June 13, 2025 • 55 mins
Montessori is not something you unwrap and serve. And most definitely doesn't include a plastic toy. So if you’ve tried it and felt like it didn’t “work", well -- friends -- you’re not alone—and the problem isn’t you or your child.
In this episode, we're sharing what actually makes Montessori work and why treating it like a boxed curriculum leads so many parents to confusion, frustration, and self-doubt.
Because Montessori isn’t fast food. It’s home cooking. And YOU are the chef.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(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. When parents decide that they
(00:23):
want to do Montessori, they wantit all and they want it now.
Just like fast food, they've heard all the benefits.
Montessori kids are creative, they're independent.
They work quietly by themselves.I guess they're critical
thinkers and helping develop these skills is a time
(00:46):
sensitive, very limited period in a parent's life because
children are growing up so fast.That's right.
So it's not something that you can wait on.
And parents know this and they come to us, they come to other
Montessori vendors with this expectation that they know this
is the time to do Montessori. You've got to do it.
(01:08):
You're either going to do it or you don't do it because time
with children is so fleeting. But if you want to do Montessori
and you want to do it right and you really want it all, it
cannot be a Happy Meal. It can't.
You just can't order it up. You have to engage with it
(01:29):
slowly and thoughtfully and methodically and work on it as a
practice. Yeah, that's right.
It's not a box of wooden materials or a preset routine or
something you can download. I mean, I know they've tried
many times to make the perfect Montessori app.
It just doesn't work because Montessori, like all education,
(01:51):
is about the dynamic process of understanding your child.
So, right, your job isn't to deliver the Montessori, it's to
Co create that environment with your child.
And you're going to use your knowledge of the sensitive
periods and their interests and their readiness to guide them
along that path. So it is not fast food, right?
(02:15):
It's not made on an assembly line.
There's not a big rush to get itout or it'll get cold.
It's a meal, It's a fine meal. And your child is the chef.
You're not the chef, it's your child.
You are the sous chef, the assistant chef.
You're the one who's preparing the environment, watching and
adjusting, making the kitchen work in general.
(02:37):
And from all that magic comes a delicious meal.
And it is a happy. It is a really, really happy
meal, but it's not necessarily fast.
No, and there's no toy prize at the bottom.
All right, so I'm gonna envisionif I were to re envision the
(02:57):
actual Happy Meal as a real Montessori meal, we would be
reaching and we'd be pulling outour observation toolkit like
we're using our powers of observation and what else would
be inside? We're using our our.
Knowledge of the sensitive period.
(03:19):
I think our knowledge of the scope and sequence.
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, like Wit, the progression
of knowledge and understanding that a child will go through.
Yeah, yeah. We're also pulling out a whole
lot of trust in the child, willingness to make mistakes as
well. And it is something that takes
(03:43):
time for us to learn now. Yeah.
What you're not looking for is 1,000,000 cheeseburgers served
and like an hour, right? Right.
You can do that, but you've got to then uniformly, precisely
homogenized produce them. Yeah.
And that's not what we're after,right?
(04:04):
That's why a lot of standard approaches to education don't
work. They really are, to a large
degree, whether they admit it ornot, working on a fast food
model. They are.
They are. You know, there are lots of
really great Montessori resources out there, and some of
them do come in boxes, but that's not what we really are
(04:24):
talking about when we talk abouta boxed curriculum.
No, in the homeschooling community, a boxed curriculum
send you a box. It's full of supposedly
everything that you would need to teach your child for the
entire year. Oh my gosh, that would be crazy
if that actually worked. And it actually just doesn't.
It doesn't. It's not compatible with
(04:45):
Montessori. So if you're wanting to do
Montessori, that doesn't work. But what we're not talking about
is Montessori resources that come in boxes.
No, I mean just because it comesin a box isn't a bad thing.
Materials come in boxes. There are lots of creators out
there who you can order cards from and stuff, and they will
come in boxes, and that's great.We love Montessori resources.
(05:08):
Bring in all the boxes. I also love what?
The more boxes you have around the house, the more creative
your kid is going to get with them, and so win for boxes.
That's right. But box curriculum isn't going
to be the way that you can follow your child.
And in the general homeschoolingcommunity, there are a lot of
these systems out there that claim to be all in one and in
(05:30):
fact are not really all in one curriculums.
Yeah, it's just the over promise, all right.
There's a sense, I think at the end of the day, it's a sense
that you can if you give enough stuff or whatever, then you'll
have filled the gaps. And it goes with this whole idea
we've talked about many times, which is that we think the
materials themselves were going to do the work, or that if we
(05:55):
have really great worksheets, it's going to help them learn
mathematics or whatever. Like, or just the right book
will turn the child on to reading like it.
It doesn't work that way. It's a process that requires
effort, skill, creativity, a lotof trust, a lot of fun.
(06:17):
You have to really lean into it.So there's a lot of over
promising in the educational community.
The fact is that education is unique.
It's unique to your child, and when we embrace that, it becomes
truly happy. But Oh no, it sounds like it's
very complicated now. There's so much to consider, the
(06:38):
sensitive periods and the scope and sequence, and it's unique.
How can we all make it work and make it feasible for parents?
Let's give 2 examples of, let's give 2 examples of two
different, totally different types of children, and we're
going to make Montessori work for them.
(06:58):
And it's going to show you that it's not as complicated as it
sounds, but it does require an understanding of the Montessori
method. That's right.
Are you ready? I am ready and I also want to
encourage all of you who are watching live if you have your
own scenario that you would likeus to think through.
Yeah, that in the the chat, we'dlove to see it, OK.
(07:20):
OK, give us the 1st. One that's gonna be familiar.
These are, you know, imagine children.
But I think they'll resonate. So our first child, we're gonna
call him Leo. He's about 3 1/2, and he's
always moving. He's moving, moving, moving,
moving. He's very curious and deeply
kinesthetic. You know, if you put him in a
room, he's gonna find a way to jump.
(07:41):
He's gonna find a way to run around.
He's always climbing and scooting.
He wants to get into the water. If there's a puddle, he's gonna
jump in that puddle and make a big splash.
He's always looking for a way toget those wiggles out.
And he's really resistant for sitting to sit for a long time
and do some fine motor work. So you know, he if you want to
(08:04):
put him in front of a, let's sayyou want to do some coloring,
he's not interested in the coloring.
He wants to run around some. More.
Paste and play tickle. Pickle bites.
Hop onto your shoulders and be carried around.
That's right. So you might have a puppy like a
Leo in your own life. You know, we love our puppies,
(08:26):
but sometimes we really feel like we need to give those
puppies a lesson. And let's say in this scenario
that we want to give them a sound game.
It's a classic. It's a classic activity.
You. Give level 1.
Yep. You give it pretty early in the
curriculum. It's essential for reading and
writing and other skills, so it's a really important one.
(08:47):
But poor Leo, he just can't sit still long enough to take the
lesson. He just wants to throw the
object. So you give him some
manipulation, some objects to dothe sounds.
You know. Staying them together.
You know, and they're like, is he even ready for this?
(09:08):
What am I doing wrong? OK, So what should we do with
poor Leo? OK, we're gonna say our focus is
we want to give Leo the like, a sound lesson.
Yes, to develop his auditory skills.
He's already 3 1/2, and we know that he's in the period where
he's hearing sounds, and we wantto develop that.
(09:29):
We're not ready to teach him howto read.
Exactly. No, but we're having him listen.
Pre reading activity. Yes.
So here are some things we can do with Leo.
SO the first thing I heard over and over and over when you were
talking about Leo was he is prime for gross motor skill
development right now. OK, it's not that he can't learn
(09:51):
the auditory skills as well, butbig gross motor movement is
paramount for him. And so we can think, all right,
what are some ways that we can use that energy to help him to
learn his sounds as well? OK, OK.
So we're thinking, you know, I know that this was a very
(10:15):
controversial move for our family, but at one point I did
purchase a mini trampoline for our living room.
Yes, yes, we did. Yes, I did remained
controversial, but yeah, Leo needs to move.
And so can we play those sound games while Leo is jumping or
(10:38):
running around? Maybe we take this lesson
outside and, you know, while Leois engaged in some kind of gross
motor physical activity, we start to incorporate some of
those sound games, right? Like in the environment, in the
space where he is. Yeah, in the space you have.
We bought that little mini trampbecause we live in, we've lived
(11:00):
in for since the kids were sincewe left Dallas where we had like
a lawn. But since then we've lived in
pretty small places. And so that mini tramp, as much
as I didn't love seeing the minitrampoline in the middle of the
living room for years. Replaced our coffee table.
It was actually super useful. It was a great way to let our
little Leos get their wiggles out.
(11:23):
Yeah, another idea. Sometimes we did.
But we definitely, I learned, I actually learned the trampoline
trick from another homeschool mom who bought one.
She also had two little boys at home and she showed me which one
that she had. And she said this thing, we do
so many lessons while they're jumping.
You would not believe it. They learned I like, they did
math on it. They talked about history.
(11:45):
They had conversations while they were jumping.
Don't. Yeah, I mean, as much as I was
like, oh, ha, ha. The fact is that this is a great
technique and it works for a long time, especially with boys,
right, who sometimes are reluctant to talk and open up
unless they're doing something. So if you get, you have a
teenage boy or a preteen boy andyou're trying to get to maybe
(12:07):
share with them, maybe not a trampoline, but could be a
trampoline. Do something physical.
It really works. It's certainly gonna work for
Leo. Okay.
But that's not the only way to incorporate movement.
I was gonna say, well, how else could you do it?
Okay, so there's this really cool thing we do in Montessori
when we are giving a lesson. I know that you probably go
(12:27):
online and you see demonstrations of lessons by
teachers is it's really hard to model this online.
I will say, like, teachers are doing a great job out there who,
you know, are demoing the monastery lessons on YouTube
and, you know, sharing what they're doing with their kids
and in blog posts and on Instagram and all.
But it's really hard to actuallydemonstrate how it works in real
(12:49):
life. But one of the classic
techniques that we can employ, especially that works really,
really well with those young ones, is to get them physically
moving, going from one side of the room to the other.
So with the sounds, you know, something that you could do
that, you know, is not just kindof up here ethereal only in the
(13:09):
ears is to make it really tangible.
Yes. And to give Leo something to do.
And so you might say in our kitchen, hmm, Something that
begins with, you know, what is it?
I left it on the counter for you.
And then Leo's gonna run into the kitchen, look on the
counter, and he won't have to think himself about what starts
(13:31):
with, because you'll have already put a muffin on the
counter, right? And then he'll grab the muffin
and he'll come back and he'll bring it to you and you'll say
muffin, right? And you'll be making that sound
connection also engaging Leo's senses and giving him something
physically to go and do so for him.
