Biggest Mistakes Parents Make When Doing Montessori At Home

Have you ever felt like you’re doing everything “right” with Montessori - buying the materials, setting up the shelves, giving lessons - yet it still doesn’t seem to work?

In this episode of Montessori Power Hour, Aubrey and David reveal the number one reason parents get stuck when trying Montessori at home. Spoiler: It’s not about your effort. It’s about missing the method!

Plus, we celebrate Earth Day with Mr. Bunny, sharing fun, Montessori-aligned nature activities your child will love.

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
Hey there friends, I'm Aubrey Harkis.
Today's episode is a replay fromthe Child of the Redwoods live
show that I host with my husbandin Montessori homeschooling,
partnering crime, David Harkis. You can watch the full episode
on the Child of the Redwoods YouTube channel.
Here's the clip. If you have tried Montessori at

(00:25):
home, like many of the parents before, they come and find Child
of the Redwoods and discover that it's not working for you
and you're about to give up. This is the episode you're going
to want to watch because you areprobably making this mistake
right now. Yes.
So a lot of our parents come to us.

(00:47):
They have bought the materials, they've already set up some
shelves. They have tried out some
Montessori activities, tried giving some lessons, usually
with quite serious intent. And you know, not to say that
they're not doing a great job. They're like following all
things and they're really in theprocess of learning, but

(01:09):
something is causing them to just get stuck and they start to
question like, is Montessori just not for everyone?
Is it not for my child or is it not for me?
Am I doing something wrong? I don't care.
This isn't working and it's likethe last straw, like last

(01:29):
attempt to try and fix things before they just give up
completely. And this makes me so sad because
Montessori is amazing and most people are just overlooking the
method. That's right, it's actually this
one crazy trick. It really.

(01:50):
Is it really, really is the biggest mistake?
And from the very beginning whenwe started teaching courses
online, back when you were working full time in the office,
parents would be coming to me. And this is the first thing I
would say in our very first livecoaching session together.
I would say like, are you following the method?
And inevitably most like 90% of the parents would say the 10%

(02:16):
who were like, yes, this is justa fun extra course for me and be
like, OK, you guys are doing great.
But like the 90% they would say,I'm actually not clear on what
the method is like when it, whenhe really comes down to it.
And so after, after our primary course, or in the case of the

(02:37):
lower elementary, the lower elementary course, many, many of
them, I would say 90% have like a huge epiphany and things just
start to click. Yeah, You know, we've talked a
bunch about this in the past, how we get confused or we.
We as parents. We as parents, we the

(02:57):
collective, we who are engaged in Montessori, a lot of us will
go and buy the materials. We'll buy things that say
Montessori on it, you know, stuff.
And I don't think it's not. I don't think it's with bad
intention. I think, Oh my gosh.
It's never the parents. Fault, that's right, because I
think the method, it is both deceptively simple and

(03:20):
deceptively complex at the same time.
And I think because as your to your point is, parents could
feel overwhelmed, they look to the materials to help get them
through it. But really the only true
solution is to learn the method right, which is very doable.

(03:41):
You can definitely learn the method.
It's not. It doesn't take years and years
and years and years of study. You can learn it well enough
that you can apply it at home within a matter of days or
weeks. For sure, yes, yes, for sure.
So there are, there are he's that once you start

(04:03):
implementing, everything just starts to fall into place.
And I'd like to talk a little bit more about why, why this
problem exists. And I think it's, it has to do
with, you know, the directives that we give, like follow your
child, you should follow the child.

(04:24):
It's kind of nebulous, right? Like what exactly does that mean
to follow the child? Or we say observe.
And we talked a lot about that last time.
Like what exactly am I doing while I'm observing?
And you know, there are the justthese phrases we use like you
should present your lessons to your child, but what does that

(04:47):
mean to to actually present a lesson to your child?
A lot of people think end up thinking that it means like
giving this very overly prescriptive lesson that and
have this we have this idea thatthe perfect Montessori child is
supposed to sit very, very quietly and be totally entranced

(05:09):
during like a long 10 minute lesson that.
Yeah, I will never not, never get bored or never not be
interested in the lesson at hand.
Yeah, it's you're right. It's so interesting, Like we
have. They feel contradictory in a
way, yes. And they lead themselves.
It lends themselves to these sort of more, I don't want to
say extreme, but more purest or.Stricter.

(05:35):
Like for example, follow the child could lead 1 to
unschooling. It could.
Right, but also giving the lesson and following the
procedure could lead 1 to a verystrict kind of root approach.
Right. And then the truth is.
Which are completely opposites. Right, it's neither of those
things, but also there's a very there's like a constant

(05:59):
balancing act, right And so parents are really trying to
walk the line between like I'm mommy and I'm also teacher guide
and you know here, here we are as a family sitting around and
like I need 5 minutes to myself.So here, watch some bluey while

(06:19):
I go into the kitchen and do my thing right?
And so like very kind of relaxedfeel to like, OK, that's lesson
time and we're you're going to, you know, give this exact thing
and you're going to pay attention, right.
And in Montessori, like the truth is, it is a very simple
method anybody can learn, but you have to be willing to allow

(06:42):
yourself to make mistakes and allow your child to show you
what they need next. That's right, and it's.
A really, I mean, it is a relationship you have.
It is grounded in the relationship between you and
your child, or if you were in a classroom, you and the students.
But you know, since we are mostly, we're talking to

(07:04):
homeschooling parents, it's about adding a new dimension to
the relationship you have with your children, right?
You already have the parent relationship.
You have other sorts of relationships that are kind of
manifest within that. And when we choose to
homeschool, we're adding anotherdimension to it.
And it works just the same way. The strength of the Montessori
method is built on the relationship between you and

(07:28):
your child. That's right.
So there are some, I would say 3three things that you can do.
You know what, we're going to share three things today.
If you want to learn the full Montessori method, you can come
and join us. Come take a course in Channel
the Roadways. Better yet, join the complete
curriculum and you get it all the the lessons and the course.

