Is Montessori Too Rigid or Too Loose? Here’s the Truth.

Ever feel like Montessori is a game of ping pong? *Ping* It's all about following precise lessons and materials!, *Pong* it’s about letting kids do whatever they want all day.Well, put those table tennis paddles down, friends! Montessori is NEITHER a strict script NOR a total free-for-all. It’s a balance, a sweet spot of freedom within structure.

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. Let's play Goldilocks.

(00:25):
This Montessori is too strict. This Montessori is too
unstructured. But this Montessori, this
Montessori is just right. If you think one of these two
things is true, too strict or too unstructured, you probably

(00:46):
aren't seeing the big picture. Because guess what?
There is a just right Montessori.
It's the real Montessori, the authentic Montessori.
So maybe you, like many, many others, have peeked inside a
Montessori classroom or watched a video of Montessori children
at work, and you've been thinking, what?
Montessori children have to stayquiet all the time and stay at

(01:09):
their little rugs or their little tables and quietly,
independently do their work all the time?
How unfun is that? Right?
Or maybe you have peeked inside a Montessori classroom in real
life, or seen online or seen homeschooling Montessori
families online, and you're like, what are those kids doing
all day? They're just doing whatever they

(01:30):
want. That's not teaching, that's not
school, and it's just a chaotic free for all in your head and
they're all chatting with each other.
This actually happens sometimes in Montessori classrooms.
And guess what? It's wonderful when that
happens. Both of these things are true at
the same time. But that's right.

(01:53):
There is a delicate balance here, what we call freedom
within limits. OK, so your child has the
independence to develop, but they do so in a very carefully
prepared environment that guidesthem gently through from one
experience to the next at the right time.
And you can learn this rhythm that is the perfect balance

(02:15):
between too strict and too unstructured.
Yes, the Goldilocks zone. The Goldilocks zone and it's not
necessarily something that you see immediately it's it's one of
these Montessori principles thatis hidden underneath all that is
going on in the environment. So in order to really let this

(02:40):
concept of freedom within it within limits sink in, you would
need to observe a Montessori environment for an extended
period of time. And accept that it's not going
to always happen no matter how careful you are.
Correct, Because that's just thenature of teaching.
You have multiple parties in that relationship.
Even if you are just teaching your own children at home, they

(03:02):
have their own set of directivesthat comes from within that sort
of secret voice that's guiding them forward.
And it sometimes clashes with your vision.
But that's why the Freedom Within Limits mantra is so
powerful. Yes, it really is.
It's a mantra. I like that you that you use

(03:24):
that word. Freedom within limits is a
phrase that Maria Montessori herself coined to help
understand the nature of this prepared environment, because
the prepared environment. I mean, I know it's a fancy
sounding term, but really what we're talking about is you

(03:44):
choosing what kinds of materialsto have in your home or what
toys to have in your home, how you want to arrange, you know,
and organize your space. Your like, your living space for
your children. And Maria Montessori called her
living space for children, her prepared environment, the Casa
de Bon Beanie tongue twisted this morning, the Casa de

(04:10):
Bambini, because she wanted it to be a literal house for
children. You know, So when you are
looking at your Montessori home and you're thinking, oh, but
it's not a classroom, Actually, Maria Montessori's original
prepared environment, her classroom was supposed to be
like a home. And so you're already on the
right track if you're at home with your kids and you're

(04:31):
starting with that home like that homey space.
Yes. So what we want to look at today
is there are many places, many great Montessori training
centers that you can go to to learn to be a classroom guide,
to learn how to apply that freedom of limits principle into
your classroom. But we are going to talk today

(04:52):
about how to help you as a parent implement this in your
home, in your prepared environment.
Yeah. And so we have 4 ways that we
want to formulate the concept offreedom within limits that I
think will be pretty resonant with most folks out there.
Now. We have a good crowd today.

(05:12):
Thanks so much for joining us. Be sure you hit the like button
if you're watching this. And that really helps for some
reason. It helps the algorithms it.
Helps the algorithms or hit the like button plus.
But let's talk about freedom within limits.
The first of the four is choice of work from a selection of
developmentally appropriate options.

(05:33):
So. What a mouthful.
It's a mouthful, but that's why we say freedom within limits.
So the freedom is the child has the choice to choose his or her
own work. That's right.
But the limit is you've carefully curated the options
before them so that they are going to meet to the child's
developmental readiness. Yeah.

(05:55):
So when you're thinking about your child at home engaging with
work, right, I'm going to contrast this with the way it
would be applied in a classroom.In a classroom, generally what
we think of, and you may have read this, I'm mentioning it
because you may have read this on this instruction online, and
it actually is a contrast between classroom teaching and

(06:18):
parenting. So often what we as guides in
classrooms may tell each other and help each other to form this
structure in the classroom is tohave the kind of guiding rule
that a child needs to have a lesson from a specific work on a
shelf in order to have permission to do that work.

(06:39):
Yep, OK, and it works. I will tell you, having been a
classroom teacher both in Montessori schools, private
schools and public schools, traditional, you know, schools
like this works really, really well.
It is a great way to manage allowing a variety of
developmental needs going on inside 1 space.

(07:02):
You've got 20 or 30 kids and oneroom.
You need to give them each individual lessons and make sure
that they have lots of choices that are very appropriate for
them at that right stage. And that means that you need to
have a classroom full of work sothat are for a variety of of
ages and stages in your single classroom.

(07:24):
Now, if you are teaching fewer children, let's say you're a
parent at home, if you only got one child, everything that's on
the shelf can be available for your child.
And honestly, it works best if it is that way, you know,
because in a classroom there's just some something about like

(07:45):
being the guide being removed, not being the parent and having
so many children trying to navigate all of these different
works. In a classroom, children learn
within like the first three weeks of school, even if they're
brand new to Montessori. They've never been in a
Montessori environment before. Just like how it works in the
classroom, you need to have the lesson and then you have

(08:06):
permission to do the work. But at home, parents get tripped
up in this because children willrebel against it.
You know that your child lives in your home.
They're going to assume. They don't have to have a lesson
to play with their Lego. Right, right.
And so if you were to, if you were to create these very kind

(08:28):
of more strict rules around likeyou have to have a lesson before
you can play with something, your child might feel that
rebellious tension and it might cause conflict and they might
not, they might choose like, like to totally ignore the shelf
after that, you know, like, I don't want to do anything.
You're going to give me a lessonon it.
I won't do it. And some parents get caught in

(08:49):
that. And so if you're here attending
this live, I'm going to tell youthese four points are actually
really, really critical. And this is good information.
And if you have a notepad in front of you or you want to take
notes, this is something that's really crucial for making your
home school work for you is making sure that you're there's
no barrier between the works that are on the shelves or the

(09:12):
toys that are in your environment and your child's
access to them. Yeah, and you mean physical
barriers, right? I mean structural barriers like
creating that rule of you have to have the lesson first before
you can touch something and giving your child like so many
things that they don't have permission to touch.
Yeah. So this.
Goes right so. Right.

(09:32):
This is the, the plate analogy we've talked about before.
Yes, right. And so the, the healthy plate
analogy is that your child, you're going to set a plate of
food before your child. Your child has the freedom to
eat what she wants from that plate.
You would love for them to for her to eat everything on the

(09:53):
plate, but you know that you're going to respect the child's
freedom to choose and also feel confident that all the stuff you
put on that plate is going to behealthy.
So if they only eat the carrots and not the peas, well, the
carrots are better than nothing.And I think sometimes we get in
a mindset, maybe not so much with the clean plate.