It feels purposeful, even thoughyou know that you're teaching a
(13:54):
sound lesson. Yeah, so you might say, you know
what I really want with my muffin as I want to, I want to
something. Maybe there's something on the
on the counter that starts with a salad.
He goes and he gets a plate. That's like, it's not going to
be a potato. Then you can bring that plate
back and how you put your muffinon the plate.
(14:16):
Yeah, So it becomes useful. Your kids will love this.
There's a there's variations of this too, like a, a fetch game
that we play. Yeah.
And. Also called the Bring Me game.
Yeah, bring me game. Yep, those are really fun.
And it's a great way to kind of get that big kinesthetic wiggly
kid engaged. All right, Another one is go
outside. Right, Right.
(14:36):
So you can classify anything, including natural objects that
you find out in the world. So go out there, have Leo run
around and collect some fun stuff, and then bring those back
and classify them. Oh look, here's all the Leafs,
here's all the leaves, here's all the rocks.
(14:56):
What else? What you classify from outside
flowers. Sticks.
Sticks big. Oh, he could even.
There's all kinds of variations on this too, though.
Like we just heard that story last week about the mom who was
waiting for the dad to come out and what did the little guy do?
He was ordered rocks from big tosmall, so outside work that
(15:19):
really engages the big. Senses, I'm thinking this is
also a great time to bring in some alliteration into your
general language. And so as you were talking about
bringing those nature materials in and I was thinking maybe
emphasizing like these are red rocks, red rocks, right?
And just encouraging him to hearthe roar sound in both of those,
(15:40):
yes. Or like maybe bring some sticks
and stones, sticks and stones. And you emphasize that sound.
So it doesn't have to necessarily always be an I Spy
game. I think parents kind of get
tricked up with that. The I Spy game is great.
It's 100%, you know, in one of our level 1 lessons for anything
(16:01):
in writing. But there are many, many
variations on I, that concept ofI Spy.
And a lot of that just does comedown to making your child aware
of hearing the sound. Because that's the purpose.
The other thing that we would advise is maybe delay some of
that pencil based activity. If the wiggles just aren't going
(16:21):
away yet. Maybe instead of jumping into
sandpaper letters, offer something simpler like maybe
sand tray with the finger or chalkboard.
Maybe using the metal insets, doing things that might be a
little bit easier for somebody who's kind of wiggly to
(16:44):
manipulate. I'm not sure what you mean on
that one. It's as though we don't
rehearse. I mean, like if you're a little
guy just cannot hold, sit still and hold that pencil and do some
tracing work or or draw neatly. They don't.
(17:05):
Maybe they're just not even ready to do the coloring.
Yes, OK. Yes, sorry.
Yeah, they sometimes you just want to give them a little bit
bigger, looser, more tactile experiences.
So it may be like water. Maybe.
You're tracing in the sand. You're outside.
You're using your fingers to draw in the sand or in the dirt,
(17:26):
right? And so you're, you're not going
right to the middle metal in sets for the sandpaper letters,
right? Yeah, you're waiting.
Yeah. So you might be doing something.
I can imagine. I mean, again, you're gonna
follow your child, but it could be that you then introduce
something where, you know, tracing around an inset is
simpler than free handwriting. And that's a step anyway.
So kind of progressing along. So another good idea that we
(17:47):
have here is from Petra says my daughter's like that.
She's like the Leo. I think she sits on my lap.
I think it's her way to sit still and she still listens to
everything that's proximity, physical touch.
That's an awesome way. It's it goes with that idea of
movement, right? Because movement is about moving
the body, feeling the body, a big sensorial expressions, a big
(18:10):
hug or warmth of the mom or dad or whatever is also part of that
as well and it can be very comforting.
That's going to be a good time to maybe start to introduce some
of those more fine motor skill activities too, once they get
ready for. It.
That's right. You know, and if you are here
and you have a little one, just know that in Montessori, like
(18:33):
developing the ears, strengthening those motor skills
with practical life activities and sensorial work is so, so
incredibly important, much more important than the actual
writing process. And I think a lot of people, you
know, you want the whole Happy Meal and you're like, I'm going
to do Montessori and that means sandpaper letters.
Maybe not yet. Wait a little bit.
(18:54):
Sitting on your lap and doing sound board books for a long
time can be OK. Right here's you're just
training the ear. You're having that emotional
connection. It's good learning.
Yeah, totally all. Right.
OK. So using that approach, you're
going to take Leo from being this wiggly child who doesn't
ever listen to you and doesn't want to pay attention to a
(19:16):
lesson to a child where you haveintegrated in the things that
are already important to Leo's development.
He's still with and you are going to see, but you're gonna
see a change. The change is gonna be in your
expectations of what Leo is capable of.
You're gonna automatically assume that if it's going to be
a sit down activity, you're going to be ready and willing to
(19:37):
adapt that lesson and incorporate movement in and to
just appreciate Leo for the wonderful.
Wonderfulness that Leo is. Being that he is right now,
which is a very wiggly and movement needing person and to
trust that as he grows and develops your lessons will get
longer and he will pay more attention wiggly.
(20:00):
Leo will not always be wiggly Leo.
That's right. But he can learn a lot from you
during this point. You're going to hear these
sounds come out in his play. It doesn't mean that the
Montessori is not working. You are making Montessori work
for Leo. OK, let's talk about a different
kind of little guy. Let's.
Talk about a little a girl. All right, so I'm imagining a
(20:24):
child right now based on an example from many, many, many of
the stories I've heard from the members in our community.
Let's call her Aria. Aria is a quiet child.
She really loves holding the hand of her mom and dad and
walking together. But she tends to be very
(20:45):
cautious. She's shy of strangers and but
she's a very she pays attention.She's about 5 years old and so
she has the ability to concentrate, but she seems a
little hesitant to do the lessons that her parent is
(21:06):
presenting to her. So here's what happens.
So parents starts to present something and encourages Arya to
maybe start doing a little writing with the movable
alphabet. Here's the movable alphabet.
Here's what it can do. Arya won't touch it.
And I, the parent, knows that Arya is capable of it.
(21:31):
Yeah, she's a smart cookie. She has her auditory
development, you know, has long been developed.
She can I spy things. She knows her sound.
She knows her letters, she's gotlots of things to say, and she's
very curious about the world. But for some reason, when she
starts using the movable alphabet, she just gets really
(21:53):
frustrated really, really fast. And you start to see like the
tears come a little bit. Or maybe she just pretends like
she's not interested in it and doesn't care.
Maybe she insists that a parent do that work instead you.
Do it, you do it. And just refuses and just says
you know I'll the watch while you do it.
(22:15):
Or maybe she you know, will eye it but then go to something else
instead. But she never like goes and
chooses that movable alphabet herself, even though you know
she has the capability. You see the signs of readiness,
everything is pointed to yes, she sits down to do that movable
alphabet and. That's like frustration.
(22:35):
Immediate frustration. Do you want you to do it?
She doesn't want to do it. She walks away.
Something OK, what could be going on here?
OK, the number one thing that isprobably going on is some kind
of internal confidence that has not developed yet.
She is getting trapped in perfectionism.
(22:55):
It is preventing her from showing you what she really can
do, even like you know what she can do, but she doesn't believe
that she can do it yet. OK, I think a lot of adults can
relate to this. We all more.
It's amazing how similar children and adults really are.
We really, really think. About it, Yeah.
That sense of overwhelm, sense of imposter syndrome.
(23:20):
Yeah. Right.
Little guys feel that too, just as much as we big guys do.
So if you understand, so the movable alphabet came in your
Happy Meal kit and you took it out and you're like, I guess
nobody likes this toy prize. That's not necessarily the case.
What you need to have is you gotto apply that understanding of
(23:40):
the Montessori method and make some adaptation.
So for example, you might reducethe overwhelm by reducing the
number of letters that you provide to her so that it's only
the letter she needs to build certain words.
So don't give her the full movable alphabet.
Don't even give her 10 letters. Just give her CVC letters that
(24:02):
make a variety of simple CVC words.
Yeah, another trick to this is to only give her the letters to
write. This is, you know what, talking
about all children here. If your child is, like, raring
to go with the movable alphabet,then let them write whatever
they want there. But if we're talking about an
Aria who is very, very cautious by nature and needs a lot of
(24:25):
confidence building first, she'sgonna want to have seen the
words in written form and be super familiar with them before
she starts writing them with a bovable alphabet.
And so you might not only give her only the letters that she
needs, pull them out of your box, put them in a separate, put
(24:46):
the box away. It's too many letters.
Only get out the letters that she needs.
And then make sure that she can read those words first.
So you're gonna give her, let's say we're working on OT words,
so you'll show her the word pot got Mott taught lot.
They could be made-up words as well.
(25:06):
Zot whatever so that she has seen them physically.
And then you're going to demonstrate the whole lesson.
First, you're going to show her how to write those words and she
will be able to, you know, correct herself.
Like with a little visual like, you'll have the written word
there you wrote. EOT bot and.
(25:27):
Then you're going to word build for her.
And so is she capable of hearingthe word and then just writing
it, flat out finding the letters?
You know that she is, but she doesn't know that she is yet.
And she needs this extra step ofsupport and practice in order to
build the confidence. And so are you giving her a work
(25:47):
that's too easy for her? Yes.
And you're doing it on purpose. Yeah, that's exactly right.
I mean, the books are right madefor Aria like she is the right
age and you're seeing the signs of readiness.
But as the educator parent, whatyou know about your child, your
little Aria, is that she needs that little bit of extra help.
(26:09):
And it's not a failure to give alittle bit of an easier
assignment at the start to buildthat confidence.
We all have to walk before we run.
That's right, but there are other things that you can do as
well. So you're reducing overwhelm by
giving her a certain number of letters to work with, not the
whole box. You are.
(26:30):
You can also do a thing that is super, super effective that we
teach in our courses that you know, if if you're a member and
you have forgotten, I want you to make note of this.
Get out your pencil. This is really, really important
when you are working with a movable alphabet with children
and you want to give them a way to have build in that control of
error. You know, you might be thinking
(26:50):
movable alphabet. There's no control of error here
unless I, you know, show them how something is spelled.
You don't have to do that. Just read it back to them the
way you see it phonetically spelled.
And so if your child has has written something and it is
incorrect, they can correct their own mistakes when you read
(27:13):
it. And so you're just going to go
letter by letter and and read itout loud and your child will
hear if they have missed a letter.
So for example what like they want to spell the word dog and
they spell DG. Yeah, I guess you would read it
and they would say, no, I meant dog.
(27:34):
And you would say, oh, you meantdog.
And they would say, Oh, yeah, And it goes in between these
two. And then they, they will pull
out that O. Another way to build in that
control of error is if you only give them the letters that they
need to make the exact words, then they're not just, you know,
writing freely, but you know, you're gonna give them specific
(27:55):
words to write. And here are maybe you give them
some objects and you've got likea dog and a pig and a cat.