(07:49):
And ongoing support and the whole the whole 9 yards.
But right it's. What?
What? What is it?
You're interrupting me, but today we're going to give you 3
things that you can implement today in your home to edge you
closer and hopefully to to help you get unstuck if you're making

(08:12):
this mistake of not really deeply applying the Montessori
method itself. OK.
And these are things that Maria Montessori herself talks about
in probably one of her most famous books, which is called
The Montessori Method. OK, which is what we're talking
about. And you may already have a copy

(08:35):
of it at home and may have not known that you had a copy at
home because it was also rebranded as The Discovery of
the Child. Same book.
This was just an earlier published version.
So if you have a copy of The Discovery of the Child, it's a
fun book. You can see both of these are

(08:55):
well bookmarked and well loved. So and you'll find all of these
like this is the actual method that comes straight out of Maria
Montessori's words themselves. The first thing we want you to
do is to think of observation islike your secret superpower.
You observing your child just sitting down, learning that

(09:20):
calmness and presence that requires nothing of you and
everything of the child that youare observing.
Well, this is the essence of thetrusting in their relationship
with the child because you are going to feel passive.

(09:43):
You're not. You're actually deeply engrossed
in what's happening, but you're not sports casting, you're not
directing, you're not solving their problems for them.
You are. Overly thinking through what
they're doing at that moment. Yeah, you're essentially slowing

(10:04):
down. Sitting, watching what your
child is doing, gathering in as many inputs as you can, every
little behavior or interaction, and writing it down or making a
mental note of it so that you can go back and journal about it
later, right? So this is the essence, right?

(10:24):
We observe the child. So when we follow the child, we
must observe the child. And to observe the child is to
use the scientific approach to discovery, which is what Maria
was. She was a scientist.
I really love that Maria began her method out of her scientific
observations in general. And this is what she was

(10:46):
learning in in school, doctor school, becoming a doctor.
She was learning how to observe people's symptoms or illnesses,
right, to diagnose them. And she thought it was so
fantastic. She was so taken by the
scientific method that she just naturally started to use it when

(11:07):
observed children. But her reasoning behind this
actually really goes into nature, you know, like observing
the natural world around us. And so one analogy that might
help you as you are observing your child is to think about
that moment where you're outsideand you're watching a butterfly.

(11:28):
OK. So do you remember the last time
we saw butterflies? Yeah, we went down to that
monarch place a few weeks ago. Yeah, we were in in Santa Cruz,
there's a place called Natural Bridges, and it's actually a
monarch sanctuary. It's actually very famous, yeah.
Where they go and they hibernateduring the the.

(11:50):
Journey from the north to South.Yeah, so it's a beautiful, it's
a beautiful place. We didn't just see horrors of
monarchs there. It was the wrong season.
But it also it, you know, it varies year to year how many are
there? So you never know right when.
Well, this feels appropriate to the child.
You never know what's going to happen.

(12:10):
The season may not be right, butif you look closely, you might
find. Yes, but I want you to think
about like your experience watching a butterfly like so
we're, we were in the eucalyptusforest and we were walking like
through the, it's like part eucalyptus forest, part sand
dunes. And we're wandering around and

(12:31):
we did not see any butterflies. And we knew that this was a
monarch sanctuary and that we were supposed to, we were like
hoping to see butterflies, right?
But we didn't see any for a longtime.
And then you catch one out of the corner of your eye.
Yeah. Or you see one flitting by and

(12:51):
you're not sure if it's a leaf or something else or a bird and
you have to. Go is that?
Is that how what you were experiencing when you were
there? Well, I remember walking, yes, I
were walking and we were walkingdown the trail.
I was kind of looking around andthen I saw something and I very
briefly saw it. And by the time I said, oh,
there's a butterfly, you could not.

(13:12):
I didn't. Catch it, right?
It was. It had flitted away.
But then we knew that there werethere was at least one butterfly
somewhere on this. Because you had seen that little
fluttering and then we were like, there are butterflies.
So then we kind of became more keenly aware, and then it's
about sitting quietly. Well, did we sit?
Well, standing I should say, right?

(13:34):
We stood still quietly and looked at the tree where I saw
it go and watched for movement. And then eventually we I did see
one and then I think you saw it too.
And they're watching it kind of flip around like in this helter

(13:54):
skelter like pattern, right? Like it's like, you know, I
don't know how it knows the butterflies are amazing.
They seem to just sort of flit, but they obviously know where
they're going and can direct themselves.
But it seems amazing to us because they just sort of like
are flapping around and it's an incredible and they're very
delicate and they somehow matches to your energy, right?

(14:17):
Like you had to be still, you had to be focused in order to
see it. Now, I'm sure if there were
thousands of them, it would be quite different.
But in this experience or something is more typical for
when you catch a butterfly in the wild.
You have to sort of be very intentional and patient.
Yes, but what were you feeling like when you saw it?