(10:15):
Club the carrots this time, but tomorrow they eat all the peas.
Right, I think we have this out the.
Clean Plate Club, I think some of that idea is a little bit
older, but we still have a lot of manifestations of it in our
culture. And it comes it's especially
true with school. Like we require the the child to
clean the plate. Like you'd have to eat

(10:35):
everything on your plate in order to get a healthy diet.
And that's probably true over the course of time, right?
So day-to-day, what you're looking to do is provide a
selection of activities that areright for your child based on
their age and the developmental readiness, and then let them

(10:57):
freely choose from that. And if they go back to the same
parts card activity, or an art activity or a practical life
pouring activity every day for aweek.
And ignore everything else on the shelf.
It's fine. That's fine.
Choice of work that's you have the freedom to choose your work

(11:20):
from the selection I've given. You that's right.
So here's a tip if you want to avoid, you know, yes, you should
be giving your children lessons with the things that are on the
shelves you introduce like something new comes onto the
shelf. Like first thing you should do
is give them a lesson on it right away so that you're
removing that barrier of like that they have to have a lesson

(11:42):
or they don't know what to do with it.
Go ahead and demo and the. Little bowl and you're
immediately going to demonstratethe technique.
I mean, as soon as as soon as the time is right and your child
is is interested in expressing an interest in doing that
activity, go ahead and give the lesson.
Don't make them wait for it. Don't make a big deal about them
not having the lesson yet and you having other things to do.

(12:03):
If you're going to introduce something new, you need to be
ready to give that lesson. OK.
The other thing is try not to put too many things out at one
time because you physically you're just going to get
exhausted. If you put out 10 new things on
a shelf and then tell your childthat they can't do any of them
without having a lesson first, it's just going to be
frustrating. Yeah, it's called the oppression

(12:25):
of choice. It's a real thing, you know,
marketers know all about it, butit's just a human condition.
We experience it in all kinds ofways.
And it's also true for your you and your child.
If you give them every single anoption to choose every single
Level 3 activity from the curriculum.

(12:45):
There'll be too many and they will get locked in and
overwhelmed. And you will too, yes.
So curate that list. That's right.
So a good a good way to navigatethat choice of work freedom
would be to start with the toys that your child already has.
Like whatever's already in your house is probably mostly great.

(13:09):
You know, maybe you have some decluttering to do or you could
pick it too. But don't just add a ton of new
stuff right away. Add it slowly, slowly build this
prepared environment. And we teach parents how to do
this in our membership program. We talk a lot about how to build
up your subject areas without getting overwhelmed.

(13:33):
And if you're in Primary, I would usually tell you to start
with either some tutorial or practical life for sure.
Just focus on that subject area first rather than trying to make
sure that all 10 subject areas or all 8 you know, in primary
are all available all at once. It's just going to be
overwhelming. And if you kind of build up

(13:55):
those new activities that are inthe environment that your child
has the choice to work with, then it's it's just going to be
much smoother for you. Yeah.
So to be really specific for those of you in our community,
and we know a lot of folks who watch our members or recent
members, the advice we always give, and this goes This is why

(14:16):
we do it this way, is if you're new, start with the theme of the
month, the study of the month. This month it's pets.
Last month it was dandelion. If your kids aren't into pets or
dandelion for whatever reason, Ican't imagine a little guy not
being into pets. But if they weren't, I'll go
pick another theme from the library.
There's over, there's fifty of them in the library for you to

(14:37):
choose from. That's right.
And only do that. Yeah.
Only do the lessons in that, Getthe books that go with it, do
the art that goes with it, do the linear calendar that comes
with it, and do the 10 activities that are part of it.
It's the it's a good way to kindof get the ball rolling.
Or pick, pick from them. And we also help with this

(14:59):
oppression of choice by creatinglittle.
We had these cars, the planning.Cars for you and so yeah,
there's one in every single theme and many of our members
find success by just focusing onlike just a couple activities to
focus on 1st and so they are ordered week by week.

(15:20):
You could just, but you don't have to worry like maybe you
don't get to everything that week, just keep your card for
the next week. But it limiting the things that
we're looking at, you're right, also helps with that oppression
of choice for us too. So it's not just for children,
it's also for home school parents.

(15:40):
Yes, less is more, right? So it's a good choice of work
for that selection of developmentally appropriate
options with the idea that less is more.
So for example, in our curriculum, in a week, we might
suggest 2, maybe 3 new activities from Constellation.
You might only do that for the 1st 2 or even 3 months of your

(16:01):
time with Charlie the Redwoods. Because for one thing, it's
totally healthy for the child. You're giving them a complete
plate through the course of going through those activities.
They're going to cover all the core subjects, but more than
that, it's going to give you a chance to acclimate and find
your rhythm. And then once you're ready,
you'll start to introduce the foundational lessons and that's
where you'll use our system where you have the constellation

(16:25):
is the heart of the week. And then depending on the age of
your child, you're going to pickup to four additional cards.
If they are a two or three-year old, you're going to do
practical life and Sensorial. If they are four to seven or
eight, you're going to do reading and writing and math
plus two others. And if they are 8 or 9, then
just pick any of the four, any 4subjects you want to cover.

(16:47):
And you're only going to do 1 lesson from that card.
So it's not a lot. It helps curate it down.
Less is more, and it allows for something we've talked about a
bunch, repetition. We talked about that last week.
I think, in fact, we did want togive them time.
That's another reason you want to give them a selection to do
things over and over and over. That's where freedom within

(17:10):
limits is not just a way about keeping your sanity.
It actually is better for your child.
That's right, friends. I want to know if you have
questions about any of this. I know we're we're wading deep
into Montessori theory, so if you have any questions about how
this works for you in real life or if you have any suggestions
for parents who might be new outthere to Montessori and trying

(17:32):
to navigate this, we would love to see that in the comments
here. OK, so choice of work, give your
child the freedom to choose their own work.
You set a limit by preparing their environment with a
plethora of wonderful things forthem to choose from.
Maybe not a plethora. A small plethora.

(17:52):
A limited plethora of things. It's one of my favorite words of
things to choose from. All right, Second thing that you
can do at home to provide both freedom and limits for your
child. You can let them choose to work
alone or with peers on creative,meaningful tasks, right?
So the freedom is, do you want to do this by yourself?

(18:14):
Do you want to do either brotherand sister or your friends or
your classmates depending on their environment?
Mm hmm. And the limit is.
Or or work with you. Of course, of course.
Or work with mom or dad which is.
Totally legit at at a home school.
Yeah, it's not it would not be common in a monastery classroom,
right, right. And so that's where this this is

(18:35):
different. This is for parents, this is for
homeschoolers. But you, I mean, not that they
couldn't, but that like there are huge benefits to it.
There's just a lot of kids in a most free classroom.
So you have the freedom, little guy.
You can choose whether you want to work alone or with someone
else. Like, that's right?
Mom or dad, the limit is on a creative, meaningful task, right

(19:00):
right. So if you're set up a time for
school, which is. We call it the the work cycle
work. Cycle exactly.
Basically there's a time and youknow it's going to vary the
amount that of time it's going to vary based on your child's
age and your approach and other factors.
But in general, there's some kind of time where you're going

(19:23):
to try and allow for the work cycle to present.
And during that time you give them, they have that choice,
right, the freedom choice. And now they go on and picked
it. And they can choose to do it by
themselves or with another, as long as they're working on it in
a meaningful way. That's right.
Yeah. Yeah.
So working with peers is super healthy.
A lot of parents come to us worried that their child isn't

(19:47):
doing independent work. And there are there are a lot of
problems with this concept of independent work.
Independence is something that children naturally strive for.
It's within every single human being to want to become
empowered and to feel like they can do things by themselves.

(20:09):
And it's part of growing up. It's a process that I think that
we still continue to work through as adults.
For sure. Yeah, you know, learning how to
do certain things for ourselves or just our own journey of
growing and changing and learning new things and becoming
more empowered people, right. So it's not something that's

(20:31):
only for children, it's also foradults.
But that doesn't mean that it's your job to enforce your child
to work by themselves in order to become independent, or that
the whole goal of a Montessori education is for a child to be
working along. Or the inverse, A lot of parents

(20:53):
worry about socialization. That's true, yeah.
And. So they're worried that if a
child works alone too much, they'll miss out.
Yeah. And if you're doing
homeschooling correctly, that won't be an issue.
And I am going to say correctly,I know that's a bit of a
judgement, but I agree with you to the homeschool correctly is
to make sure that your children have lots of social interaction

(21:17):
in various kinds of way, park days, field trips.
Among very a variety of age groups as well.
Scouts, whatever it is, right? That's right.
So, yeah. So children can choose to work
by themselves. They can choose to work with
peers or another adult. That is a total freedom choice.
Limits that might come in that are relevant for parents in

(21:39):
particular could be if your child is constantly asking you
to work with them and you're notenjoying it and you really want
to be doing your own thing. It is perfectly legitimate to
put a a limit on it to say like,sure, I will play pretend with

(22:01):
you and sit here together, or wewill work on Legos together for
20 minutes and then I need to godo something else.
And that's that. Creative and meaningful.
Timer Yeah, it's totally fine todo that.
And yes, your child might be disappointed.
They might whine, they might, they might tantrum, they might
cry, they may try to sway you orlike persuade you to stay.