You're gonna give them the letters that they need to make
dog, pig and cat and no more. And if they have any extra
letters, they'll know that they missed 1.
And so that's a way that they they can look and say, oh, the
eye is still left. It must go in here somewhere.
(28:15):
And so it's almost like solving a puzzle.
And Arya will really love that. She'll feel very secure knowing
that she has a way to correct her errors and that if she does
make a mistake, it'll it that she can figure it out without
too much trouble. Yes, that's right.
And not feel bad about it. Last thing that you should do
(28:36):
for Aria as often as you possibly can is make mistakes in
front of her. You know, and and this can be
everything from oops, I forgot to put this last dish in the
dishwasher. Oh well, I'll get it next time.
OK, Easy mistake to make, very low consequences to working with
a movable alphabet in front of her and you making a mistake or
(28:59):
forgetting, you know, to spell something correctly and then
correcting yourself by reading it back out loud to yourself,
hearing the sound that you forgot and then going back for
that extra letter. OK.
And you know, this is a modelingprocess that Arya needs to see
in order to feel like she can make those mistakes, and that
(29:21):
the stakes for making mistakes is a lot lower than she thought.
Yeah, that is just a natural thing, and even mommies and
daddies make mistakes. That's right.
So anyway, and also again, just like with Leo to to trust that
Arya's on her own journey, you know, she's got a lot of
perfectionist tendencies and that's a temperamental trait,
(29:43):
you know, so that might carry with her a little bit, but it's
not going to ruin her life. There are good things about
being a perfectionist in life aswell.
I think that could that could describe many a ballet dancer or
writer or, you know, it's it's not a bad.
Scientist. Yeah.
I mean, perfectionism isn't necessary.
(30:04):
It's when it controls you right and limits you.
And that's really what they're trying to teach.
Right? Like, it's good to want to be to
do it correctly, to be right. It's nice.
But it's also important to know that you weren't always gonna
get it right. And actually, if you got it
right from the start every time,it wouldn't be very much fun.
That's right. So the joy in life is the
(30:25):
learning of it. And so making mistakes is an
important part of that process. And you're just kind of trying
to help Aria lean into that and let go a little bit.
Yeah. All right.
So we have a Oh, it's Vidya. Hello, Vidya.
It's happy to have you with us. I know that you are visiting
another part of the world, and you have a chance to join us
(30:47):
live. So happy to have you with us.
OK, so it's not a happy meal, right?
The Happy meal came with the, the book and the, the, the
movable alphabet or whatever, the book and the the thing.
And it said, OK, this what you do, your child is this is 5 1/2.
Your child should be doing this.And that's how a lot of school
is organized. And, you know, yes, there are
(31:12):
general guidelines. We know that a child at a
certain age should in general beready for certain things.
It is not precise. It is not precise.
It is a range. And that range is determined by
your child's personality, their readiness, their maturity.
And just because they're not at that point does not mean that
(31:35):
they are broken or wrong or thatyou're doing something wrong.
And frankly, a little bit hard to hear.
Just because they're past that doesn't mean that they're super
gifted. It just means that they're
stronger in certain areas than others.
That's right. And over time, those things will
even out or you'll see what emerges as their areas of
brilliance and beauty. So it's not a Happy Meal, it
(31:57):
can't come out-of-the-box and you just do it instead.
You have to know the technique, you've got to know what's going
on, you need to understand how to deliver those modifications
as you're seeing it, and you need to do it in a way that's
fun and family friendly. That's right.
And there's no boxed curriculum all in one boxed curriculum that
(32:17):
can do this. That's right, you as the guide
are the 1:00 to implement the full method.
And honestly, it makes us super,super happy.
It makes us so happy that we keep developing and working on
this curriculum that we are offering our members here at
Child of the Redwoods. That's right.
So of course, we're very proud and we're very proud.
(32:39):
We know we have some members watching us.
We're super proud of the curriculum we make.
This month we did Dandelion, that's next month we're doing
pets. It's going to be really fun.
We have a whole bunch of really cool stuff coming up over the
year. We love making our study packs
and we loved writing our core curriculum, but that's not the
heart of our approach. What we wanted to do as an
(33:01):
organization when when Aubrey and I set out to create Child of
Redwoods is we wanted to make sure that every parent, every
mom and dad out on the earth whowanted to use the Montessori
method could. And that meant, yes, a good
curriculum, a great scope and sequence, but also the
confidence and knowledge and joythat comes with knowing the
(33:22):
Montessori method. And so our approach to teaching
Montessori into helping parents learn and use Montessori is
focused around that. It is a good curriculum, but
it's also the how to use it. And if you you're interested in
learning how to spot these kind of challenges and figure out
those adaptations like for Leo and Aria and your own little
(33:44):
guys at home, you can do that ifyou join us.
This is a great time to do so because we're about to be, we're
about to launch our coaching schedule for the fall and spring
where we're not only going to show you all the different
lessons in the core curriculum, we're also going to work with
you in small groups to help learnt how to apply that those
(34:06):
techniques in your actual home on a daily basis.
And this is a full year program like we're doing this.
We've actually changed our coaching a little bit for the
20252026 season. It's going to be a full school
year of coaching for both primary and the lower elementary
years from September to May, andthis coaching is included
(34:29):
completely concluded along with a lot of other really great
offerings inside our unlimited plan.
That's right. So the unlimited plan has all of
those awesome packs we've talked, study packs we've talked
about in the past, the full leveled curriculum.
So for ages 2 to 9, plus access to the community, plus all sorts
(34:50):
of special fun events and our planning, and as an unlimited
member, all of that additional coaching and all the additional
workshops and all the additionalstuff that comes with it, that
really is going to make you a superstar in terms of applying
the Montessori method in a real way in your home.
That's right. Yep.
All right, Well, beautiful. Do we have a special friend
(35:21):
today? Oh, I see.
I thought there was something else happening.
No, We're going to cut that partout, folks.
No. Yeah, I think.
I think it's that time of the day where we have to invite a
very special furry friend to join us.
It, of course, is the Mr. Bunny time.
Let's see. Mr. Bunny, are you here?
Are you here, Mr. Bunny? Oh, here he comes.
(35:44):
I see him. Oh, good, here it comes.
Here comes our funny, funny friend.
Oh, he's always got so many jokes and laughs.
What? Oh, hey, Mr. Bunny, you look
kind of sad. Are you feeling sad?
I mean. I guess.
Well, you're hanging your littleBunny head and your your little
(36:05):
ears are flopping down and you seem to be kind of covering your
face. That makes me think maybe you're
upset. Well, I guess I'm yeah, I'm a
little upset. Well, poor Mr. Bunny.
Well, what's going on? Why are you feeling sad?
Do you want to tell us about it?Well, OK, I was out in the woods
(36:30):
and I built, I built, I found all these sticks and I built a
little toy house. And it was a it was such a cool
little toy house. It was the coolest little toy
house. Like a little Ford or something.
Yeah, that's right. It was so cool.
I worked on it all day and then I had to go home and then when I
came back the next day it was gone.
(36:53):
Wait, you went out into the woods and you built a little
Playhouse? Because I know you live in a
borough. Well, yes.
For your real house. But you were just building a
little house to play in, like a little play for it, and you
worked on it. And what did you build the house
with? Sticks.
I mean, I found all these sticks.
All right, so you built a littlehouse with sticks.
Yeah. And then it was gone.
The next day I came back and there was no house.
(37:16):
What? That's right.
Well, maybe. Maybe you went to the wrong
place or something. Yeah, maybe it wasn't in the
place where you thought it was. I checked.
I looked all over. Yeah, so, well, I decided I
wasn't going to take no for an answer, so I built another one.
Oh wow. You know what happened?
(37:37):
It was I came back the next day.It was going to.
What? Yes, he did so much work.
I know, it was so sad. I really liked that second one
even more than the first one. Oh boy.
So then I. I built a.
Third one. What, you lost 2 playhouses?
Yeah. And then I built a third one
(37:58):
and. Then you built a third one.
And this time, you know what I did?
I, I, I hid underneath a log andI watched because I wanted to
see what happened to my playhouses.
And you know what it is? What was happening to your
playhouses? It was birds, the birds they
were. Flying down and snatching the
little twigs and going up and making nest.
(38:20):
Oh my goodness, I said. Hey, come back here you birds.
Mr. Bird, they didn't. Listen.
The birds were taking your sticks, and you know, birds
really do like to come and get sticks for their nest.
You think maybe they were. They were just thinking that
maybe you had provided a whole bunch of sticks for.
That I don't know. I just don't like it.
(38:42):
I made that house and it was my house and I wanted my mommy to
see it and I wanted to play in it and.
I get it, Mr. Bunny. That does me.
I can understand why you're feeling sad or upset.
Yeah, I mean, are what is your plan?
Do you feel like are you gonna just keep building more houses?
(39:03):
High so the birds can eat it or take it away.
Or I mean it, it sounds like we can't really prevent the birds
from from taking this. I mean the the birds think that
they're the sticks are availableright for them to play with and
build their own nests with. I guess.
Well, I understand how frustrating this is.
(39:24):
Mr. Bunny, have you have you ever experienced anything like
this before? This is the worst thing I've
ever experienced ever. Oh.
Gosh. Oh not to compare.
This is so sad. I'm really sorry for you, Mr.
but, you know, have an idea. You do.
(39:45):
Yeah. Yeah.
What is it? Well, have you ever had a
delicious carrot? Have I ever had a delicious
carrot? That he has.
Come on, I am the carrot king. Yes, of course it had a
delicious carrot. I don't understand why that
helps. Well, tell me about this carrot.
(40:06):
Well, it was really juicy and itwas beautiful and orange.
It came from Carrot Island. That's the base where all the
best carrots grow. You know that everybody knows
Carrot Island. Oh, yes.
Well, yes, of course. It was so good.
Yum Yum Yum Yum Yum Yum Yum. I love it.
(40:27):
Is that supposed to cheer me up just thinking about a carrot?
Well. No, I was wondering what it was
about the carrot that you liked so much.
Oh, it's crunchy and delicious. Oh boy.
So it was when you ate the carrot you really enjoyed it.
That's right. Oh yes.
Were you sad after you ate it? Well, only because I I wanted
(40:47):
more carrots. And did you get more carrots?
Oh, you know it. Carrot Island.
It's the best. Now, what would have happened if
you didn't eat that carrot? Well, why wouldn't I eat that
carrot? You know, like if you were to, I
don't know, just put the carrot on the shelf and watch.
It watch it rot. That would be a terrible shame.
(41:08):
I. Just eaten.
Mr. Bunny would never do that. Of course not.
So you see, like when you ate the carrot, it, it was gone.
Well, yes, but it also was like the fun part of it.
