materials are very expensive. And there are many Montessori websites if you hunt around.

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  7. Anna P.: And, FYI, for the ages of your son and mine, most of Montessori is still totally focused on life skills, not anything "academic" per se.

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