(14:38):
Well, I felt excited because I got to see a butterfly and we
had waited and waited and waitedand walked all around and
already walked through the part of the of the forest that's
supposed to be where they reallylove to hang out.
And we didn't see any. And we're off in a different
section. And I had kind of resigned
myself to not seeing any butterflies.
And so it was especially, it wasespecially gratifying to catch

(15:01):
1. And we only saw maybe half a
dozen. We didn't see very many, but we
did see some. And it's a very memorable and
you know, to your point, like you wait, you wait, you look,
you're patient, nothing happens.You kind of resign yourself to
no butterflies today. And then you catch it out of the
corner of the eye. You stand still, you watch.

(15:22):
And there it is again. And just for a moment you get to
sort of see it flitting around and, you know, kind of overwhelm
with this kind of wonder and thebeauty.
And then it's gone. And it is.
It's a really cool experience. It, it was a cool experience.

(15:43):
It's an experience that anyone can have in a local park.
This is a great time to actuallygo and try and have that
experience yourself, whether yousee a butterfly or not.
And you're more likely to see a butterfly if you go to a
Botanical Garden. What I remember is you seeing a
little flutter out of the cornerof your eye and saying, oh, I
see one. And then there was like this

(16:04):
little burst of like excitement,like the gasp, right?
And I looked and I did not see one.
And then we both stood super still and we just paused.
And you're right. It was right after that moment
where we had almost given up. We had walked for like a half a
mile already and had not seen ormore and had not seen any

(16:26):
butterflies. And I had been looking, I know
you had been looking too. And we kept going around each
curve wondering, will we see a horde of butterflies like laying
on a bench? Will we spy them in the sky all
fluttering around like well, will we see anything?
And by the time we finally reached that place where we did
see 1 butterfly, we had walked along, long time.

(16:50):
It was much more than. A couple miles it was.
It felt really special to see that first little flutter and we
both stopped and we probably stood in that same place for
like 5 minutes and just like haunted with our eyes among the
leaves and the eucalyptus trees are very, very tall.
But I remember just really gazing at the Bush where you

(17:12):
said you had saw it, saw it flutter into, and I was hoping
to see it again. And then after about 5 minutes,
yeah, finally saw another butterfly and it fluttered out.
Maybe it was the same 1, I don'tknow.
It fluttered out. And I don't know if you remember
this point, but we literally followed.
Yes, it went down a little trail.

(17:32):
We were going to go the other direction, but we decided to go
down the other. One yes, and it I think, I know
it sounds funny to maybe like befollowing a butterfly into the
woods, but it just felt like this kind of magical special
moment like ah ha ha, like it happened.
There was fluttering and and then we didn't want to let our

(17:53):
eyes leave it and we just continued to watch it and watch
it and watch it until it disappeared again.
This is a super apartment analogy that you're making
because that is exactly how it is with observation of a child.
We went, we didn't set out to go.
In truth, we didn't go to that park specifically.
We were just in the area like, oh, let's stop by.

(18:15):
But we knew it was famous for butterflies, for monarchs
because it's on the migratory path and it's signage everywhere
about butterflies. So it's as though we had bought
the materials, right? Right.
We have set up ourselves for success with butterflies.

(18:36):
Here is all my stuff, butterfly and nothing, nothing, nothing,
nothing. Like we walked and we did.
I know you said half a mile. I think it was more like 2
miles. We had walked a long way and had
meandered in it. It's not a super big park, but
we had meandered around and around and we had just kind of
given up like, OK, great, you know, and Santa Cruz is not

(18:58):
particularly close to where we live.
It's it took us a long time to get there and it's very fun.
So made the investment. Here we are butterfly me.
I'm being patient. I'm all dressed up for the, you
know, the appropriate hiking experience.
I came to the place and it's nothappening.

(19:19):
And just when it seemed like allof hope was lost, we saw it and
we didn't see 1000 butterflies. It wasn't like some Disney esque
moment where you walk in and there's millions of butterflies
ever. It would have been a condo style
or something. No, it was a single little
butterfly. You didn't see it for the
longest time and then you finally saw it.

(19:40):
Well, then I kept seeing and you're like where?
Where You know, And I was like, it's over there.
It's over there. And then we saw, you saw it and
then we followed it and I kept seeing more and you were like,
where are they? Where are they?
You're always it's a little bit too late.
But then then we both got to really, really see it and it was
very small, like the amount of time compared to the amount of
time that we had spent. But it paid off.

(20:02):
The patients and the observationpaid off.
The butterflies were there when it was time for the butterflies.
OK, So what can parents take away from this?
Because this is this is Montessori truth.
This is the actual real method we are giving you right here on
the Power Hour. This is very akin to what you
would get in a conversation about observation if you were

(20:25):
pursuing your Montessori certification with a very good
training center. All right, to be a classroom
teacher. So although I don't know if they
talked about butterflies there or not, what what you need to
really hone in on here is patience, big time patience.
In fact, in one of Maria Montessori's books, I can't
remember which one, she actuallysays flat out, maybe this one

(20:50):
may not be. But someone asks her, like, if
you were to give one piece of advice to the guide, like what
would it be? Right?
Or like to anyone who wants to follow the child, what is it?
And she says it's just one word.Like what's one word?
She says it's just wait. Wait, wait.

(21:11):
That's it. That's that is from the horse's
mouth. All right, So observing.
Yes. Put your attention on it.
Yes. Be keenly aware of what your
child is doing and curious aboutit.
Don't give up. But that just waits.