(22:26):
It is OK for you to set a limit,right?
You don't have to be playing with your child every single
minute in order for them to growand learn.
And so yes, there is freedom to choose to work in a social
environment or alone, but also you have that choice as well as
the parent to work alone or alongside.

(22:46):
And you know that it is beneficial for children for you
to be working with them sometimes, but also not all the
time. I'm.
Going to say something controversially old school.
I'm going to say that the best freedom comes from
self-discipline. What is that controversial?
I don't know. I'm just saying it as though it
were. Yeah.
Like learning to have self-discipline and self-control

(23:07):
is the path to the greatest freedom, right?
Because you, I think in a way, Imean, because you have a sense
of who you are. You trust in yourself, you know
you're limited, but you also arerespectful for others.
You are not creating a disaster.So an example, another example
might be Maya is carefully playing, working with the brown

(23:29):
stairs. She's coming.
Here comes her brother Liam, andhe's like, my turn.
I want to play too, right? That's not a respectful wait.
Approve. I'm imagining what Maya is going
to do next. What is she going?
To do shove lamp away also not say go away, right?

(23:51):
That's right. Or she's going to get really
frustrated, or she's going to let Liam just take over her work
and she'll go do something else.Yeah, so.
So yeah, that's a great example of some places where we can put
limits in. That's right, because maybe, you
know, Maya has chosen to work alone.
Liam is wanting to work with hissister and a conflict arises.

(24:15):
And that is pretty common in thehome.
We had somebody talk about this a couple weeks ago on on the
show. Like the little guy wants to do
whatever a big sister is doing and that interferes with the
work. What do you do about that?
Well, this is where you have to set up those creative,

(24:35):
meaningful tasks and also be understanding what is
developmentally appropriate for the two.
And this is where you have to intervene to protect Maya's
time. That's right.
Yeah, it's true. One child will have a priority,
you know, and the child that theanswer is, it's the child who's
concentrating the that gets the priority.

(24:57):
She's in the, she's in her work cycle.
And really, if she's focused, don't.
Yeah, then we've got to protect her first.
And at the same time, like Liam obviously does have the desire
to interact with her and he needs to know like when is it
appropriate time? And so in that particular

(25:19):
situation, a mediating, a littlemediating is often helpful, you
know, to have a little negotiating and explain to Maya
that Liam would like to work with her and if and to ask her
like, is there a time. Yeah, exactly where you and Liam
could work together and when might that be a good time for
her and let Maya choose. So I don't mind initially say I

(25:40):
don't want to at all. And then this is where you're
going to guide through the conversation and say, actually
it's important to work together and to be brother and sister and
we love each other. So how can we solve that?
OK, so that's the second one. Work alone or with peers.
On. Meaningful tasks.
Now the third one is. To move, move at will.
Let your child move in any way that they want.

(26:04):
If you think about, I don't knowif you grew up in the Montessori
school or a very, I was going tosay unstructured environment
because there are unstructured schools out there.
Like if you grew up in an environment where you were able
to move around at choice. I did have the privilege of
going to a Montessori school from when I was in preschool

(26:26):
through 3rd grade and I had lotsand lots of freedom of movement.
And I don't remember it ever being an issue me or, or my body
being in a position where peoplewere uncomfortable with what I
was doing. I got up and went to the
bathroom when I wanted to. I moved.
We actually my little Montessorischool in elementary was like a

(26:50):
little house. And so I freely moved from room
to room to room just like it was, you know, it felt like it
was a house, you know, And so they would had a kitchen and had
little different rooms with lotsof shelves and different things
to work with. And I didn't feel restricted at
all. But contrast that with a typical
classroom, where teachers have 20 or 30 kids in one single

(27:15):
room, and children are generallycontrolled in their bodies.
We tell children to sit crisscross applesauce with their
hands in their lap. Don't.
You know, neighbor. That's right, no touching.
Don't touch her. Don't touch your neighbor.
Your seat, don't you raise your hand.
Keep your hands to yourself. Leave the.
Classroom. Asked it right.

(27:36):
Asked to leave the bathroom, butnot while the teacher is talking
or giving a lesson. Never.
Ask. Don't ask because you can't go.
Right. Or just don't ask.
Now, these rules are, you know, as public school teachers, I
will tell you that these rules. Put your hands behind your back
when walking in a line. These rules are created because

(27:56):
it is a lot to handle, right? It is off to all teachers who
work in environments where you've got a lot of kids and
it's just very, very challenging.
And it's, you see that all the way up through high school.
My I taught in high school, you'd have thousands and
thousands of kids in this campus.
I remember when I, some of them with classrooms, I had to have
40 or 50 students. They were just stuffed to the

(28:19):
gills. And classroom management was a
big part of what you spent your time doing.
And so I think from that comes these rules that limit movement.
Unfortunately, they tend to workcounter to the purpose, right?
The actual method in I'm not making this up.
This is common knowledge amongsteducational professionals.

(28:41):
The best, best way to achieve classroom discipline is through
good curriculum and teaching. If you engage the children, they
will become more likely to engage in in a respectful way.
It's it's actually the more thatwe prohibit and limit that we
tend to have more challenges. And so in the Montessori

(29:04):
approach, the freedom to move atwill is important.
But it's not just helter skelter, right?
It's a move at will, in a respectful, kind and courteous
manner. That's right, this.
Is the self-discipline piece again.
So the limit is when you move, you must be respectful,
courteous and kind. That's right.
So what does that mean? Well, what's coming to mind

(29:27):
immediately is the grace and courtesy lessons that we give
children in our Practical Life curriculum in Montessori.
These are lessons designed to help your children navigate
social situations. And so they might involve
lessons like, let's say, Maya's working with those brown stairs
on a rug. And we might have, you know, we

(29:49):
might think we might observe this interaction between Liam
and Maya and decide to teach a grace and courtesy lesson about
not interrupting someone when they're working or about how to
get up and walk around someone'srug without disturbing them.
Or let's say you're going to go into an environment where it's
really important that you have good body control.

(30:12):
I'm thinking like, what if you take your children?
You hear of this great opportunity where you can get
cheap tickets to your local Symphony and, you know, family
friendly concert. You're going to dress the kids
up in their finest and you're going to go and go see a
concert, right? Yeah.
Well, there are certain social rules that we have in those

(30:36):
kinds of environments. Like that is not a place to run
around and be wild. That's not a place to yell or
jump on the seats, right? Or, or climb over.
Our kids would look at those auditorium chairs and they'd be
like playground, like you could tell like as soon as we walked
in, like the little twinkles in their eyes and and we would just

(30:59):
be like, OK, we could tell. Like what they really wanted to
do was like hurdle, yes, hurdle over the entire auditorium set
of chairs, right? Or those seats that flip up and
back like as soon as you sit in the seat, the children are like
it's. A catapult?
Oh, what can I want for this? Right, so those kind of

(31:20):
situations can be prepared for, you know, and the way you would
do that is by talking about the ways that we can hold our bodies
and helping our children to practice them.
So example, you might give your child a lesson about ways to
move in this environment and saywhen we go to the the concert,

(31:40):
people move in a very special way.
We walk with grace, you know, and we might put our hands down
by our sides and walk like this,or we might put them behind our
backs and walk like this, or we might clasp them in the front,
or we might hold hands as as we walk, you know, and you get to
choose. You get to choose how you would

(32:03):
like to walk. So this is movement at will, you
have freedom to choose, but it goes back to that first example
within limits, right? You can you have a range of
options like your options don't include catapulting off the
seat. They do include walking with
your hands behind your back or holding hands or in front of you

(32:24):
or maybe holding onto your purseor your stuffy or whatever or
bag if you brought it or whatever it might be right?
You've given them a range of options that are respectful,
kind and courteous to the environment and to the people
and the other critters that might be in there.
If you're met a pet for. Example Alright, finally, our 4

(32:46):
#4 is to give your children the ability to choose to follow
their own interests. Freedom to follow your
interests. Freedom to choose whatever
they're interested in and what to, I mean, and then I guess
this kind of relates back to that first one about what to
work with afterwards. But really we're talking about

(33:08):
like they, they have the choice about what they are actually
interested in learning about. And so when we start with a
theme like this, some of our parents might say, but what if
my child isn't interested in pets exactly?
Yeah, they, yeah, they don't have a pet or just not
interesting. We get this one a lot with or

(33:29):
more often with like the geography type ones like we're
going to. We studied mountains.
Well, I live in an area where it's flat.
There are no mountains. How do I show them mountains?
It's not really relevant. My son's not interested in
mountains. So there's there's two
suggestions that we can make that have to do with this

(33:51):
freedom to follow your child's interests.
And 1 is that a lot of people don't know that we have, do we
have 50 now? Have we reached the number 50?
We have we. Have Meech reach the number 50.
We have half of 100 themes. Oh my gosh, I can't even imagine
what that would look like. In a #500 guys.