Yeah, so. Well, like, that's kind of how
it is in life. Everything goes away eventually.
(41:30):
I mean, nothing lasts forever. And actually, a lot of times the
thing that makes it so much fun and happy and joyful is the, you
know, the part about the doing it.
So like if you just looked at that carrot, it would be kind of
boring. But if you eat the carrot, then
you really get it delicious and you get to explore, experience
(41:51):
in every way. Yeah, well.
How's that like my my beautiful Fort?
Well, I don't know. How did you enjoy building it?
Yeah, of course it was. Great.
Yeah. How about the How about the
second time you build it? Did you enjoy that?
Even better. See, the first time it kind of
fell down, I had to be honest with you.
(42:11):
But then I learned that if I puta Little Rock on the bottom,
it'll all stand up taller. Yep, it was extra tall.
That's right. Oh.
Well, I bet when you built it that third time you definitely
put a rock in. I did.
And I used a little leaf for a flag at the top.
Boy, it was so great. I learned so much every time I
(42:33):
built a house. You know what, Mr. Bunny?
This kind of reminds me of building sand castles at the
beach. I really like to build those.
I don't know if you've been to abeach, but when you build a sand
castle at the beach, you can work really, really hard on your
sand castle and decorate it withshelves and make little flags
out of feathers. Yeah, but then the waves come in
(42:55):
and they wash it away every time.
I guess I understand it's but you do it anyway because it was
so much fun. Oh yeah, I love building sand
castles. Yeah, it's like when you eat
that carrot, you know, eating itwas a big part of what made it
so delicious. If you just like put it there
wouldn't be very interesting. Can you imagine if you just put
your first Fort there and it just was there forever?
(43:17):
I mean, eventually it would justbe boring to you, I guess.
Yeah, it's the doing part that'sfun.
And nothing is permanent. Everything kind of moves on.
And what we keep with us is the memories and the the fun we had
and all the good stuff like that.
Oh yeah, I guess. Yeah, that makes sense.
(43:40):
You know, it's hard lesson sometimes it's it's not easy
just to be happy with the only the memories.
Yeah. But it's a part of growing up is
learning that nothing lasts forever.
But our memories and the things that we keep in our heart, those
are those can last forever. Yeah, I know.
(44:01):
Yeah, Mr. Bunny, I would like tocheer you up.
Can I help with that? OK.
OK. Well, I know that you really
love jokes, and so I thought I'ma joke.
I don't know if you've heard it before, but what did 1 egg say
to the other egg? I don't know what.
(44:21):
You crack me up. Oh boy, that is a good one.
You're a Yokster all the way. You're.
Always asking me to tell a joke and I could never think of one,
but I did think of when. I dying of laughter.
It's like, you know what? I'm gonna go tell those birds.
Bye, everybody. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you.
(44:42):
We love you, Mr. Bunny. Well, Mr. Bunny learned a life
lesson there. Oh my goodness.
It's a hard one, right? It really did.
I mean that. That's actually something that I
know I experienced. I think everybody, everybody has
to go through that where you make something.
I remember making a little, it didn't snow very much where I
grew up, but making a little tiny snowman because that was
(45:03):
all the snow that ever fell in our yard and then it melted and
I was devastated. Or you make a sand castle where
you draw a picture or you have something you really like.
Maybe somebody gives you a pieceof jewelry and you'll lose it
and you're really set. That happens a lot.
In fact, it happens to all of us.
(45:24):
And learning that resilience is a big part of it.
And also learning to value the things in life that really
matter, which are the memories, the love, the feeling around us.
Those are the permanent things, not the material things.
That's right. That's a good lesson for all all
little bunnies out there to learn.
(45:45):
I love it. I'm so glad he stopped by.
Well, we have one more thing to share with you today, friends.
Oh yes, yes, we got some mail. We have some mail and thanks for
all the positive comments. We will share those with Mr.
Bunny AW. It's the mailman.
It's the. Mailman.
So this this letter comes from PSharma.
(46:07):
P Sharma 2025, writes us and asks if we can help knowing how
to switch from a regular school where her child was in school up
until grades two or three and now wants to switch to a
Montessori homeschooling approach.
All right, she says. I'm not able to figure out where
(46:30):
to start or what to do or what to skip from Montessori for
primary and the elementary levels.
My child went to conventional school for grade one.
Now he's in grade 2IN online in schooling.
It'll take some time for me to understand it meaning
Montessori. Only then can I really start
with my child and I guess it'll take me a year to understand and
(46:52):
learn before teaching. Should I continue my child with
online schooling for this year and make myself ready by next
session? Or can I switch directly to
Montessori? Please help, we would love to
help you. All right, so there's there are
a few things that we can break down.
For one, I've known so many families who have started with
(47:16):
traditional schooling and then started homeschooling because
they saw a better path for theirchild after.
All kinds of reasons traditionalschool doesn't.
Work and also just because you choose homeschooling for, you
know, the current time period doesn't mean it's going to be
forever. I have known families who
started sent their kid to kindergarten, homeschooled for
(47:37):
first grade, sent their kid to 2nd grade, homeschooled for
another couple years, sent theirkid back to school.
It's okay. And so there's no one perfect
right way to do home schooling, all right?
It's really based on what's right for your family.
That's right, and online schooling.
There are lots of online resources out there, including
(47:58):
Child of the Redwoods. We do most of our teaching
online, even though we don't teach children online.
No, this is all that's right andthere are lots of good resources
out there. There's no reason why you have
to only go with one method and never go with another method.
You can mix and match them, especially with older children.
Oh yeah, Our kids took classes in a variety of different things
(48:22):
while we were also incorporatinga lot of the Montessori
approach. Now, if your child is in grade
two or three and they have neverexperienced the Montessori
method before, you can use our lower elementary curriculum.
Oh, for sure, you absolutely can.
You know, if your child has already gone, I would say if
your child's already gone through Montessori school in a
(48:45):
traditional Montessori classroomall the way through the end of
third grade and they're going into 4th grade, you can use
parts of our lower elementary curriculum, but your child will
probably be familiar with most of the core lessons inside it.
All right. But if your child is never going
to want a story before you can start with lower elementary, it
is not going to dumb things downto a lower level.
(49:09):
In fact, these lessons are so rich and interesting and
curiosity building that even adults get a whole lot out of
these lessons that we offer our children in Montessori for the
elementary age group. Yes, that's right.
I know you mentioned that your child was working through a like
a general international standardof curriculum.
(49:29):
And I'm not familiar with the specifics, but I'm going to go
out of the limb and say that thematerial that your child would
be learning in the lower elementary curriculum in a
Montessori environment is going to be at or beyond what is
generally required for a first or second level.
Absolutely. Yeah, the like the types of
anatomy as an example, the levelof grammar, the level of
(49:53):
geometry, the mathematical concepts, the algebraic
concepts, a lot of these are pretty advanced, so advanced and
even most of our members don't even complete get to them
because there's so much else. And you know what, it's not a
problem. That's right.
So that's right. I think the only part for me
that sticks out is the sense of having to invest so much time up
(50:13):
front. Now, I think if you want to feel
super duper confident, sure, youcan go off and do research.
However, as a home schooling family, this is not the approach
we would recommend, right? I think you need to instead
embrace the fact that you're going to be learning together.
I mean, we've been doing this a long time and we still learn all
(50:35):
the time. So instead, you know, our
approach, for example, is if youwere brand new to the Montessori
method or even experience, it doesn't matter.
We would suggest you come in andyou start with our current
study. Yeah.
So right now we're doing dandelion.
Next month we're doing Pets and we designed our constellation
studies to cover a wide range ofages, so your older child is
(50:57):
going to be just as happy as a much younger one.
That's right, doing this, if pets doesn't ring a bell, you'll
pick a different study from our library.
But basically what you're doing is learning the basics of
Montessori by doing and you're going to couple that by
enrolling in our self-paced course.
We have one on primary and one on lower elementary, you know,
(51:19):
because again, your child is older.
So we would say lower elementaryis going to match better.
But because you're new to Montessori, take the primaries.
Well, they're both included in both the complete and unlimited.
And then get into the community,start to make friends, figure
out who is dealing with childrenor a child around the same age,
what's working for them. We're in the community as well.
(51:42):
And then after you really kind of get your sea legs under you,
then you're gonna start to bringout more of the foundational
curriculum. That's right.
You're gonna start to pull cardsfrom the core curriculum, more
reading and writing basics and things like that as you become
comfortable with the Montessori approach to the course and
through the method more generally.
And really understanding what your child is up to by using the
(52:05):
studies. Yeah, my, I, I think a lot of
parents do get trapped in the idea that they have to study for
a whole year before they're ableto understand and start
implementing. And that is not true.
You want to start giving these lessons while you are learning
yourself and that will actually that's a really honestly like
that is the best way to learn is, is through that hands on
(52:28):
experience with your child, looking at the lesson, digesting
it, presenting it to your child or working with them on a
project. And for your age child, I would
think like big these big Montessori projects that were
gonna be super fun are gonna be in those great lessons.
Yeah. And so I would, if I were you,
(52:49):
feel free, you know, if to just dive in now take the lower
elementary course. You can binge through it or you
can just like let it unfold through the year, through the
coaching sessions, which whatever method feels best to
you. But don't wait to give the
lessons. Yeah, you're.
Gonna, yeah, you're gonna learn best by doing.
It's the case in almost everything in life.
(53:12):
That's right. And so we're actually really
strong advocates of not waiting too long like you will the
program and just learning in general always is better.
So take the time you need. I would say the answer, my
answer to the question is you can start anytime you want,
whenever it's right for your family.
It's not too late. You don't have to be an expert
(53:36):
to do it. You're already teaching your
child. You will not break them.
If you're getting an honest effort to educate them in the
Montessori way, you are going tosucceed to some degree.
It may not be a masterpiece every time, but the progress
will be there and you will see results because it's a time
tested method. That's right.
(53:57):
Yeah. All right.
Well, that was really fun. Thank you for your letter.
Yeah, thanks for your letter, wink wink.
If you have questions for us, please leave them in the
comments underneath this video or just e-mail us at
hello@childoftheredwoods.com. Pleasure.
A great way to get started with our work at
(54:17):
childoftheredwoodswouldbebytakingthequiz@childoftheredwoods.com/quizor just go to our website at dot
com and you'll see it there. It's a fun little quiz.
It's super easy and we'll send you some information about how
to use your results for your child's best learning
(54:40):
experience. Yeah, based on the type of
homeschooler you want to be. That's right.
Yeah. All right.
We will see you next week for another episode of the Power
Hour. Until then, I hope you guys have
a great week. And thank you so much for
everybody who showed up, especially those of you who came
from quite a distance electronically to be here with
us. Thank you so much.
(55:00):
So it's great. All right.
Love you friends.