(21:32):
I trust like I trust that little.
Trust your child. Some kind of magic is going to
happen. It might not be the thing that
you were hoping for or looking for, but there will be something
because your child really is just an entire forest full of
magical moments, you know, developmental skills that are
constantly emerging. And what are the chances that

(21:57):
you're going to just happen to see, you know, the right you
know the right moments, you knowthe most amazing skill just as
it's about to emerge in your child.
What are the chances like you'rewandering into the woods?
And so if you're present and patient enough, you will start
to notice things. That's right, that will give you

(22:20):
clues about your child's development and help you to
become a better guide to them. So it's not that you don't want
to prepare the environment. You know, we went to the park,
we want to see butterflies. But the rhythm of the child,
just like the rhythm of the world is its own and your
responsibility, as you know, Pia, thanks for that.
Wait is a beautiful concept. So for example, you might have

(22:44):
prepared an environment and you gave them a big pink tower and
they just won't do. Or, I don't know, you gave them
some sandpaper letters or something and they're just not
doing anything with it, right? And there's really, really
frustrated. Wait and observe, right?
If we had never seen a butterfly, we still would have
seen many, many beautiful things.
There's so many beautiful thingsin that park, including this

(23:05):
awesome rock structure with a big hole in it.
There's this guy, it's called Natural Bridge.
It's like this amazing phenomenon, like over the course
of 10s of thousands of years that it eroded this rock.
What are you seeing your child do?
Maybe you're seeing your child stack locks up over and over and
over like they're not touching the sandpaper letters or
whatever you may have prepared for them.

(23:26):
What are you seeing them do? They're maybe they're lining up
their cars, lining up blocks, lining up dolls, lining up
objects. You're observing the absorbent
mind at work, right? You're getting a clue through
that observation about what theyreally are ready for.
Doesn't mean that those sandpaper letters or whatever
you prepared for won't eventually happen.
Someday the butterflies will be there.
That's right, not today. Today is a day for something

(23:50):
else. When you wait and watch, you see
that. Yeah.
And you know, you're right. Like maybe it's not just
butterflies. This is this is one of the
things that I, I really love about hiking.
I feel like it teaches us to be better observers.
And I think that when you open yourself up to the idea that
maybe you won't see a particularthing, but you will see

(24:12):
something amazing, like you willsee something then you do every
time you go out. You know, for a while I was
observed when we were hiking. I was, I was kind of confused
when we started going hiking because as we experienced
nature, I would come back and belike, wow.

(24:33):
Oh, like, how can it be that every time we go, we see
something incredible? And those incredible things
would be like we watched a slug crawling across the path or we
saw a hawk swoop right over us, or, you know, we observed some
vultures feasting on a deer, right?

(24:53):
Like something amazing, but you get to choose whether you take
that journey or not, you know, And you're only going to see
cool things that really inspire you if you are paying attention.
You know, if you go on a walk inthe woods and you're just like
in your own thoughts and you're not really paying attention to

(25:13):
the trail and you're not openingyour ears and you're not
watching. And just with this knowingness
that something amazing is going to be out there, that you're
going to see, then you won't seeit.
And it's it's trend for your child as well.
And we're kind of getting into our second point here.
You know, first being like part of the method is observing,

(25:35):
observing deeply with your heart, all of your senses, your
awareness. And the second is following your
child where they are going, not necessarily where you are
expecting them to be. That's right.
So we're going to, I want to extend that analogy again
because it was a really good one.
You went for the butterflies, OK, But you didn't see any,
right? You saw other amazing things.

(25:57):
Right, a fish. The rock feature, the bar, that
swing we found that somebody hadmade.
Yeah. You know, you are following the
child where the child is leading.
The child has a readiness withinhim or herself.
Your child does. All children do.

(26:17):
And your observation is going tolet you see or start to perceive
what that child, what your childis wanting.
And then you're going to be ableto follow your child on that
journey, Right. So maybe I didn't see very many
butterflies on my little hike through Butterfly Forest, but I
saw instead a beautiful flowing Creek or a fun bridge.

(26:42):
And because I was willing to engage with it as it was, I had
this joyful experience. I was ready there for it and I
was ready to take the opportunity at hand.
Instead of being disappointed bywhat I didn't have, I was joyful
by the opportunity I've been given.
That's what it is. When you follow your child,
you're, it is a window of opportunity.

(27:03):
You're seeing what your child isis doing is telling your child
is telling you what he or she wants, and you're able to take
advantage of that. And that is a joyful thing.
That's absolutely right. The way we are opening ourselves
up and willing to literally follow that butterfly wherever

(27:23):
it leads and keep watching and keep observing.
This is the same thing with yourchild.
We your child is going through these sensitive periods of their
own. We talked about that in the
course that is part of the Montessori method.
But you don't get to choose whatsensitive period your child is
engaging in or or showing you oreven whether you're going to be

(27:45):
able to observe all of them. Whatever you are witnessing is
is where you are is is the journey that you are taking,
right? So some practical tips for this
in following your child, remember that you're not looking
for topics that your child is interested in.

(28:08):
You are looking for skills and curiosity on the part of your
child. Yeah, that's right.
You know, I It's not to say thatif your child isn't interested
in monkeys that you shouldn't take them to the zoo.
Sure. Go see if you can go check out a
bunch of books about monkeys from the MIC area.

(28:28):
Absolutely. Do that if your child is
interested in ladybugs. I mean, your child's interested
in something we've like we have a theme for you inside the
complete curriculum. OK?
So I mean, but when we talk about follow your child, we're
really talking about developmentally, OK, so you've

(28:49):
got a 2 year old, your child is that butterfly flitting from
activity to activity. Do not put the expectation on
them that they're going to be able to sit and listen to a 10
hour, sorry, a 10 minute presentation when you're giving
a lesson to them. All right, developmentally, your
child is not there, so you're going to follow them by.