(34:13):
One since the 500 themes in our in our member site right now in
another 12 or 9 to 12 at least that are like coming.
Well, we do one every month and then if you're in the complete
or unlimited curriculum, you getaccess to not only the new theme
like pets, you get everything that we've published since mid
2021 and that's 50 themes in total covering a huge variety of

(34:37):
topics, so. So if your child, you know, if
you're really just like your child is very firm that they
don't want to about pets right now you've got like 50 other
themes in the library or 49 other themes in the library at
this point to choose from that you can present to your child
and say, hey, let's pick something that you are
interested in. And a lot of families do that.

(34:57):
I do. We're really excited because our
vision was that we would have a page or something, and in this
case, we eventually would settleat a page where you could show
your kids all the different themes and they'd have fun,
colorful covers and they could pick the one that's right that
spoke to them at that time. That's right.
And they're now leading the learning, they're following

(35:20):
their interest, and because it'scurated, they're getting that
healthy diet. That's right.
And our members also submit theme ideas all the time based
on the things their children areinterested in learning about for
us to create in the future. Now that's one approach that you
can take. You can say pets is not
appealing to my child. I'll pick something else from

(35:40):
the member in the member library, but that's not the only
approach that we recommend that you do with your kids.
We recommend that you actually go ahead and present the lessons
that are in a thematic unit. Why?
Because if your child is not exposed to just like a wide
variety of different subject areas and lessons and, and

(36:05):
things out in the world that they might want to go and
research or be interested in, then they just won't have that
general knowledge of what's out there in the world.
Yeah, so. This goes to the plate idea.
Like if your kids only been eating carrots for the last
week, don't only serve them carrots.
I mean, in our analogy, continueto serve them the whole plate of

(36:26):
whatever you've made because you're exposing them to that.
You're giving them a chance to explore it.
You don't know what you don't know.
Yeah. So when you do use a theme from
Child of the Redwoods, they are based off of a variety of
different subject areas. We take that interdisciplinary
approach to learning. And so in here you're going to

(36:49):
find reading activities, you're going to find writing
activities, you'll find music. Here's music.
So there's a lot of exposure going on.
And then as you present these lessons, you're going to be
observing your child. We talk about observation a lot.
We won't really go into that in this particular.
Episode. We've done a bunch of them
before. So go back and check those out.

(37:10):
You're gonna observe your child to see what they're interested
in based on the lessons that you're giving them.
And So what you're looking for is that spark.
So maybe you present a grammar activity and your child's like,
but then you present the music scales activity and your child's

(37:31):
like loving it. OK, so this is the kind of
feedback you're looking for thatwill help you to allow your
child that freedom to follow their own interests.
And so, yeah, does that make sense?
You're kind of like pulling a full circle here.
And then you're going to give them the choice of among some

(37:52):
new things that you present again for them to repeat if they
want. And it just, it just continues
in a beautiful, beautiful. Way I love that.
What I want to make sure we talkabout though, is the limit,
because we did say freedom within.
Limit. We did.
We did with. The freedom is following your
interest. I mean, there has to be some

(38:14):
limit to that. Right.
For sure. But what is that limit?
What is the limit to the following your interest?
I mean, I think children can choose to learn about whatever
they want, but there's still going to be practical boundaries
in what you can allow for them. Here's here's an example like
when our children were learning about when our oldest was

(38:35):
learning about math, happens to have a very deep interest in
math and science, loves math, loves math.
And the monastery lessons were very intuitive to him.
Not so intuitive for me. I have to practice with those
materials because I'm not reallya math person, but they were
very intuitive for him as a child with that natural

(38:55):
interest. But he just wanted to keep
scaling up bigger and bigger andbigger and bigger.
And so I would present numbers like, well, let's multiply, you
know, 23 * 3244, which is a really big problem.
And he would pose back to me would say, no, I want to

(39:16):
multiply 53,863 by 999,888,500, right?
I mean, so, and I'm like, that is a really big number multiply.

(39:38):
And so sometimes, like the things that he was interested in
going, the places he was interested in going with math
were kind of beyond what we could do with our current
materials. But we took them as far as we
could. And then I would say like, this
is the limit of what we can do with this material.
We would have to design a new material in order to, you know,

(39:58):
perform that, you know, it'd make a gigantic checkerboard the
size of your living room or something, which, you know, one
could choose to do. But that was kind of an example
of like a natural limit, Yeah, that we found with the
materials. I.
Think another natural limit thata lot of folks will relate to it
they've got little guys is let'ssay they want to do a pouring

(40:19):
activity and they're really excited about pouring the water
or let's say it's yes. I'm also thinking like this
happens with lentils too. Lentils sand.
Let's say they're doing the lifescience activity about care for
plants. OK, they're a two or three-year
old and that activity asks them to water the plants.

(40:41):
OK, so plants are thirsty. That's a good example.
So follow your interests, but besure that you are working within
the limits of the materials, environment and other creatures.
And you are limiting them by thekinds of materials you give
them. And that's actually a really
great example because when you're talking about watering

(41:04):
plants, there's, I think there'slike kind of two methods to do
it. You can teach your child to
stick their finger into the dirtand feel to see if the roots are
dry or not. And maybe you're looking up the
needs of that particular plant. And that's a great way to do it,
especially good if you're a plant enthusiast and you know a
lot about caring for plants. The the relaxed approach to

(41:29):
doing that would be to modify the size of the watering can.
And so my technique with that isgive your child the very
smallest watering can that you could find.
And so I know I did, I found a tea set size watering can.
It held about I think the smallest watering can I had held

(41:51):
about like 3 thimble fulls of water or like 3 tablespoons
full. And then children could just
water those plants, those big plants that we had as many
times. They're not going to over water
them and if they spill it, it's not a big deal.
We're talking about the little ones, of course.
If your child is in elementary, they definitely should be
sticking their finger in and like having patients.

(42:12):
But you're going to scaffold that up because you're going to
give them the simple. This is goes back to that first
freedom within limit, but you'regoing to give them the materials
that are appropriate to their developmental readiness.
So and then let them choose. So they want to do plant
watering. We'd love that.
That's a classic model or plant care of various kinds.
Awesome. Put that on your shelf.

(42:33):
That's a good one to do. Just make sure that the kinds of
materials or lessons that they're going to work on are
appropriate for their age. So don't give them the big jumbo
can. If there are three, maybe start
out with a little bitty 1 and after they.
Yeah, sure. And then as they, you know,
they'll learn the procedure, they'll feel more confident, and
then you'll scale up from there.It's the same with using sharp

(42:55):
objects like in Montessori. We certainly did this, and I
know a lot of folks do, too. Like allowing children to use
knives to cut seems scary, but they can after they've been
taught the lessons that lead up to it.
And they can actually use them pretty well with supervision.
Always follow your own instincts.
That's right. All right.

(43:16):
So to review, you're giving children their choice, the
freedom to choose their work, the freedom to work alone or
with peers or you, if they so choose, within limits, the
freedom to move at will, as longas we're being respectful with
their bodies and the freedom to follow their interests.
That's right. OK, Within the limits that you

(43:38):
give them that are reasonable. All right.
So Montessori really is just right, just like Goldilocks
found it really is. It's a flexible structure.
There is structure within, but there are also very clear
boundaries that we give children.