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. When parents decide that they
(00:23):
want to do Montessori, they wantit all and they want it now.
Just like fast food, they've heard all the benefits.
Montessori kids are creative, they're independent.
They work quietly by themselves.I guess they're critical
thinkers and helping develop these skills is a time
(00:46):
sensitive, very limited period in a parent's life because
children are growing up so fast.That's right.
So it's not something that you can wait on.
And parents know this and they come to us, they come to other
Montessori vendors with this expectation that they know this
is the time to do Montessori. You've got to do it.
(01:08):
You're either going to do it or you don't do it because time
with children is so fleeting. But if you want to do Montessori
and you want to do it right and you really want it all, it
cannot be a Happy Meal. It can't.
You just can't order it up. You have to engage with it
(01:29):
slowly and thoughtfully and methodically and work on it as a
practice. Yeah, that's right.
It's not a box of wooden materials or a preset routine or
something you can download. I mean, I know they've tried
many times to make the perfect Montessori app.
It just doesn't work because Montessori, like all education,
(01:51):
is about the dynamic process of understanding your child.
So, right, your job isn't to deliver the Montessori, it's to
Co create that environment with your child.
And you're going to use your knowledge of the sensitive
periods and their interests and their readiness to guide them
along that path. So it is not fast food, right?
(02:15):
It's not made on an assembly line.
There's not a big rush to get itout or it'll get cold.
It's a meal, It's a fine meal. And your child is the chef.
You're not the chef, it's your child.
You are the sous chef, the assistant chef.
You're the one who's preparing the environment, watching and
adjusting, making the kitchen work in general.
(02:37):
And from all that magic comes a delicious meal.
And it is a happy. It is a really, really happy
meal, but it's not necessarily fast.
No, and there's no toy prize at the bottom.
All right, so I'm gonna envisionif I were to re envision the
(02:57):
actual Happy Meal as a real Montessori meal, we would be
reaching and we'd be pulling outour observation toolkit like
we're using our powers of observation and what else would
be inside? We're using our our.
Knowledge of the sensitive period.
(03:19):
I think our knowledge of the scope and sequence.
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, like Wit, the progression
of knowledge and understanding that a child will go through.
Yeah, yeah. We're also pulling out a whole
lot of trust in the child, willingness to make mistakes as
well. And it is something that takes
(03:43):
time for us to learn now. Yeah.
What you're not looking for is 1,000,000 cheeseburgers served
and like an hour, right? Right.
You can do that, but you've got to then uniformly, precisely
homogenized produce them. Yeah.
And that's not what we're after,right?
(04:04):
That's why a lot of standard approaches to education don't
work. They really are, to a large
degree, whether they admit it ornot, working on a fast food
model. They are.
They are. You know, there are lots of
really great Montessori resources out there, and some of
them do come in boxes, but that's not what we really are
(04:24):
talking about when we talk abouta boxed curriculum.
No, in the homeschooling community, a boxed curriculum
send you a box. It's full of supposedly
everything that you would need to teach your child for the
entire year. Oh my gosh, that would be crazy
if that actually worked. And it actually just doesn't.
It doesn't. It's not compatible with
(04:45):
Montessori. So if you're wanting to do
Montessori, that doesn't work. But what we're not talking about
is Montessori resources that come in boxes.
No, I mean just because it comesin a box isn't a bad thing.
Materials come in boxes. There are lots of creators out
there who you can order cards from and stuff, and they will
come in boxes, and that's great.We love Montessori resources.
(05:08):
Bring in all the boxes. I also love what?
The more boxes you have around the house, the more creative
your kid is going to get with them, and so win for boxes.
That's right. But box curriculum isn't going
to be the way that you can follow your child.
And in the general homeschoolingcommunity, there are a lot of
these systems out there that claim to be all in one and in
(05:30):
fact are not really all in one curriculums.
Yeah, it's just the over promise, all right.
There's a sense, I think at the end of the day, it's a sense
that you can if you give enough stuff or whatever, then you'll
have filled the gaps. And it goes with this whole idea
we've talked about many times, which is that we think the
materials themselves were going to do the work, or that if we
(05:55):
have really great worksheets, it's going to help them learn
mathematics or whatever. Like, or just the right book
will turn the child on to reading like it.
It doesn't work that way. It's a process that requires
effort, skill, creativity, a lotof trust, a lot of fun.
(06:17):
You have to really lean into it.So there's a lot of over
promising in the educational community.
The fact is that education is unique.
It's unique to your child, and when we embrace that, it becomes
truly happy. But Oh no, it sounds like it's
very complicated now. There's so much to consider, the
(06:38):
sensitive periods and the scope and sequence, and it's unique.
How can we all make it work and make it feasible for parents?
Let's give 2 examples of, let's give 2 examples of two
different, totally different types of children, and we're
going to make Montessori work for them.
(06:58):
And it's going to show you that it's not as complicated as it
sounds, but it does require an understanding of the Montessori
method. That's right.
Are you ready? I am ready and I also want to
encourage all of you who are watching live if you have your
own scenario that you would likeus to think through.
Yeah, that in the the chat, we'dlove to see it, OK.
(07:20):
OK, give us the 1st. One that's gonna be familiar.
These are, you know, imagine children.
But I think they'll resonate. So our first child, we're gonna
call him Leo. He's about 3 1/2, and he's
always moving. He's moving, moving, moving,
moving. He's very curious and deeply
kinesthetic. You know, if you put him in a
room, he's gonna find a way to jump.
(07:41):
He's gonna find a way to run around.
He's always climbing and scooting.
He wants to get into the water. If there's a puddle, he's gonna
jump in that puddle and make a big splash.
He's always looking for a way toget those wiggles out.
And he's really resistant for sitting to sit for a long time
and do some fine motor work. So you know, he if you want to
(08:04):
put him in front of a, let's sayyou want to do some coloring,
he's not interested in the coloring.
He wants to run around some. More.
Paste and play tickle. Pickle bites.
Hop onto your shoulders and be carried around.
That's right. So you might have a puppy like a
Leo in your own life. You know, we love our puppies,
(08:26):
but sometimes we really feel like we need to give those
puppies a lesson. And let's say in this scenario
that we want to give them a sound game.
It's a classic. It's a classic activity.
You. Give level 1.
Yep. You give it pretty early in the
curriculum. It's essential for reading and
writing and other skills, so it's a really important one.
(08:47):
But poor Leo, he just can't sit still long enough to take the
lesson. He just wants to throw the
object. So you give him some
manipulation, some objects to dothe sounds.
You know. Staying them together.
You know, and they're like, is he even ready for this?
(09:08):
What am I doing wrong? OK, So what should we do with
poor Leo? OK, we're gonna say our focus is
we want to give Leo the like, a sound lesson.
Yes, to develop his auditory skills.
He's already 3 1/2, and we know that he's in the period where
he's hearing sounds, and we wantto develop that.
(09:29):
We're not ready to teach him howto read.
Exactly. No, but we're having him listen.
Pre reading activity. Yes.
So here are some things we can do with Leo.
SO the first thing I heard over and over and over when you were
talking about Leo was he is prime for gross motor skill
development right now. OK, it's not that he can't learn
(09:51):
the auditory skills as well, butbig gross motor movement is
paramount for him. And so we can think, all right,
what are some ways that we can use that energy to help him to
learn his sounds as well? OK, OK.
So we're thinking, you know, I know that this was a very
(10:15):
controversial move for our family, but at one point I did
purchase a mini trampoline for our living room.
Yes, yes, we did. Yes, I did remained
controversial, but yeah, Leo needs to move.
And so can we play those sound games while Leo is jumping or
(10:38):
running around? Maybe we take this lesson
outside and, you know, while Leois engaged in some kind of gross
motor physical activity, we start to incorporate some of
those sound games, right? Like in the environment, in the
space where he is. Yeah, in the space you have.
We bought that little mini trampbecause we live in, we've lived
(11:00):
in for since the kids were sincewe left Dallas where we had like
a lawn. But since then we've lived in
pretty small places. And so that mini tramp, as much
as I didn't love seeing the minitrampoline in the middle of the
living room for years. Replaced our coffee table.
It was actually super useful. It was a great way to let our
little Leos get their wiggles out.
(11:23):
Yeah, another idea. Sometimes we did.
But we definitely, I learned, I actually learned the trampoline
trick from another homeschool mom who bought one.
She also had two little boys at home and she showed me which one
that she had. And she said this thing, we do
so many lessons while they're jumping.
You would not believe it. They learned I like, they did
math on it. They talked about history.
(11:45):
They had conversations while they were jumping.
Don't. Yeah, I mean, as much as I was
like, oh, ha, ha. The fact is that this is a great
technique and it works for a long time, especially with boys,
right, who sometimes are reluctant to talk and open up
unless they're doing something. So if you get, you have a
teenage boy or a preteen boy andyou're trying to get to maybe
(12:07):
share with them, maybe not a trampoline, but could be a
trampoline. Do something physical.
It really works. It's certainly gonna work for
Leo. Okay.
But that's not the only way to incorporate movement.
I was gonna say, well, how else could you do it?
Okay, so there's this really cool thing we do in Montessori
when we are giving a lesson. I know that you probably go
(12:27):
online and you see demonstrations of lessons by
teachers is it's really hard to model this online.
I will say, like, teachers are doing a great job out there who,
you know, are demoing the monastery lessons on YouTube
and, you know, sharing what they're doing with their kids
and in blog posts and on Instagram and all.
But it's really hard to actuallydemonstrate how it works in real
(12:49):
life. But one of the classic
techniques that we can employ, especially that works really,
really well with those young ones, is to get them physically
moving, going from one side of the room to the other.
So with the sounds, you know, something that you could do
that, you know, is not just kindof up here ethereal only in the
(13:09):
ears is to make it really tangible.
Yes. And to give Leo something to do.
And so you might say in our kitchen, hmm, Something that
begins with, you know, what is it?
I left it on the counter for you.
And then Leo's gonna run into the kitchen, look on the
counter, and he won't have to think himself about what starts
(13:31):
with, because you'll have already put a muffin on the
counter, right? And then he'll grab the muffin
and he'll come back and he'll bring it to you and you'll say
muffin, right? And you'll be making that sound
connection also engaging Leo's senses and giving him something
physically to go and do so for him.
It feels purposeful, even thoughyou know that you're teaching a
(13:54):
sound lesson. Yeah, so you might say, you know
what I really want with my muffin as I want to, I want to
something. Maybe there's something on the
on the counter that starts with a salad.
He goes and he gets a plate. That's like, it's not going to
be a potato. Then you can bring that plate
back and how you put your muffinon the plate.
(14:16):
Yeah, So it becomes useful. Your kids will love this.
There's a there's variations of this too, like a, a fetch game
that we play. Yeah.
And. Also called the Bring Me game.