(29:12):
If your child is just not payingattention, you're going to make
your lesson shorter, right? Or you're going to design the
less the the work so that no lesson is needed at all.
You know, if it's a, if it's a great activity or material and
you've prepared your environmentto be simple and inviting, then
maybe you don't need to get a lesson.

(29:34):
All right, so, so that is the way that we can, we can follow
our children. Just remember that it's about
their development and their own sensitivities and curiosities
about the world, not a very specific thing that you need to
do in response. Yeah.
I. Don't want to under score
something you said that I think we don't appreciate enough and

(29:56):
that is about understanding thematic learning.
So you you made the point like let's say your child is really
into the ladybugs. Yeah.
All right. Ladybugs are real cool, or
trains are real cool, or dinosaurs are real cool, right?
Going out and just getting a whole bunch of stuff
specifically about ladybugs isn't that point.

(30:18):
To necessarily feed your child is not taking advantage of that
window of opportunity, because that's not really what a theme
is. A theme, a good thematic
approach to learning. It takes the concept, and then
it uses it to bridge into much deeper, interconnected concepts.

(30:38):
Right, So you're going to use the concept of ladybugs to
explore math? Right, that's.
Right. So for example we have an aphid
activity where you use little split peas and you do an
activity on that. Also a story, yeah.
Or are you going to do it for obvious, for reading or science?
So actually the this will be silly, but the one that came to
mind are dinosaur Nuggets, Dino Nuggets.

(31:01):
Dino Nuggets. Yeah.
You know how kids can be real picky eaters?
And so we're like, Oh yeah, we'll get you some Dino Nuggets
because every child likes to eata dinosaur nugget.
Yeah, that's right. I mean, your goal isn't to feed
them little tiny miss shaped dinosaurs, it's to get them to
eat something, right? So that's the same thing with
the theme. Like your purpose isn't just to

(31:22):
like get them to color 1,000,000pages or dot to dot or whatever
on ladybugs is to take the thingthat they are fascinated with at
that moment and use it as the bridge into other concepts.
So I know that's a little different than following the
child in the window of opportunity.
But because you mentioned this idea of like, where we sometimes

(31:43):
I think confuse the outward appearance of what a child is
saying they want with what we actually are trying to do, which
is to bridge into a deeper thing.
Because there actually is a lot of more deep curiosity that's
happening. It just may be manifesting
itself in the shape of a chickennugget shaped dinosaur.
Dinosaur shaped chicken nugget? That'd be funny.
The other way around. Chickasaurus Rex.

(32:07):
OK, we had a comment here. Do you want to?
Yeah. Do you want to read that?
One PSA, I can't read it from here.
Eddie took the old planning and documentation sheets from the
old primary program, and I went to do some secret work.
Yeah, as I both, as you both know, he's been adverse to
writing and drawing. Oh, yeah, We've talked about
that. She goes on.
He's. He was writing on the old

(32:28):
documentation books. He was writing lesson plans,
drawing them, and he's suddenly obsessed with making parts
cards. I just waited patiently,
sometimes anxiously. Oh I love this.
Topics and skills are also a great reminder of.
Curiosity. Yes, that.
Is a wonderful story. Honestly, Pia, this is where you

(32:49):
want to get to. I mean, I'm sure you know this
already, but I think most peopledon't that by the time you get
into lower elementary, people often come to me and say, but
Aubrey, like, how do you preparethe perfect lower elementary
environment? And my answer is not often what
they want to hear, but it's the truth.
They're the ones who prepare it.How do you prepare a perfect

(33:11):
lower elementary activity? Your child prepares the perfect
activity for themselves. Like by this stage they should
have learned so much from observing you and from
interacting sensorially in theirworld that what you want to see
is that spontaneousness. Lower elementary children in

(33:32):
particular, and I know Pia's sonis on the bridge in between
primary and lower elementary, but this is like a really
exciting moment. We should not have to
continually prepare all of the things for our children all the
way up. And I think sometimes we're
under the impression of that we have to do this because in

(33:53):
traditional schooling, the teacher still takes over all of
that preparation of the activities and the lessons and
the materials. But this is exactly where we
want children to get. And this is where Montessori
children do tend to get if they are in a Montessori school
environment as well. Like that's why Montessori

(34:13):
elementary environments just look really different from the
primary environment. Yeah.
The other thing I love about this is that he's modeling his
work after what he sees you doing.
I'm assuming, right? I'm sure.
I mean, I, I don't. I haven't seen you at work, but
I didn't know that you must be using parts.
Cards. I know you're using the, I mean,
if you know what they are, you're using them.

(34:34):
He's been, how long has he been watching and observing?
And then it finally clicks. He becomes curious about if he
wants to do it. Your patience paid off.
And that's a perfect example. And it happens all over the
world all the time for people who follow the Montessori
method. There's a reason we've continued
to use it for so long, and it works so well if we're brave

(34:58):
enough. And you were to believe in that
child's ability. If it doesn't have to take that
long for you to see these kinds of rewards with Montessori
either. That's right.
The last point we want to make for today's episode is about
engagement. We can talk about this in terms
of like thinking about you giving a lesson to your child or

(35:19):
presenting. We haven't say the word
presenting. I try and stay a little bit away
from that word because it in is kind of imbued with a little
formality to it and that trips parents up.
So I like to call it like not the presentation of the
activity, but about the engagement with it, you know, or

(35:43):
the lesson that you are giving with it is more like a
demonstration or an example, right?
So what does this mean? Is this part about engagement?
I don't have my copy of The Absorber of Mind with me right
here that you can imagine. There is this beautiful section
we read every single time I teach the primary course live