(43:59):
And all of this works together to create children who are both
independent and loving and sociable.
Responsible and joyful. All the good things.
And if this resonates with you, our Montessori Complete
curriculum is available at childoftheredwoods.com.

(44:19):
And if you have questions, there's a little chat box there.
You can reach out to us anytime if we're not live and we're
sleeping and we will answer personally.
It's not an AI bot. And you can also e-mail us if
that's easier for you. And that e-mail address is
[e-mail]. Absolutely.

(44:40):
We have a comment here. Sarah says we had to pivot for
June from pets and I let my son look through the themes for the
first time. It was cool.
It was so cool. He was so excited when he saw
caves as an option. We are going to explore caves on
Thursday. Oh, that was a beautiful unit
too. Caves.
Fun one. There's a lot of fun activities

(45:01):
the community really love. Oh my gosh, it was very popular.
Yeah, that was before you joined, so I'm sure there's
actually a lot of good advice onthe still in the community.
If you if you look in our community and you do hashtag
cave, often our members will tagthe themes inside those
discussion posts. Yeah, and.

(45:22):
You can see. Photos go back and.
Look and adaptations it's it's agood.
Unit, I think you'll love it. And I love that this is exactly
what we had hoped would happen, right?
Like the any of those things aregoing to be good.
There's going to be good stuff in there because they're all
based on the Montessori lessons.If caves are applicable, because
you're going to go explore a cave or it just speaks to the

(45:42):
kid for some reason, great grab that.
It's going to be fun. And the same goes for the cars
when you're using the foundational cars.
I know I don't know that you've started to introduce these yet
Sarah, but for those of you who are using the card, you're
you're at the point where you'reblending in the foundational
cards. If your kids are in lower
elementary, let them pick cards.They are old enough to have

(46:06):
input on it and it'll make the meat learning much more
meaningful. If they're little guys, then
you'll choose them for them withtheir maybe input.
And the younger they are, the less input they'll have.
But, yeah, by the time they're 8or 9, I would say they should be
tracking their own work through the cards and working through
them and fully in control of their own learning.

(46:28):
That's actually what we want to get to.
Yep. So you're on the right track.
You're doing. That's a great first step.
Yeah. That's awesome.
Yeah. OK.
It is. That's a good one.
I like that one. All right, friends, it's time to
welcome our furry friend. Here he comes.
The one and only Mr. Buddy, tada.

(46:53):
Oh, I'm backwards. Oh, what?
He's back. What?
Hi, Mr. Bunny. Hello.
Hello. It is you.
Oh, Mr. Bunny kind of came in a little backwards here.
Well, now it happens, you know, summer is here and it gets a
little warm and as a result you got to get a little dizzy when

(47:15):
you run around too. Much Oh my goodness, do you have
good summer plan I. Certainly do.
First, of course, we're going togo swimming in the swimming.
Hole. That's a tradition.
And then of course. We're going to.
Go camping, yes, that'll be lotsof fun.
Hang. On Mr. Bunny, I think I see your
neighbor. What?
Oh, OK. Oh.
Hi, neighbor. Oh, and she has a little puppy.

(47:37):
A puppy? Oh, how cute.
Oh, hi. Do you want to?
Should we ask them to come over and say hi?
Oh, where did Mr. Bunny go? Well, OK, I guess not.
Bye. Bye, neighbor.
Mr. Bunny. Mr. Bunny, are you down?

(47:57):
There is. It safe to come out?
Oh, of course it's safe. It's safe to.
We're not in danger. That was just her neighbor.
She just had the cutest little puppy I just love.
Oh, what's are you frozen, Mr. Puppy?
If you don't move, they can't see you.
Oh. Oh, oh, I see.

(48:20):
I'm going to sneak back. Oh, no, no, no.
You don't have to that. The doggie's already gone.
It's OK. Yeah.
Yeah. Well, are you, are you feeling a
little nervous about the neighbor or about the doggie or
or the the pet? I can't tell.
I said dog. I'm just, I'm not going to lie,

(48:40):
I'm a little bit absolutely 100%terrifying to new dogs, That's
all. It's just a very small thing
where if I see a new dog, I go. I do the most responsible thing
you can, which is to freeze so they can't see you.
Like it's my. Got it.
Yeah. Totally invisible.

(49:02):
That's that's right. You are very frozen.
Yes, well, that is a strategy. You know, actually, Mr. Bunny, I
just wanted you to know that a lot of people out there are also
afraid of dogs, and it is not uncommon to be afraid of dogs,
and it doesn't mean that you will always be.
Afraid I don't know what you're talking about.

(49:24):
I, I, I really don't like dogs, that's all I'm saying.
I mean, they're big and they're barky and sometimes they slobber
and when they jump on you, they're too, I don't know, big
and I don't like them. Well, it's scary.
Yeah, I understand. You know, not everybody feels
like dogs are scary, but I understand that you feel like
they are scary right now. I get it.

(49:46):
They're kind of slobbery and sometimes they do jump on you
and they're kind of unpredictable.
That's true. They sometimes they run at you,
sometimes they sniff you, you know, and you know, I don't
know. It's, it's just something that
you kind of have to learn how todeal with.
But you've got some good strategies already.

(50:07):
I do. You do.
Oh yes, of course I've got this one.
Yeah, exactly, Exactly. And honestly, Mr. Bunny, that's
actually a good strategy. When you're not sure there's
like a new dog and you don't know how it's going to react.
You don't know if it's a friendly dog or if it's a dog
that's not friendly and might bemore aggressive.

(50:28):
It's a good idea to stay still. It's actually a strategy that a
lot of the children of the redwoods are practicing right
now because they're learning about pets.
Oh, wow. Yeah.
So inside here we have lessons and the children of the redwoods
have been learning how to how tofind out more information about

(50:49):
pets. So they've been reading about
them and finding out and kind ofexploring different types of
pets. And they've also been learning
about strategies to help them tofeel more comfortable.
And one of those strategies is they've been learning and you
don't have to do this if you don't want to, but I'm just
going to tell you that's. Your energy freezing.

(51:09):
Actually, the strategy is learning how to appropriately
greet a pet when a person comes up with a new pet and they might
want to know if it's OK to pet the the dog or not or pet the
pet, right. There's a lot of children like
to do that and I get it. If you don't like to, that's OK.

(51:30):
I like to pet some dogs, but some dogs are scary.
Yeah, so you have petted a dog before?
Oh yeah, I my cousin has a dog. He's real nice.
Oh yeah. That's I like to play with him
and he chases a ball and stuff. That's a dog that you're
familiar with. Yes, he's a good dog.
I get it. That's right, I get it.
Not like that neighbor dog. I saw him walking down over

(51:52):
there, all tiny and slobbery. Well, I want to get back to the
strategies. So, Mr. Bunny, first of all,
staying very still is a really good idea when you see a new pet
that's out there and you don't know how they're going to react.
But I also noticed that you did something else.
Yeah. What is the other strategy that

(52:13):
you used? Well.
After you're certain that they can't see you, you can slip away
into your Burrow like this. A frozen Yeah, you can't see me,
Can't see me. OK, We call that rabbit
camouflage. Rabbit camouflage.
Yep. OK, so ever feels.

(52:33):
Yes. All right, so first you freeze
and then you slowly back away. Yeah.
Remember, I I actually think both of those strategies are
actually pretty good, Mr. Bunny,because if you were to take a
different approach and you were to like run really fast away

(52:53):
instead, sometimes dogs think that you are playing with them
and they want to chase you. And that's probably what you,
yeah, you probably don't want that.
No, definitely not. I mean, unless I'm playing with
them, but they don't know if I'mplaying.
I guess that's why I shouldn't run away.
But how would you know if a dog were friendly?
Because you know that you're yousaid your family has a dog.

(53:17):
Well, they might know the secretdog handshake.
Would they? Well, that's a good way to know
if they're friendly. I mean, not everybody knows the
secret friendly dog handshake. Well, I don't know about that
Mister Bunny, but I do know thatthere is one person who knows
really, really well if that dog is friendly or not.
Is it? Who?