Yeah, bring me game. Yep, those are really fun.
And it's a great way to kind of get that big kinesthetic wiggly
kid engaged. All right, Another one is go
outside. Right, Right.
(14:36):
So you can classify anything, including natural objects that
you find out in the world. So go out there, have Leo run
around and collect some fun stuff, and then bring those back
and classify them. Oh look, here's all the Leafs,
here's all the leaves, here's all the rocks.
(14:56):
What else? What you classify from outside
flowers. Sticks.
Sticks big. Oh, he could even.
There's all kinds of variations on this too, though.
Like we just heard that story last week about the mom who was
waiting for the dad to come out and what did the little guy do?
He was ordered rocks from big tosmall, so outside work that
(15:19):
really engages the big. Senses, I'm thinking this is
also a great time to bring in some alliteration into your
general language. And so as you were talking about
bringing those nature materials in and I was thinking maybe
emphasizing like these are red rocks, red rocks, right?
And just encouraging him to hearthe roar sound in both of those,
(15:40):
yes. Or like maybe bring some sticks
and stones, sticks and stones. And you emphasize that sound.
So it doesn't have to necessarily always be an I Spy
game. I think parents kind of get
tricked up with that. The I Spy game is great.
It's 100%, you know, in one of our level 1 lessons for anything
(16:01):
in writing. But there are many, many
variations on I, that concept ofI Spy.
And a lot of that just does comedown to making your child aware
of hearing the sound. Because that's the purpose.
The other thing that we would advise is maybe delay some of
that pencil based activity. If the wiggles just aren't going
(16:21):
away yet. Maybe instead of jumping into
sandpaper letters, offer something simpler like maybe
sand tray with the finger or chalkboard.
Maybe using the metal insets, doing things that might be a
little bit easier for somebody who's kind of wiggly to
(16:44):
manipulate. I'm not sure what you mean on
that one. It's as though we don't
rehearse. I mean, like if you're a little
guy just cannot hold, sit still and hold that pencil and do some
tracing work or or draw neatly. They don't.
(17:05):
Maybe they're just not even ready to do the coloring.
Yes, OK. Yes, sorry.
Yeah, they sometimes you just want to give them a little bit
bigger, looser, more tactile experiences.
So it may be like water. Maybe.
You're tracing in the sand. You're outside.
You're using your fingers to draw in the sand or in the dirt,
(17:26):
right? And so you're, you're not going
right to the middle metal in sets for the sandpaper letters,
right? Yeah, you're waiting.
Yeah. So you might be doing something.
I can imagine. I mean, again, you're gonna
follow your child, but it could be that you then introduce
something where, you know, tracing around an inset is
simpler than free handwriting. And that's a step anyway.
So kind of progressing along. So another good idea that we
(17:47):
have here is from Petra says my daughter's like that.
She's like the Leo. I think she sits on my lap.
I think it's her way to sit still and she still listens to
everything that's proximity, physical touch.
That's an awesome way. It's it goes with that idea of
movement, right? Because movement is about moving
the body, feeling the body, a big sensorial expressions, a big
(18:10):
hug or warmth of the mom or dad or whatever is also part of that
as well and it can be very comforting.
That's going to be a good time to maybe start to introduce some
of those more fine motor skill activities too, once they get
ready for. It.
That's right. You know, and if you are here
and you have a little one, just know that in Montessori, like
(18:33):
developing the ears, strengthening those motor skills
with practical life activities and sensorial work is so, so
incredibly important, much more important than the actual
writing process. And I think a lot of people, you
know, you want the whole Happy Meal and you're like, I'm going
to do Montessori and that means sandpaper letters.
Maybe not yet. Wait a little bit.
(18:54):
Sitting on your lap and doing sound board books for a long
time can be OK. Right here's you're just
training the ear. You're having that emotional
connection. It's good learning.
Yeah, totally all. Right.
OK. So using that approach, you're
going to take Leo from being this wiggly child who doesn't
ever listen to you and doesn't want to pay attention to a
(19:16):
lesson to a child where you haveintegrated in the things that
are already important to Leo's development.
He's still with and you are going to see, but you're gonna
see a change. The change is gonna be in your
expectations of what Leo is capable of.
You're gonna automatically assume that if it's going to be
a sit down activity, you're going to be ready and willing to
(19:37):
adapt that lesson and incorporate movement in and to
just appreciate Leo for the wonderful.
Wonderfulness that Leo is. Being that he is right now,
which is a very wiggly and movement needing person and to
trust that as he grows and develops your lessons will get
longer and he will pay more attention wiggly.
(20:00):
Leo will not always be wiggly Leo.
That's right. But he can learn a lot from you
during this point. You're going to hear these
sounds come out in his play. It doesn't mean that the
Montessori is not working. You are making Montessori work
for Leo. OK, let's talk about a different
kind of little guy. Let's.
Talk about a little a girl. All right, so I'm imagining a
(20:24):
child right now based on an example from many, many, many of
the stories I've heard from the members in our community.
Let's call her Aria. Aria is a quiet child.
She really loves holding the hand of her mom and dad and
walking together. But she tends to be very
(20:45):
cautious. She's shy of strangers and but
she's a very she pays attention.She's about 5 years old and so
she has the ability to concentrate, but she seems a
little hesitant to do the lessons that her parent is
(21:06):
presenting to her. So here's what happens.
So parents starts to present something and encourages Arya to
maybe start doing a little writing with the movable
alphabet. Here's the movable alphabet.
Here's what it can do. Arya won't touch it.
And I, the parent, knows that Arya is capable of it.
(21:31):
Yeah, she's a smart cookie. She has her auditory
development, you know, has long been developed.
She can I spy things. She knows her sound.
She knows her letters, she's gotlots of things to say, and she's
very curious about the world. But for some reason, when she
starts using the movable alphabet, she just gets really
(21:53):
frustrated really, really fast. And you start to see like the
tears come a little bit. Or maybe she just pretends like
she's not interested in it and doesn't care.
Maybe she insists that a parent do that work instead you.
Do it, you do it. And just refuses and just says
you know I'll the watch while you do it.
(22:15):
Or maybe she you know, will eye it but then go to something else
instead. But she never like goes and
chooses that movable alphabet herself, even though you know
she has the capability. You see the signs of readiness,
everything is pointed to yes, she sits down to do that movable
alphabet and. That's like frustration.
(22:35):
Immediate frustration. Do you want you to do it?
She doesn't want to do it. She walks away.
Something OK, what could be going on here?
OK, the number one thing that isprobably going on is some kind
of internal confidence that has not developed yet.
She is getting trapped in perfectionism.
(22:55):
It is preventing her from showing you what she really can
do, even like you know what she can do, but she doesn't believe
that she can do it yet. OK, I think a lot of adults can
relate to this. We all more.
It's amazing how similar children and adults really are.
We really, really think. About it, Yeah.
That sense of overwhelm, sense of imposter syndrome.
(23:20):
Yeah. Right.
Little guys feel that too, just as much as we big guys do.
So if you understand, so the movable alphabet came in your
Happy Meal kit and you took it out and you're like, I guess
nobody likes this toy prize. That's not necessarily the case.
What you need to have is you gotto apply that understanding of
(23:40):
the Montessori method and make some adaptation.
So for example, you might reducethe overwhelm by reducing the
number of letters that you provide to her so that it's only
the letter she needs to build certain words.
So don't give her the full movable alphabet.
Don't even give her 10 letters. Just give her CVC letters that
(24:02):
make a variety of simple CVC words.
Yeah, another trick to this is to only give her the letters to
write. This is, you know what, talking
about all children here. If your child is, like, raring
to go with the movable alphabet,then let them write whatever
they want there. But if we're talking about an
Aria who is very, very cautious by nature and needs a lot of
(24:25):
confidence building first, she'sgonna want to have seen the
words in written form and be super familiar with them before
she starts writing them with a bovable alphabet.
And so you might not only give her only the letters that she
needs, pull them out of your box, put them in a separate, put
(24:46):
the box away. It's too many letters.
Only get out the letters that she needs.
And then make sure that she can read those words first.
So you're gonna give her, let's say we're working on OT words,
so you'll show her the word pot got Mott taught lot.
They could be made-up words as well.
(25:06):
Zot whatever so that she has seen them physically.
And then you're going to demonstrate the whole lesson.
First, you're going to show her how to write those words and she
will be able to, you know, correct herself.
Like with a little visual like, you'll have the written word
there you wrote. EOT bot and.
(25:27):
Then you're going to word build for her.
And so is she capable of hearingthe word and then just writing
it, flat out finding the letters?
You know that she is, but she doesn't know that she is yet.
And she needs this extra step ofsupport and practice in order to
build the confidence. And so are you giving her a work
(25:47):
that's too easy for her? Yes.
And you're doing it on purpose. Yeah, that's exactly right.
I mean, the books are right madefor Aria like she is the right
age and you're seeing the signs of readiness.
But as the educator parent, whatyou know about your child, your
little Aria, is that she needs that little bit of extra help.
(26:09):
And it's not a failure to give alittle bit of an easier
assignment at the start to buildthat confidence.
We all have to walk before we run.
That's right, but there are other things that you can do as
well. So you're reducing overwhelm by
giving her a certain number of letters to work with, not the
whole box. You are.
(26:30):
You can also do a thing that is super, super effective that we
teach in our courses that you know, if if you're a member and
you have forgotten, I want you to make note of this.
Get out your pencil. This is really, really important
when you are working with a movable alphabet with children
and you want to give them a way to have build in that control of
error. You know, you might be thinking
(26:50):
movable alphabet. There's no control of error here
unless I, you know, show them how something is spelled.
You don't have to do that. Just read it back to them the
way you see it phonetically spelled.
And so if your child has has written something and it is
incorrect, they can correct their own mistakes when you read
(27:13):
it. And so you're just going to go
letter by letter and and read itout loud and your child will
hear if they have missed a letter.
So for example what like they want to spell the word dog and
they spell DG. Yeah, I guess you would read it
and they would say, no, I meant dog.
(27:34):
And you would say, oh, you meantdog.
And they would say, Oh, yeah, And it goes in between these
two. And then they, they will pull
out that O. Another way to build in that
control of error is if you only give them the letters that they
need to make the exact words, then they're not just, you know,
writing freely, but you know, you're gonna give them specific
(27:55):
words to write. And here are maybe you give them
some objects and you've got likea dog and a pig and a cat.
You're gonna give them the letters that they need to make
dog, pig and cat and no more. And if they have any extra
letters, they'll know that they missed 1.
And so that's a way that they they can look and say, oh, the
eye is still left. It must go in here somewhere.
(28:15):
And so it's almost like solving a puzzle.
And Arya will really love that. She'll feel very secure knowing
that she has a way to correct her errors and that if she does
make a mistake, it'll it that she can figure it out without
too much trouble. Yes, that's right.