(36:06):
that is about the the secrets toteaching.
You can look it up yourself. It's a it's towards the back of
the Montessori of the absorbent mind that book, a whole chapter
just about like the role of the teacher, what you're supposed to
be doing as the guide. And Maria Montessori uses that
word in education that we reallydo think of a lot in terms of

(36:29):
like the fire sparking the fire of learning the child.
And that is, it's really what you're doing when you are giving
a lesson to your child. If you've observed their skills
correctly, you know, being patient, you've watched and
waited and waited and waited andyou have you're really applying

(36:52):
the rest of the Montessori method to the best of your
ability. Then when it is time to give the
lesson the, the, the way we present something with
simplicity, not trying to manipulate our children into
liking something, but just really just plainly showing them

(37:13):
what one of the materials or oneof the concepts does that is
like the, you know, and then turning it over to your child
once your child seems to get it.Like, I think a lot of people
think that they have to memorizea very complicated presentation

(37:35):
and then have their child sit there quietly while they give
this very elaborate lesson. And then when they're finished
with the lesson, if you get yourchild to sit that long and watch
you through it, often children'sresponse is like, I don't want
to do this. Or like, OK, that's good for

(37:56):
you, mommy. I'm going to go play with my
toys now and then. What is what does the parent
feel like? It's it's crushing, right?
Yeah, this is supposed to work. They told me on the on the
Internet that this would work, of course.
You worked so hard and so the take away I would like you to
take away from this little session that we have today is to

(38:17):
try not to overthink your presentation of the lesson, but
take your ego out of it. You're just showing your child
an activity and if you, like Pia, are patient and consistent
and repetitive in your examples or your demonstrations,

(38:40):
eventually something is going tospark in your child if you wait
long enough and you don't know when that is going to happen
because it's different for everysingle child that you have to
trust that if you are, that you're enough.
Just like you doing an activity in front of your child, that's

(39:01):
the best presentation that you could give.
You don't have to memorize anything.
We have lots of resources at Childhood Redwoods.
You're all just like show this, like I mean, we have there's
lots of great lessons and they are all in step by step and you
can like follow along and like do the lesson this this way and

(39:25):
you'll get there. But the point is like not to
overthink the exactness of that presentation.
It's more about your child witnessing this work.
Yeah, it's so hard to keep the humility is so hard for us,
right, that you cannot, you justcan't really do anything about
it. Like you can force a child to

(39:49):
comply through various means of bribery or this is Co coercion,
but that does not mean you're going to get the outcomes you
hoped for. That has to come from within.
That's why external, I mean, they've done so many studies on

(40:09):
extrinsic versus intrinsic motivation.
You can get people to perform adults and children.
And other animals through extrinsic motivations.
Money, candy, corporal punishment, time out, whatever,
right? It never ever last.

(40:31):
It always results in diminishingreturns and eventually it stops
working completely. What does work is intrinsic
motivation, helping the person, whether there's an adult or your
child, hone in on the thing thatmotivates them internally, that
makes them feel good about learning or makes them feel good

(40:54):
about doing the right thing, or makes them feel good about
working hard. Because we have that inside us.
And if you can help them capturethat feeling, if you can design
your environment so that it's possible for that to rise, you
will create successful, lifelong, successful human
beings. Again, research is very clear on

(41:16):
this over and over. Yes, extrinsic motivation will
work temporarily. It always fails.
Intrinsic motivation, harder to achieve, but lasting.
And that's really what the Montessori method is also about.
So he told a story a few weeks ago, you were doing some cleanup
in the nursery and there was a toy, a particular toy that

(41:40):
somebody had found. That's one of those.
I think it was the kind that's like it's hovers over the child.
We had, we saw those. I think we even had one at some
point, like, like, no, well, somebody gave one to us.
Whether we kept it or not, I don't know.
But you know, it's the kind where like beeps and burp, burp,
burp, burp. And the person said, you, you're
like, oh, we have to get rid of this.

(42:00):
Yes, we were getting a toy like that and then it left our house
within like oh week. No, of course, as or the
batteries would come out of the really strong feelings about no,
we both did because and I what you said, the reason I'm
bringing this up is what you said is one person said, Oh, we
should keep that people love thekids love it and you and you
were what you said or thought. I think you probably just

(42:22):
thought it because you're too nice.
It was of course they like it. It was yelling at them all the
time. It's the same with I was
thinking also when we saw the other day that child in Costco
who was too little for an I, youknow the parent was showing them
a video on YouTube. Month old with an iPad.

(42:43):
And of course the 10 month old was engaged and then very angry
when the iPad went away because it's yelling at them and it gabs
their attention, right? So we think I sometimes that
those are successful because they capture the attention.
That's an extrinsic motivation. As an example of an extrinsic
motivation, right? If I why then you'll give me the

(43:06):
iPad back and then I can watch the flashing lights or whatever
it might be. Those are extrinsic motivations.
They're not good because they work in the short term.
They don't work in the long term.
You're instead with your presentation or you're giving of
the lesson. You're going for subtle, you're

(43:28):
going for intentional. And you know what, It's not
always going to captivate because it's not filled with big
flashing lights or high pitched voices or things like that.
The things that people use in other in media and in other
disciplines and call it education to captivate the child
because you haven't really captured their learning.