(53:39):
It's the owner of the pet. Yeah.
So if you use the first part of your strategy and you freeze or
you just, you stay very, very still, OK.
Yeah, maybe with a smile on yourface and you look at the pet
owner. Smile.
And you look at the pet owner intheir eyes, then you can see

(54:04):
usually the pet owner will give you some indication about
whether that pet is friendly or not.
And usually what the pet owner, What I've noticed is that when
I'm standing and I'm kind of still in a, in a new pet has
come up towards me. Either the pet owner will say,
oh, no, no dog. And they'll, they'll quickly
bring the pet away. Yeah.

(54:26):
Or they will allow their pet to come right up to you.
And then you can look at the petowner's face and say, is your
dog friendly? You can just ask.
And the pet owner will either say, no, my dog doesn't like to
be petted, don't please don't touch him or her.
Or they will say, yes, my dog's really friendly and loves

(54:46):
attention. Would you like to pet by pet?
And that way you will kind of know.
Wow. Yeah.
So let's practice. OK?
You'll be the dog owner. OK, You've got your dog.
Here I come. Here's my little dog I'm.
Having a good time, I'm just walking.
That oh, here comes my little puppy.
Oh, and you've frozen. Yes.

(55:07):
And then you look at me and you smile and and I say, oh,
friendly. My dog is friendly, huh?
Would you like to pet my dog? OK.
Yeah, she really likes to be petted.
She's very friendly with all strangers.

(55:31):
Oh wow that is 1 weird looking dog.
Mr. Well, we are just playing pretend, Mr. I.
Hand it to you, that is 1 weird dog well.
I would like you to try. That's not Ringo.
I would like you to try that strategy next time.
All right, I will. I like this idea.

(55:52):
And you know what, since it's summertime, I bet I'll be able
to see some dogs in the, you know, out on in the park and
things like that. And if I feel OK with it, that's
right. And the owner says, Yep, that I
might be able to pet that dog. That's right.
But what if the owner says my dog's really friendly?
Yes, do you want to pet him? But what if you don't want to

(56:14):
pet him? I don't have to pet him, that's
for sure. How do you politely decline?
Well, I would say that's the rabbit handshake.
No, I would say no, thank you. Yeah.
That's right. Just say no thank you.
No, thank you. I'm not ready right now.
That's right. Maybe tomorrow.
Yeah, and and the pet owner willusually understand.

(56:34):
Well, yeah, all right. I feel better already.
I'll go practice this with my cousin's dog, who already know
he's super cool. That's right.
He is cool. Bye, bye Mr. Bunny.
Bye. Oh, that Mister Bunny.
That Mister Bunny. Well, I hope if you have a.

(56:59):
Thank you, Pia for the thank. You pia for?
This is fine quality acting, andto Mr. Bunny as well, we'll tell
him. Well, if you have a child of the
redwoods who is at home and watching, I hope that you go and
practice this too, because I have to, I have to practice this

(57:20):
basically every time I go to ourbeach.
There are a lot of dogs on our beach and in our park.
Lots of dogs that do want to come up to you.
And I will be honest, not all dogs.
I'm I'm not super happy about all dogs coming up to me.
You know, sometimes I get nervous too, especially if it's
a big dog. When I was a.
Kid, I was afraid of dogs. You were I.

(57:42):
Was yeah, because I had some badexperiences with mean dogs.
But when I got older I realized that most dogs are actually real
friendly and if they are well behaved and their owners are
with them, most dogs like to sayhi, but you always talk to the
owner. That's right.
Always. Yeah, right.

(58:03):
All right. Well, guess what?
It's the mailman. Oh, it's the mailman.
It's the mailman. We got some child Rhodes mail.
We're going to answer this question real quick.
Are you reading comments? I am I.
See, Tedley says. Thank you for sharing your
fears, Mr. Bunny. It's a very relatable feeling.

(58:24):
Over here. We will try these strategies.
I see us, Tedley. I, I certainly remember I was
really afraid of dogs, you know,and it's not uncommon to be
afraid of dogs or other pets, and they can be.
Very loud. They can bark very loud.
And the slobbering Mr. Bunny mentioned that that.
Is and they can jump up on you and it could be scary, but I

(58:45):
think it's good, especially now in the modern world.
Or you see, I mean, here in San Francisco we see dogs all the
time. They're just all over people
bring them to places. And so, you know, becoming
comfortable around pets is probably a good skill, OK.
It is a good skill. Let's.
Hear the mail. OK, this mail comes.
This letter comes from Sarah L She says I'm struggling as my

(59:09):
kids will usually participate inlessons but never choose
Montessori work. Otherwise they play together or
separately, they color, they look at books, they help me in
the kitchen, etcetera. Those are all good things by the
way, but they never choose a work off the shelf.
It especially feels like my 9 year old is missing out by not

(59:29):
doing more writing, reading and math etcetera.
Help. Help.
SOS Sarah, this is such a great question.
I'm so glad that you brought this up.
We can talk about it more in office hours as well inside our
community. I'm gonna try and make a note
to, you know, to bring that up because we'll have some time to

(59:50):
go into. A couple weeks when we do.
Some details, yeah. But for now, I think for now
here, yeah. What would you do?
Cuz I think a lot of folks can relate to this.
Absolutely right. I mean, kids are doing actual
practical. Work, real work.
They're helping in the kitchen, they're reading books, they're
looking at books, they're working together in different
ways. I mean, these are all super good

(01:00:10):
things. How big of a problem is it that
they just never go to that shelfand pull the whatever the
geometric solids? A common problem for Montessori
parents, because I think it stems from the fact that we have
that image of the Montessori classroom where children are
just constantly choosing from work on the shelves.
Yeah, and, and that is what's intheir entirely contained

(01:00:35):
environment. In fact, there is literally
nothing else for them to do inside a Montessori classroom
except choose from work on shelves.
Like that is how the classroom is set up.
So it can be very frustrating ordisconcerting for Montessori
parents at home when their children just completely ignore
everything on the shelf and instead they play with
everything except what's on the shelf.

(01:00:57):
Yeah. OK, actually, you know, if
they've got a partner in crime alittle, a little or big sister
or brothers in. The house usually our homes are
so big, like even if we're living in a small place, like
let's say you're in a one bedroom apartment, you've still
got a kitchen and a bathroom anda bedroom, bedroom, one or more

(01:01:19):
bedrooms. And there's just like probably
your child has toys and other pretend play items and they
might just choose that. So there are actually a lot of a
lot of questions we can ask to help you go deeper into this.
But first to say like #1 this isa very, very common problem that

(01:01:42):
children aren't choosing the work that is on the shelf.
There are some things that you can do to one, help them to get
more comfortable choosing thingson the shelf that has to do with
your prepared environment. Now she mentions that she has a
nine year old. Yes, OK.
And so this is a critical thing if your child is in elementary,

(01:02:03):
this is a really easy thing to forget that in the elementary
years. This is ages 6 through 12.
The second, the full second plane, the children should be
designing their own prepared environment.
They should be choosing what goes on the shelf.
They should be organizing the. I know this sounds crazy.

(01:02:26):
Relative to what you normally think of as how this?
The prepared environment works. Yeah, environment works, yeah,
especially because we hammer it in so hard during primary,
during those years that the children aren't not in charge of
the prepared environment. That's your job as a guide.
But in the elementary environment, it's the children's

(01:02:46):
job. And so if you're not regularly
looking at the shelf and saying,hey, well, what up you?
You're never doing any of these things on the shelf.
Like let's make sure that this is what how you want to organize
the things that you need, because what's on a shelf should
be the things that you use and that you need.
Yeah, I would add to that a couple of things. 1 is that to

(01:03:12):
reiterate that idea of making sure that the shelf is
reflective of what your child ispassionate about learning.
And more than that, though, the second is when you talk about
she's not doing enough writing or reading or math.
I mean, I think a lot of us feelthat guilt when we don't see
enough academic progress or academic focus.