And not feel bad about it. Last thing that you should do
(28:36):
for Aria as often as you possibly can is make mistakes in
front of her. You know, and and this can be
everything from oops, I forgot to put this last dish in the
dishwasher. Oh well, I'll get it next time.
OK, Easy mistake to make, very low consequences to working with
a movable alphabet in front of her and you making a mistake or
(28:59):
forgetting, you know, to spell something correctly and then
correcting yourself by reading it back out loud to yourself,
hearing the sound that you forgot and then going back for
that extra letter. OK.
And you know, this is a modelingprocess that Arya needs to see
in order to feel like she can make those mistakes, and that
(29:21):
the stakes for making mistakes is a lot lower than she thought.
Yeah, that is just a natural thing, and even mommies and
daddies make mistakes. That's right.
So anyway, and also again, just like with Leo to to trust that
Arya's on her own journey, you know, she's got a lot of
perfectionist tendencies and that's a temperamental trait,
(29:43):
you know, so that might carry with her a little bit, but it's
not going to ruin her life. There are good things about
being a perfectionist in life aswell.
I think that could that could describe many a ballet dancer or
writer or, you know, it's it's not a bad.
Scientist. Yeah.
I mean, perfectionism isn't necessary.
(30:04):
It's when it controls you right and limits you.
And that's really what they're trying to teach.
Right? Like, it's good to want to be to
do it correctly, to be right. It's nice.
But it's also important to know that you weren't always gonna
get it right. And actually, if you got it
right from the start every time,it wouldn't be very much fun.
That's right. So the joy in life is the
(30:25):
learning of it. And so making mistakes is an
important part of that process. And you're just kind of trying
to help Aria lean into that and let go a little bit.
Yeah. All right.
So we have a Oh, it's Vidya. Hello, Vidya.
It's happy to have you with us. I know that you are visiting
another part of the world, and you have a chance to join us
(30:47):
live. So happy to have you with us.
OK, so it's not a happy meal, right?
The Happy meal came with the, the book and the, the, the
movable alphabet or whatever, the book and the the thing.
And it said, OK, this what you do, your child is this is 5 1/2.
Your child should be doing this.And that's how a lot of school
is organized. And, you know, yes, there are
(31:12):
general guidelines. We know that a child at a
certain age should in general beready for certain things.
It is not precise. It is not precise.
It is a range. And that range is determined by
your child's personality, their readiness, their maturity.
And just because they're not at that point does not mean that
(31:35):
they are broken or wrong or thatyou're doing something wrong.
And frankly, a little bit hard to hear.
Just because they're past that doesn't mean that they're super
gifted. It just means that they're
stronger in certain areas than others.
That's right. And over time, those things will
even out or you'll see what emerges as their areas of
brilliance and beauty. So it's not a Happy Meal, it
(31:57):
can't come out-of-the-box and you just do it instead.
You have to know the technique, you've got to know what's going
on, you need to understand how to deliver those modifications
as you're seeing it, and you need to do it in a way that's
fun and family friendly. That's right.
And there's no boxed curriculum all in one boxed curriculum that
(32:17):
can do this. That's right, you as the guide
are the 1:00 to implement the full method.
And honestly, it makes us super,super happy.
It makes us so happy that we keep developing and working on
this curriculum that we are offering our members here at
Child of the Redwoods. That's right.
So of course, we're very proud and we're very proud.
(32:39):
We know we have some members watching us.
We're super proud of the curriculum we make.
This month we did Dandelion, that's next month we're doing
pets. It's going to be really fun.
We have a whole bunch of really cool stuff coming up over the
year. We love making our study packs
and we loved writing our core curriculum, but that's not the
heart of our approach. What we wanted to do as an
(33:01):
organization when when Aubrey and I set out to create Child of
Redwoods is we wanted to make sure that every parent, every
mom and dad out on the earth whowanted to use the Montessori
method could. And that meant, yes, a good
curriculum, a great scope and sequence, but also the
confidence and knowledge and joythat comes with knowing the
(33:22):
Montessori method. And so our approach to teaching
Montessori into helping parents learn and use Montessori is
focused around that. It is a good curriculum, but
it's also the how to use it. And if you you're interested in
learning how to spot these kind of challenges and figure out
those adaptations like for Leo and Aria and your own little
(33:44):
guys at home, you can do that ifyou join us.
This is a great time to do so because we're about to be, we're
about to launch our coaching schedule for the fall and spring
where we're not only going to show you all the different
lessons in the core curriculum, we're also going to work with
you in small groups to help learnt how to apply that those
(34:06):
techniques in your actual home on a daily basis.
And this is a full year program like we're doing this.
We've actually changed our coaching a little bit for the
20252026 season. It's going to be a full school
year of coaching for both primary and the lower elementary
years from September to May, andthis coaching is included
(34:29):
completely concluded along with a lot of other really great
offerings inside our unlimited plan.
That's right. So the unlimited plan has all of
those awesome packs we've talked, study packs we've talked
about in the past, the full leveled curriculum.
So for ages 2 to 9, plus access to the community, plus all sorts
(34:50):
of special fun events and our planning, and as an unlimited
member, all of that additional coaching and all the additional
workshops and all the additionalstuff that comes with it, that
really is going to make you a superstar in terms of applying
the Montessori method in a real way in your home.
That's right. Yep.
All right, Well, beautiful. Do we have a special friend
(35:21):
today? Oh, I see.
I thought there was something else happening.
No, We're going to cut that partout, folks.
No. Yeah, I think.
I think it's that time of the day where we have to invite a
very special furry friend to join us.
It, of course, is the Mr. Bunny time.
Let's see. Mr. Bunny, are you here?
Are you here, Mr. Bunny? Oh, here he comes.
(35:44):
I see him. Oh, good, here it comes.
Here comes our funny, funny friend.
Oh, he's always got so many jokes and laughs.
What? Oh, hey, Mr. Bunny, you look
kind of sad. Are you feeling sad?
I mean. I guess.
Well, you're hanging your littleBunny head and your your little
(36:05):
ears are flopping down and you seem to be kind of covering your
face. That makes me think maybe you're
upset. Well, I guess I'm yeah, I'm a
little upset. Well, poor Mr. Bunny.
Well, what's going on? Why are you feeling sad?
Do you want to tell us about it?Well, OK, I was out in the woods
(36:30):
and I built, I built, I found all these sticks and I built a
little toy house. And it was a it was such a cool
little toy house. It was the coolest little toy
house. Like a little Ford or something.
Yeah, that's right. It was so cool.
I worked on it all day and then I had to go home and then when I
came back the next day it was gone.
(36:53):
Wait, you went out into the woods and you built a little
Playhouse? Because I know you live in a
borough. Well, yes.
For your real house. But you were just building a
little house to play in, like a little play for it, and you
worked on it. And what did you build the house
with? Sticks.
I mean, I found all these sticks.
All right, so you built a littlehouse with sticks.
Yeah. And then it was gone.
The next day I came back and there was no house.
(37:16):
What? That's right.
Well, maybe. Maybe you went to the wrong
place or something. Yeah, maybe it wasn't in the
place where you thought it was. I checked.
I looked all over. Yeah, so, well, I decided I
wasn't going to take no for an answer, so I built another one.
Oh wow. You know what happened?
(37:37):
It was I came back the next day.It was going to.
What? Yes, he did so much work.
I know, it was so sad. I really liked that second one
even more than the first one. Oh boy.
So then I. I built a.
Third one. What, you lost 2 playhouses?
Yeah. And then I built a third one
(37:58):
and. Then you built a third one.
And this time, you know what I did?
I, I, I hid underneath a log andI watched because I wanted to
see what happened to my playhouses.
And you know what it is? What was happening to your
playhouses? It was birds, the birds they
were. Flying down and snatching the
little twigs and going up and making nest.
(38:20):
Oh my goodness, I said. Hey, come back here you birds.
Mr. Bird, they didn't. Listen.
The birds were taking your sticks, and you know, birds
really do like to come and get sticks for their nest.
You think maybe they were. They were just thinking that
maybe you had provided a whole bunch of sticks for.
That I don't know. I just don't like it.
(38:42):
I made that house and it was my house and I wanted my mommy to
see it and I wanted to play in it and.
I get it, Mr. Bunny. That does me.
I can understand why you're feeling sad or upset.
Yeah, I mean, are what is your plan?
Do you feel like are you gonna just keep building more houses?
(39:03):
High so the birds can eat it or take it away.
Or I mean it, it sounds like we can't really prevent the birds
from from taking this. I mean the the birds think that
they're the sticks are availableright for them to play with and
build their own nests with. I guess.
Well, I understand how frustrating this is.
(39:24):
Mr. Bunny, have you have you ever experienced anything like
this before? This is the worst thing I've
ever experienced ever. Oh.
Gosh. Oh not to compare.
This is so sad. I'm really sorry for you, Mr.
but, you know, have an idea. You do.
(39:45):
Yeah. Yeah.
What is it? Well, have you ever had a
delicious carrot? Have I ever had a delicious
carrot? That he has.
Come on, I am the carrot king. Yes, of course it had a
delicious carrot. I don't understand why that
helps. Well, tell me about this carrot.
(40:06):
Well, it was really juicy and itwas beautiful and orange.
It came from Carrot Island. That's the base where all the
best carrots grow. You know that everybody knows
Carrot Island. Oh, yes.
Well, yes, of course. It was so good.
Yum Yum Yum Yum Yum Yum Yum. I love it.
(40:27):
Is that supposed to cheer me up just thinking about a carrot?
Well. No, I was wondering what it was
about the carrot that you liked so much.
Oh, it's crunchy and delicious. Oh boy.
So it was when you ate the carrot you really enjoyed it.
That's right. Oh yes.
Were you sad after you ate it? Well, only because I I wanted
(40:47):
more carrots. And did you get more carrots?
Oh, you know it. Carrot Island.
It's the best. Now, what would have happened if
you didn't eat that carrot? Well, why wouldn't I eat that
carrot? You know, like if you were to, I
don't know, just put the carrot on the shelf and watch.
It watch it rot. That would be a terrible shame.
(41:08):
I. Just eaten.
Mr. Bunny would never do that. Of course not.
So you see, like when you ate the carrot, it, it was gone.
Well, yes, but it also was like the fun part of it.
Yeah, so. Well, like, that's kind of how
it is in life. Everything goes away eventually.
(41:30):
I mean, nothing lasts forever. And actually, a lot of times the
thing that makes it so much fun and happy and joyful is the, you
know, the part about the doing it.
So like if you just looked at that carrot, it would be kind of
boring. But if you eat the carrot, then
you really get it delicious and you get to explore, experience
(41:51):
in every way. Yeah, well.
How's that like my my beautiful Fort?