(43:48):
You've just captured their attention because you've yelled
at them. Whether it's fun clown like
yelling or mean yelling, it's still the same kind of thing.
So my thought on this is if you're giving that presentation,
you've done your observation. Now you follow the child.
Now you've given them the right presentation or lesson for what

(44:11):
they're showing you and they're like, Nah, no thanks.
It's don't try and amp it up. It's not because of your
performance. It's not because of you're doing
something wrong. Yes, if you were to give them
that same lesson in honk a horn,they're going to look at it.
That's not the goal. The goal is you give them the
lesson and then you let them absorb it and when they're

(44:32):
ready, they will come back. That's right.
Faith in the child. Don't try and overwhelm their
senses in order to pull them in.That's right.
That's right. Beautiful.
Let's end there friends. If you want to take the next
step, please join us for taking a little quiz where we will help
you to find out what kind of homeschooler you are and help

(44:55):
you to find your perfect homeschool rhythm.
You can find that at childoftheredwoods.com/quiz.
So easy and I promise it's like you will get a report that is
jam packed full of true tips that will help you to define the
routine that works best for you and your family.

(45:18):
That's right. Well, the other thing that I
would like to talk about today as we kind of close is that
today just happens to be Earth Day.
It certainly does. It is Earth Day, you know our
beautiful home is worth celebrating every day, but today
especially is a nice day to do it.
And of course, it's not just ourhome, It's the home of myriad

(45:42):
Beautiful Creatures, from algae to giraffes, all creatures great
and small. Did I hear great creatures?
You must have been talking aboutme.
Oh. Boy.
Oh, yes, I love it. It's Earth Day.
It's a time to celebrate where Ilive.
The Earth. Yeah.
Also the thing that grows my carrots.

(46:04):
The Earth. Oh.
That's true. Because it's all about the
Earth. It's all about the Earth.
A little the earth, right? Look at that.
What is this? If we live right here on this
beautiful earth, well, not literally on this globe.
Wow, look how big I am. Compared to the Earth, I am your

(46:27):
king. No, Mr. Bunny, this is just a
model of the Earth. Mr. Bunny, we live right here in
North America, on the West Coast, which is right in here
somewhere. Now, what kind of a globe is
this? This is a special globe.
This is a tactile globe, so we call this the This is the land

(46:51):
and water globe. It's made with sand so that we
can feel the continents. Now this is an example of a
material that is really cool, but it doesn't have just a huge
shelf life in terms of use with your little ones.
Right. Do you know what a marketer toy
company would do with this? They would probably put buttons

(47:13):
all over it and make each continent glow.
That's right. Like but no.
But the the purpose really is simplicity and to create that
awareness of the beautiful earththat we live on and our love for
it. So being Earth Day, Mr. Bunny, I
was wondering if you would like to do some Earth Day activities?

(47:37):
I would love to. OK, well I'm just going to pull
some from our life science and physical science material.
Like that, right? So here's one activity that I
was wondering if you might like to do.
It's actually a level 1 activity.

(47:58):
It is to create a nature table. Have you ever created a nature
table in your borough? No, I don't even know what that
is. Well, a nature table is a very
simple way that you can bring nature into your home and let
your child explore it. And I have some tips for you
friends. So when you're bringing nature

(48:20):
into your home, you're going to choose carefully.
You want to make sure that you can fully identify any nature
item before you pick it up and collect it and bring it into
your home just to make sure thatit's safe to touch.
And so there's some resources that we can use.
We can use field guides and we can also there are lots of great

(48:42):
apps that we could download on our phone to help us identify
nature items. So that's.
Once I put some poison oak on mynature table.
Oh, no. Yeah, Mr. Bunny, It was very
itchy. Let's not.
Do that again no to not make that mistake.
So should be extra careful. Make sure that you can identify

(49:05):
and the second thing is just to be aware that a lot of the
nature items that you pick up could have little creatures in
them. It could be the whole creatures.
That's a double thing. It is So what?
Yeah, you get a spider and a log.
Yeah. Yes.
So my example is the time that Iwas really wanting to, I found a

(49:27):
little abandoned empty nest. It was old, definitely had
already been visited by its birds and bird friends had flown
away and I wanted to bring it into our home to observe on our
nature table. And it just happened to be the
home of ants as well. So just be aware that when
you're bringing, bring somethinginto your house to look for

(49:50):
little holes on it. And just be aware that when
you're bringing nature into yourhome, it could have little
creatures in it. Yeah, I had a similar experience
once. I brought a log in and you know,
it was full of uncles. It was.
What? Yeah, instead of ants.
How do you come up with these things, Mr. Bunny?

(50:12):
No, boy. Well anyway, regardless of what
you find out in nature, it couldbe a really fun activity just to
bring into your home with a little.
You just need a little magnifying glass.
And this is actually a great. This botanical nature table is
great for real little ones. So if you have a two or
three-year old, this is a great way to start doing some life

(50:32):
science in celebration of birthday or any day with the two
to three. Year old?
I mean, I think it's great for 47 year olds as well, but you're
right, it is a really good introduction to learning about
life science. How did she know how old I was?
I didn't tell her. Oh boy all.
Right. Something else that you could
do, Mr. Bunny, if you go out into the world, is to go on a

(50:53):
scavenger hunt for nature. Oh.
Oh yes, I am always looking for things in nature.
Like what? What do you like to look for out
in nature? Carrots.
Carrots is a great thing to look.
Ladybugs, of course. Ladybugs.
Yeah. Uh huh.
New holes that I can hide in, Yeah.

(51:14):
Friends. So a fun activity would be to,
when you're in your Burrow, to kind of brainstorm some nature
items and then to go out in the world and see if you can find
them. Oh yeah, like what kinds of
things could I look for? You could look for butterflies.
Right now in the Northern hemisphere, it's spring and so
you could look for flowers, butterflies, ladybugs.