(01:03:32):
Sorry. Remember, the lessons are not
the purpose. The purpose is the understanding
that comes as a result of working through the lessons.
And if your child is acquiring mastery through other means,
which is completely possible, the lessons are only one
mechanism for doing that, and they're a good one, and you can

(01:03:56):
use them and they will give you results.
But if your child at nine years old is already fluent with
reading, if their writing is on level, so they're writing
paragraphs, maybe short pager, one page document, short
stories, look at the curriculum and kind of see what would be
for a nine year old. They would be doing paragraph

(01:04:18):
essay writing, journaling. They'd be writing their own
experiments. They'd be reading chapter books,
short chapter. Books writing or dictating
chapter books. Yep, they would be doing
original art. They would be picking studies
from the cultural section, whichis the humankind of the sciences
and the arts to study in depth. Maybe they pick a composer or

(01:04:40):
musician or an author or a scientist or a scientific
subject or historical event that's fascinating to them.
And they would research that. And they would go to the library
and they pick books or they go online and they download
resources that can support and print those out or however you
want to structure your home withtechnology.
And they're guiding that. And it may not be something you

(01:05:02):
can check off on our cards or any cards, because what you're
really looking for is the outcome, not the journey.
The lessons are just the conduit.
They're just the journey. So that's my reaction when I
hear people talk about not doingenough writing and reading and
math. It may be that they've mastered
it already. It could be that they're getting
it in other ways. The way she wrote it was she

(01:05:23):
says. It especially feels like my 9
year old is missing out. If it's a feeling and it's not
something that you know, like doyou know that they're missing
out or do you are you just worried?
Right? So some of them so that matters.
I Are you digging out the cards?To I was just going to look
here. So like here's a level 6.

(01:05:44):
This is from our zoology. These are zoology lessons under
life science. What kinds of things do we want
a level 6 child to do that you're?
So a nine year old would probably be around a level 6
depending. They would examine the eternal
body parts of different types ofcreatures like this says eternal
parts of an amphibian, internal parts of a reptile, internal
parts of a bird of a mammal. So ask yourself, or have your

(01:06:09):
child work with you to ask, whatdo you know about the internal
parts of a bird? Like what's inside a bird,
What's inside an amphibian? Do they have a skeleton?
Don't they have a? Skeleton, the beauty of these
cards is that with older children, they really can use
these a limited selection to help guide their learning and to

(01:06:30):
give themselves accountability. And so that is, if you have a
child who's at the older side oflower L or entering upper L, by
that point, they could. I'm not going to say that they
should be right because there are some 9 year olds who are

(01:06:50):
less mature, but many 9 year olds are fully capable of
evaluating their own learning progress.
And so instead of saying, Oh no,I feel like my child is missing
out by not doing more writing, reading and math, maybe you just
take one of those to start. You say, hey, I feel like my
child is missing out by doing not doing more writing.

(01:07:12):
And then you start thinking, what are some ways that I can
work with my child to incorporate more writing into
our week? Yeah.
So here's as an example. This is from our writing level 6
various kinds of writing that wewould look for from a child at
that level. Writing letters like to grandma

(01:07:33):
writing multiple paragraphs likean essay making a graphic novel
or a comic writing historical fiction writing a drama writing
a genre story like a science fiction story.
So let's say your 9 year old is just really excited about what's
ballet. I don't know, let's make
something up. So she's really, really, really

(01:07:56):
got excited about ballet. Have her propose that she create
a comic about dance moves or thehistory of the Bolshoi or a how
the Tutu was created, or have her write.
So your work, this is a level 6 activity, creating a comic

(01:08:19):
that's taking advantage of an interest she has.
And that's how thematic learningworks.
So by the time they're at that upper age, it's 9 is really kind
of the end of the curriculum forus.
We, we don't include upper elementary, but to be totally
honest, the upper elementary program is not radically
different. There are some other concepts,

(01:08:39):
but primarily what you're going to be doing from ages 9 to 12 is
giving your child more and more autonomy to dig deeper and more
personalized into topics. Yeah, that's it.
That's a really good point. I think most important at this
age is that you are working withyour child to accomplish these
goals together. You know, it's at this age, it's

(01:09:01):
not your responsibility to ensure that your child is good
at every single subject and isn't missing them.
And I think that this is something that is contrary to
the way we perceive learning andeducation in a traditional
educational context, that we we assume culturally that the

(01:09:23):
responsible party is the guide or the teacher.
And that if your child is missing out on some reading
skills or missing out on some, you know, writing skills or
hasn't yet mastered this mathematical concept, whose
fault is it? It's your fault, right?
And if we shift our perspective,we can offload some of that

(01:09:46):
responsibility to our children. And it's perfectly fine to do
this, to sit down with them and say, hey, you know, I've noticed
you're not choosing works off ofthe shelf very often.
Let's take a look at that shelf and take a look at some of these
works. Are these not interesting to you
Or, you know, why aren't you choosing these?

(01:10:06):
And your child might have some valid reasons why.
They might just say, oh, this isnot fun, you know, or they're
boring. You might.
You might, through the conversation, learn that it's
intimidating. Yes, also.
So let's say you expect her to be able to do multiplication.
That's not a you know, that's reasonable if you're following
the Montessori curriculum. But a level 6 child can do

(01:10:28):
division and multiplication. Maybe she's not confident in
some predecessor math facts, andthat's one reason she's not
choosing it. Yeah.
And during the conversation, like the collaboration with her,
you can discover that and then you can help guide her back to
those skills. Yeah, I also think that it's
really good with children who are of this age to give them an
example of what, you know, I, I don't want to always do this,

(01:10:52):
use this technique, but I think sometimes it can be effective
with Upper L children or children who are moving into
Upper L especially for you to sit down and say, hey, a lot of
people expect that a nine year old might be writing essays.
You know, is that something thatyou know how to do already or is
it something that you would liketo learn how to do?
Let's help you get there. You know, what kind of ways can

(01:11:16):
we practice more writing to improve, help you improve your
writing skills and, and then work with them to develop a
plan. Like, OK, like here are a bunch
of different types of writing activities from the level 6 in
the our curriculum. Let's look at these cards.
Let's talk about what kind of ways we can engage with this.

(01:11:37):
As you mentioned before, different types of writing
activities and then develop a plan for your child.
And you have that pencil out with the paper and you're taking
notes. You're like, improve writing
skills, plan and you underline it.
I do this all the time with our kids, even now.
And it really is helpful to havesomeone like taking notes as

(01:11:58):
you're having a conversation andyou write down #1 and you're
like, well, what should our planbe to incorporate more writing
and to make sure that your writing skills continue to
improve. And your child might say, I
don't know, I could, maybe I could do my journal once a week.
Then you're and inside you're thinking, I wish they were doing
their journal every day, but you're not going to start there.

(01:12:21):
You may be like once a week. Great idea.
What day of the week do you wantthis to be?
And you start immediately givingyour child limited.
Yeah, this is a great example ofwhat we talked about in the
beginning of the show, which is freedom within limits, right?
I love this because the freedom is giving them choice.
But you're guiding them right? This is what good teachers.

(01:12:43):
Do to work on math every week. The best teachers, the best.
The magic of teaching is when you can have a child, your
child, any child, the adult, whomever you're teaching get to
the aha moment and think they got there on their own when they
don't realize that you have beenguiding them along the way.
Pure magic. That's right means so much.

(01:13:05):
And that's really what you're trying to do at this age, right?
You're it starts now and just continues on and on.
You're going to work with the child, you're going to work with
your child to help her kind of think through what she wants to
do. And then you're going to nudge
her in appropriate ways that aregoing to make her feel more and
more confident. And she may never want to write
all the time. It may just not be exciting to

(01:13:25):
her, but it might. And when she gets into that
habit, she might realize, like, I love writing and I just want
to write every day, all the time.
I that's what happened to me. I got into a period where when I
was in a teenager in high school, I wrote countless
science fiction short stories. Terrible, I'm sure, but I just
wrote like every night I would come home and I would type out

(01:13:48):
my another short story. He just loved to write.
I wrote nothing but fan fiction for years and years.
So in our oldest, once he learned programming, wanted to
do nothing but programming. And so it was important for us
to say, hey, you also got to have these other skills.
Let's work together to make surethat they're happening.