Well, I don't know. How did you enjoy building it?
Yeah, of course it was. Great.
Yeah. How about the How about the
second time you build it? Did you enjoy that?
Even better. See, the first time it kind of
fell down, I had to be honest with you.
(42:11):
But then I learned that if I puta Little Rock on the bottom,
it'll all stand up taller. Yep, it was extra tall.
That's right. Oh.
Well, I bet when you built it that third time you definitely
put a rock in. I did.
And I used a little leaf for a flag at the top.
Boy, it was so great. I learned so much every time I
(42:33):
built a house. You know what, Mr. Bunny?
This kind of reminds me of building sand castles at the
beach. I really like to build those.
I don't know if you've been to abeach, but when you build a sand
castle at the beach, you can work really, really hard on your
sand castle and decorate it withshelves and make little flags
out of feathers. Yeah, but then the waves come in
(42:55):
and they wash it away every time.
I guess I understand it's but you do it anyway because it was
so much fun. Oh yeah, I love building sand
castles. Yeah, it's like when you eat
that carrot, you know, eating itwas a big part of what made it
so delicious. If you just like put it there
wouldn't be very interesting. Can you imagine if you just put
your first Fort there and it just was there forever?
(43:17):
I mean, eventually it would justbe boring to you, I guess.
Yeah, it's the doing part that'sfun.
And nothing is permanent. Everything kind of moves on.
And what we keep with us is the memories and the the fun we had
and all the good stuff like that.
Oh yeah, I guess. Yeah, that makes sense.
(43:40):
You know, it's hard lesson sometimes it's it's not easy
just to be happy with the only the memories.
Yeah. But it's a part of growing up is
learning that nothing lasts forever.
But our memories and the things that we keep in our heart, those
are those can last forever. Yeah, I know.
(44:01):
Yeah, Mr. Bunny, I would like tocheer you up.
Can I help with that? OK.
OK. Well, I know that you really
love jokes, and so I thought I'ma joke.
I don't know if you've heard it before, but what did 1 egg say
to the other egg? I don't know what.
(44:21):
You crack me up. Oh boy, that is a good one.
You're a Yokster all the way. You're.
Always asking me to tell a joke and I could never think of one,
but I did think of when. I dying of laughter.
It's like, you know what? I'm gonna go tell those birds.
Bye, everybody. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you.
(44:42):
We love you, Mr. Bunny. Well, Mr. Bunny learned a life
lesson there. Oh my goodness.
It's a hard one, right? It really did.
I mean that. That's actually something that I
know I experienced. I think everybody, everybody has
to go through that where you make something.
I remember making a little, it didn't snow very much where I
grew up, but making a little tiny snowman because that was
(45:03):
all the snow that ever fell in our yard and then it melted and
I was devastated. Or you make a sand castle where
you draw a picture or you have something you really like.
Maybe somebody gives you a pieceof jewelry and you'll lose it
and you're really set. That happens a lot.
In fact, it happens to all of us.
(45:24):
And learning that resilience is a big part of it.
And also learning to value the things in life that really
matter, which are the memories, the love, the feeling around us.
Those are the permanent things, not the material things.
That's right. That's a good lesson for all all
little bunnies out there to learn.
(45:45):
I love it. I'm so glad he stopped by.
Well, we have one more thing to share with you today, friends.
Oh yes, yes, we got some mail. We have some mail and thanks for
all the positive comments. We will share those with Mr.
Bunny AW. It's the mailman.
It's the. Mailman.
So this this letter comes from PSharma.
(46:07):
P Sharma 2025, writes us and asks if we can help knowing how
to switch from a regular school where her child was in school up
until grades two or three and now wants to switch to a
Montessori homeschooling approach.
All right, she says. I'm not able to figure out where
(46:30):
to start or what to do or what to skip from Montessori for
primary and the elementary levels.
My child went to conventional school for grade one.
Now he's in grade 2IN online in schooling.
It'll take some time for me to understand it meaning
Montessori. Only then can I really start
with my child and I guess it'll take me a year to understand and
(46:52):
learn before teaching. Should I continue my child with
online schooling for this year and make myself ready by next
session? Or can I switch directly to
Montessori? Please help, we would love to
help you. All right, so there's there are
a few things that we can break down.
For one, I've known so many families who have started with
(47:16):
traditional schooling and then started homeschooling because
they saw a better path for theirchild after.
All kinds of reasons traditionalschool doesn't.
Work and also just because you choose homeschooling for, you
know, the current time period doesn't mean it's going to be
forever. I have known families who
started sent their kid to kindergarten, homeschooled for
(47:37):
first grade, sent their kid to 2nd grade, homeschooled for
another couple years, sent theirkid back to school.
It's okay. And so there's no one perfect
right way to do home schooling, all right?
It's really based on what's right for your family.
That's right, and online schooling.
There are lots of online resources out there, including
(47:58):
Child of the Redwoods. We do most of our teaching
online, even though we don't teach children online.
No, this is all that's right andthere are lots of good resources
out there. There's no reason why you have
to only go with one method and never go with another method.
You can mix and match them, especially with older children.
Oh yeah, Our kids took classes in a variety of different things
(48:22):
while we were also incorporatinga lot of the Montessori
approach. Now, if your child is in grade
two or three and they have neverexperienced the Montessori
method before, you can use our lower elementary curriculum.
Oh, for sure, you absolutely can.
You know, if your child has already gone, I would say if
your child's already gone through Montessori school in a
(48:45):
traditional Montessori classroomall the way through the end of
third grade and they're going into 4th grade, you can use
parts of our lower elementary curriculum, but your child will
probably be familiar with most of the core lessons inside it.
All right. But if your child is never going
to want a story before you can start with lower elementary, it
is not going to dumb things downto a lower level.
(49:09):
In fact, these lessons are so rich and interesting and
curiosity building that even adults get a whole lot out of
these lessons that we offer our children in Montessori for the
elementary age group. Yes, that's right.
I know you mentioned that your child was working through a like
a general international standardof curriculum.
(49:29):
And I'm not familiar with the specifics, but I'm going to go
out of the limb and say that thematerial that your child would
be learning in the lower elementary curriculum in a
Montessori environment is going to be at or beyond what is
generally required for a first or second level.
Absolutely. Yeah, the like the types of
anatomy as an example, the levelof grammar, the level of
(49:53):
geometry, the mathematical concepts, the algebraic
concepts, a lot of these are pretty advanced, so advanced and
even most of our members don't even complete get to them
because there's so much else. And you know what, it's not a
problem. That's right.
So that's right. I think the only part for me
that sticks out is the sense of having to invest so much time up
(50:13):
front. Now, I think if you want to feel
super duper confident, sure, youcan go off and do research.
However, as a home schooling family, this is not the approach
we would recommend, right? I think you need to instead
embrace the fact that you're going to be learning together.
I mean, we've been doing this a long time and we still learn all
(50:35):
the time. So instead, you know, our
approach, for example, is if youwere brand new to the Montessori
method or even experience, it doesn't matter.
We would suggest you come in andyou start with our current
study. Yeah.
So right now we're doing dandelion.
Next month we're doing Pets and we designed our constellation
studies to cover a wide range ofages, so your older child is
(50:57):
going to be just as happy as a much younger one.
That's right, doing this, if pets doesn't ring a bell, you'll
pick a different study from our library.
But basically what you're doing is learning the basics of
Montessori by doing and you're going to couple that by
enrolling in our self-paced course.
We have one on primary and one on lower elementary, you know,
(51:19):
because again, your child is older.
So we would say lower elementaryis going to match better.
But because you're new to Montessori, take the primaries.
Well, they're both included in both the complete and unlimited.
And then get into the community,start to make friends, figure
out who is dealing with childrenor a child around the same age,
what's working for them. We're in the community as well.
(51:42):
And then after you really kind of get your sea legs under you,
then you're gonna start to bringout more of the foundational
curriculum. That's right.
You're gonna start to pull cardsfrom the core curriculum, more
reading and writing basics and things like that as you become
comfortable with the Montessori approach to the course and
through the method more generally.
And really understanding what your child is up to by using the
(52:05):
studies. Yeah, my, I, I think a lot of
parents do get trapped in the idea that they have to study for
a whole year before they're ableto understand and start
implementing. And that is not true.
You want to start giving these lessons while you are learning
yourself and that will actually that's a really honestly like
that is the best way to learn is, is through that hands on
(52:28):
experience with your child, looking at the lesson, digesting
it, presenting it to your child or working with them on a
project. And for your age child, I would
think like big these big Montessori projects that were
gonna be super fun are gonna be in those great lessons.
Yeah. And so I would, if I were you,
(52:49):
feel free, you know, if to just dive in now take the lower
elementary course. You can binge through it or you
can just like let it unfold through the year, through the
coaching sessions, which whatever method feels best to
you. But don't wait to give the
lessons. Yeah, you're.
Gonna, yeah, you're gonna learn best by doing.
It's the case in almost everything in life.
(53:12):
That's right. And so we're actually really
strong advocates of not waiting too long like you will the
program and just learning in general always is better.
So take the time you need. I would say the answer, my
answer to the question is you can start anytime you want,
whenever it's right for your family.
It's not too late. You don't have to be an expert
(53:36):
to do it. You're already teaching your
child. You will not break them.
If you're getting an honest effort to educate them in the
Montessori way, you are going tosucceed to some degree.
It may not be a masterpiece every time, but the progress
will be there and you will see results because it's a time
tested method. That's right.
(53:57):
Yeah. All right.
Well, that was really fun. Thank you for your letter.
Yeah, thanks for your letter, wink wink.
If you have questions for us, please leave them in the
comments underneath this video or just e-mail us at
hello@childoftheredwoods.com. Pleasure.
A great way to get started with our work at
(54:17):
childoftheredwoodswouldbebytakingthequiz@childoftheredwoods.com/quizor just go to our website at dot
com and you'll see it there. It's a fun little quiz.
It's super easy and we'll send you some information about how
to use your results for your child's best learning
(54:40):
experience. Yeah, based on the type of
homeschooler you want to be. That's right.
Yeah. All right.
We will see you next week for another episode of the Power
Hour. Until then, I hope you guys have
a great week. And thank you so much for
everybody who showed up, especially those of you who came
from quite a distance electronically to be here with
us. Thank you so much.
(55:00):
So it's great. All right.
Love you friends.
Popular Podcasts
Cold Case Files: Miami
Joyce Sapp, 76; Bryan Herrera, 16; and Laurance Webb, 32—three Miami residents whose lives were stolen in brutal, unsolved homicides. Cold Case Files: Miami follows award‑winning radio host and City of Miami Police reserve officer Enrique Santos as he partners with the department’s Cold Case Homicide Unit, determined family members, and the advocates who spend their lives fighting for justice for the victims who can no longer fight for themselves.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.