(51:38):
Right now a lot of our members in our community are looking for
dandelions. Or.
Other members of the Sunflower family.
I like that my favorite part of the dandelion is when they get
old and they blow away. Can you make?
Wishes. Oh yeah, of course.
Yeah, me. Too.
I wish that there would be more dandelions.

(51:59):
And the third activity that I'm going to recommend to you and
any of our friends today who want to celebrate Earth Day with
something special and simple is to do some nature journaling.
Oh yeah, this sounds like a fun way to if you're like learning
how to write and you want to like, go out and observe on your
scavenger hunt and then you wantto write stuff down.

(52:20):
Or draw stuff and so really. Anyone at any?
Age can do this activity. Obviously, if someone were to
have an older child, they might want to incorporate writing as
well, or that could be as simpleas copying, finding and copying
down the scientific name of whatever you discover.

(52:41):
But if your child is very young or you're just like just wanting
to go and do some fun drawing, you're going to choose something
to draw and then just have fun drawing it.
That sounds great, I love to draw.
Yeah, well these would be 3 great ideas of a way to
celebrate Earth Day in a way that feels tangible and is fun

(53:05):
for you and your child. Oh, this is great.
Now, of course, there is one other awesome way you could
celebrate Earth Day. You could tell an Earth Day
joke. You could.
Tell us that I sure do. Why did the leaf go to the
doctor? I don't know why, Mr. Bunny.
Because it was feeling green. OK.

(53:27):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hey, I got one more for you.
Yeah. What's a tree's least favorite
month? A tree's least favorite month?
I'm guessing winter because. That's not even a month.
Oh, sorry, December. I don't know.

(53:51):
What September? Oh no.
Wow. That was a good one.
You know it's. Not just Earth Day, it's also
another special day. Did you know that?
No, it's Tax Day. Oh, what?
It is. Mr. Bunny, that was last week.
Last week was tax day. What?

(54:13):
Yeah, last last week was tax day.
Gotta. Go All right.
Well, thank you so much to Mr. Bunny, and thanks, thank all of
you friends for joining this this morning.
Remember, if you, like so many other Montessori parents, are
feeling overwhelmed and like you're just about to give up,

(54:36):
you probably just need to spend some time learning the
Montessori method. It really does work. 100%
guaranteed. Works for all children, works
for every culture. And we'd love to have you join
us at Child of the Redwoods. That's childoftheredwoods.com.
That's right, and we will see you next week with another

(54:58):
exciting episode all. Right.
Take care friends. Bye bye.
Eddie oh, sorry, PSE, you have one other comment.
We'll grab you real quick here. Eddie calls this the land air.
There's a lot of air, so. The land, water and air globe
and I. Only made it when he was 4 1/2.
We got to the continent globe when he was 2, so it's

(55:19):
interesting he still uses the land water globe whenever we
need him globe. That's really, that's a great
example of how these lessons, like if you were to have bought
1, usually we would say it kind of has limited use If the, if
the, if the material, you know, that is designed for a specific

(55:41):
purpose with a very young child,often we assume that like once
they've understood the concept of like, OK, got it, land,
water, air is around, we're done.
But I think that this really shows the power of DIY.
This globe became meaningful to him, you know, in a very
personal way. And so it can have a really long

(56:04):
lasting life. Because I think if you look at
just the, this actually goes to that third step.
I know we're kind of wrapped thevideo, but you know.
Cut this off at the end. Yeah.
I mean, the fact is that this globe has a specific set of
lessons it goes with. And I think they're in level 2
maybe, or level level 1, level 1.
Yeah, they're very early on, butthe material itself has immense

(56:29):
power and continues to have, canjust really spark imagination.
Now, the power isn't from the material.
We want to clarify on that, but it's a really fascinating thing.
And when you connect it to that presentation, when you connect
it to the lesson and you make itmeaningful like you were doing,
just because the lesson that goes with that the presentation

(56:50):
is for let's say a 2 year old, doesn't mean that an older child
or even an adult will not enjoy feeling the tactile differences
and having a sensorial experience with that material.
For sure. Very powerful, I can tell you
that. And my mother, if you're
watching this, you'll love hearing this.
Blah. Every single year.

(57:10):
You know, when I was a child, I remember like visiting our
Montessori school on a day when I know it was like family Picnic
Day when the whole family would come.
And the child who is in the primary classroom, we get to
kind of show them around the rooms, like an open house type
of thing, show them around and maybe you do some of their

(57:31):
favorite works. And so the older children, the
older siblings would come in too.
And often they were children whohad had that primary experience.
But we're now in their their either lower or upper elementary
ages grown out of all of those material.
And what would happen? Like they would just be drawn to

(57:53):
these materials, just like bees to nectar.
And you would see these older children.
And I remember being one of those older children having the
same experience with the Montessori materials that I had
as as a small child. And I don't know if there's, I

(58:13):
really do believe like that the impressions that they make when
they're young, they like continue on like once for sure
had this tactile experience witha particular material like it
really is imprinted. Well, that sensorial period in
the first plane, it doesn't leave us.
We've talked about this before. The curriculum traditionally

(58:33):
sensorial ends after the first plane.
We don't do sensorial lessons after that, right?
But sensorial learning continuesto be essential to all human
life through all ages and stages.
And that's why even as a fully grown adult in the whatever
plane of it would be at this point, the 10th plane, this

(58:54):
still feels, even though it's worn down and has seen better
days, so to speak, it's still really resonates because it
feels so satisfying. And it does remind us of kind of
more primal experiences that arepowerful.
Yeah. So that's a beautiful story.
PS Thank you so much, so much for sharing both of those

(59:15):
comments. Yeah.
Love it. Alright, take care friends.
See you soon.