(01:14:09):
And how that is going to actually look in practice in
your home is going to be totallyunique to every single child.
But it's really important that you start not by saying, you
know, they're not doing what's on the shelf.
So what am I doing wrong? Instead, you're thinking, great,
time to make a plan with my kid.Yeah, I want you to eat

(01:14:29):
something. You're going to eat something
healthy today. Let's plan the menu together.
Yeah. All right, so PAS is a real good
question. I know we're at time, but I just
want to pop this in here. It says what would a person do
if they are aging out of the childhood Revit's curriculum?
How do they do upper elementary and where?

(01:14:52):
We get this question a lot like what comes after and we don't
actually have a. Well, I will tell you.
Because it varies so much. I will tell you the real method,
like there are Montessori sources out there that offer an
Upper L Montessori aligned curriculum resources.
There are resources out there. You could go in search for them

(01:15:12):
and see what resonates for you. OK, totally can do that.
But our personal approach with our own kids and where we were
seeing our children naturally going into is specialization at
that age. You know, the whole purpose and
the the curriculum that we have here, like much of it is

(01:15:33):
designed for the full ages of 6 to 12 and we limit ourselves at
9, you know, partly because we just have well, partly because
we we have just so much more curriculum Like we just like
this is a great age group and wecan continue to offer more

(01:15:55):
resources within it. You know, I'm not saying we'll
never offer an Upper L curriculum like maybe in the
future, but I would tell you that the most important thing
that would be in that Upper L curriculum would be continuing
this collaborative journey with your child and to not be afraid

(01:16:16):
to bring in multiple resources or multiple types of curriculum.
That's what we actually did at these ages.
Maybe find out all kinds of different things to see what
works. Yeah.
So maybe you're gonna take, I really feel like at those ages,
an eclectic approach starts to make a lot of sense.
Like maybe your child at those ages, we had our children taking

(01:16:37):
a lot of classes and so like they would participate in after
school classes. I don't know if that's available
in your area, Pia, but in San Francisco, our kids were able to
take a lot of after school classes.
The rec center, the rec center and also other homeschoolers
would collaborate together. Sometimes a parent would teach
on a topic that they were an ex in.

(01:16:59):
Sometimes there were like makerspaces where there were
co-ops. All kinds of possibilities exist
during that age. Our oldest got to participate in
a little micro school and it waslike a little family homeschool
Co-op. He did that 6, two or three days
a week. Yeah, there were like 6 or 7
kids and we as parents, we actually hired 2 formerly

(01:17:24):
homeschooled college students who were in between.
They were just out getting out of college.
They were just getting out of college and we're about to go
into grad school, but we were able to grab them for a year to
teach our kids. That was that happened.
We just pulled our resources together.
Yeah, we pulled our resources together and and it was
wonderful for a very limited amount of time, but we also did

(01:17:48):
like our kids took woodworking. We just, like, continued to give
them ways to interact with otherteachers in the world, which in
class developmentally important.Yeah.
So at that age, like your children, you are your children
are expanding beyond you as teachers, and you're trying to
bring in other adults into your circle that they can learn from.

(01:18:11):
And so our kids did a cooking class at a restaurant that was
organized by a homeschool mom. Something you might want to
organize. And Pia, I know, I know that
you've been having a lot of success finding homeschoolers in
your area, not just homeschoolers, but child of
redwoods, interested homeschoolers.

(01:18:32):
And that actually would be the my recommendation would be to
start to leverage that to whatever degree is possible for
you. And, and it just makes it more
fun and necessarily get older. You know, when they're, by the
time your kids 12, they're goingto be in this shedding, academic
shedding and social. It's going to be all about the
social and not about the academic.

(01:18:54):
But from 9:00 to 12:00, there's going to be this voracious
appetite to learn. What they learn is going to
vary. So just give them lots of
practical experiences, start to create those beyond so that by
the time to get to that 12. Field trips at that age.
Yeah, by the time you're at the 12, you're ready to start
exploring the social peace in a healthy way, because that's

(01:19:14):
what's gonna call to even. That's why Maria said that kids,
while we were called junior high, should go work on a farm.
It wasn't a time for academic learning, that's right.
It was a time for doing. But this upper L age, that is
the time for going out into the world as much as you can.
And so literally what we did was#1 we, we really pinpointed our

(01:19:38):
children's super specialized interests at the time they were
really emerging that with one ofour children, we really had a
child super interested in STEM. And so we enrolled him in a
coder school and he attended coding tutoring.
And then like programming becamehis great love.
And he started spending so much time programming his own stuff,

(01:20:02):
right? And that was also when we really
opened up a lot of access to theInternet because we were
navigating like that type of. Education Child, however, is
super into theater. Right.
And so we started focusing on nurturing that.
We enrolled him in improv classes both in person and then

(01:20:25):
during COVID online and then back in person again.
That's remained. Companies where he started
learning and actually this we'vegot to run, but this will this
actually goes back to kind of the letter and the sense of
purposefulness. So learning to read, sight read

(01:20:46):
became really, really important in a whole new and real and
practical way. That's right.
When he entered the theater classes.
That's right. And it gave this kind of drive
and impetus to it. That was.
Very purpose. That's right and.
A very natural purpose in the same way that for a older one,

(01:21:06):
he saw coding as this thing likewhat could he create?
He could create an app, he couldcreate a website, he could
create a program. He could make this thing do
this. He could create a whatever this
animated thing he had developed a purpose, and then he had to go
find the tools and learn, teach himself largely how to do those
things. And that's what you're really

(01:21:29):
trying to build. And that that's what it's all
about. That 2 to 9, all the stuff that
you're doing from 2:00 to 9:00 is about laying the groundwork.
That's right to. Teach that independence, that
fire, the desire, the self-discipline that's necessary
to then get hooked on something and know how to go after it.
That's right. That's right.
So, yeah, you're giving your children the whole universe from

(01:21:52):
that 6 to 9 period. That is the whole second plane.
And so the principles that we teach in the lower elementary
course and the whole thing aboutyour elementary child that stays
for the ages 9 through 12. And then I recommend that you
make your priority to keep creating new resources and

(01:22:13):
experiences for your children. I mean, now that I'm thinking
back to it, there were so many things that we did, the ways
that we collaborated with other homeschoolers to create learning
experiences for our children. We're just myriad.
I mean, it's like the cooking class, the micro school, you
know, just the. Science classes.

(01:22:33):
The woodwork. Yes, Forest School that our kids
got enrolled in, you know, we had regularly field trips with
homeschoolers that were planned to to go out together and learn
in different. Environments Finding specific
curriculum that we like to cover, let's say the reading or.
Math my personal approach to that was through literature

(01:22:56):
because by age 9, like there's alot of really fascinating
chapter books that you start having deep, deep conversations
about with your kid and you can cover a wide variety of subject
areas through literature just through those read alouds.
And so that's our literal approach.
You know, full transparency whatwe do with our kids and if you

(01:23:19):
continue to have questions aboutwhat happens after the age of
nine and you're in our community, please don't feel
like just because we say our curriculum ends at 9:00 that
like that's where the support stops.
Please ask in our community. We've got members in there with
children who are those ages, andwe're always happy to help you

(01:23:40):
troubleshoot and find resources.Yeah.
And I, I know we have a bunch of, we have several folks who
have a child who's coming up to 9 and they're wandering through
this. So yeah, we love these
questions. And thanks again for that.
Vidya. Thank you for joining.
I know late you say you're a bitlate, but it's actually late
where you are. So thank you for coming.
Yeah, we're running late today. It's such a crucial

(01:24:01):
conversation. Thanks for outlining our future.
Yeah. And Christy says, I love it.
Such a good reminder session. Thank you.
Thank you so much. Everybody who came, Remember,
hit the like button if you did have a chance to come by.
It does help us with the algorithm.
It does if. You have other questions.
I know a lot of you folks are inour community.
We'd love to continue this chat in the community and.

(01:24:24):
Yeah. And if you're a member and you
love what we do at Child of the Redwoods, it would also be
really helpful if you would savethe URL to this video after it's
post it. I actually same URL, isn't it?
Yeah. We'll do clips of this.
Just share it in whatever group you're in and say hey, watch
this video to learn more about Monastery.
Or when we do the clips of this,if you just want to share this

(01:24:46):
segment on the upper upper L part.
Yep. Anyway, love you all.
Take care fans, have a good day.