infants, Montessori Nurture

June is here! I don’t know about you, but summer always makes me head to the library for some new books. Although I always have a non-fiction book about child development or how the brain learns language or some Montessori philosophy book or other on my bedside table, I also welcome summer with a stack of fun fiction. Something to lose myself in and to relax once my school year has finished. I also just reorganized my children’s books. I pulled out the books that I might want to use for the Toddler Camp I’m heading up at a local Montessori School and purged a few boxes of books that I never used. All this book sorting and library going made me think about how important books are to children and how important it is to have a little knowledge about how to pick books for different ages. So this is the first of three blog posts about books.

Today I want to talk to you about babies and books. I think it is so important when choosing anything for a child (be it clothing, books, games, furniture or toys) that we first think about that child’s developmental stage. So what do we need to know about babies before we choose books? And for this post, I’m talking about children from birth to 12 months.

The first year of life is full of tremendous changes. Your baby is born with limited abilities. She can’t focus her eyes very well and not very far (about from breast to mom’s face). She isn’t able to purposefully grasp any object and can’t really move on her own. At one year of age she is a very different child! Some children are walking and running and have started saying a few words. Her skills with her hands and fingers may have progressed from whole hand raking of objects to beginning to pick things up with thumb and finger (although very unrefined).

How does this help us choose books? Perhaps most importantly we need to remember that children at this age have what we refer to as an Absorbent Mind. They are unconsciously learning from their environment. So we want to make their experiences as rich as possible. Here are a few tips when choosing books for children under age 6.

Find books with beautiful illustrations.
The words should use rich language. Children from 0-6 are in a sensitive period for language. They have a capacity to learn words almost effortlessly during this period of life. Let’s give them the proper names for everything and help them learn to describe what they see in multiple ways!
Keep it concrete. Choose stories and books that are about real life.
Match the word/illustration ratio to your child’s developmental stage. This means few words and simple illustrations for babies and increasing words and more complicated illustrations for older children.

For infants you may want to choose books that are all illustration and are printed in black and white. I love these books by Tana Hoban.

Black and White – this book is an accordion style fold out book.
Black on White
White on Black

Of course for an infant, I also recommend reading anything outloud (being mindful of the content, of course!). Babies are listening to everything about our language. They are taking in our inflection, cadence and how we break apart sounds and sentences. Reading to your baby (and even your unborn child) is helping him learn to understand and speak even if he won’t be able to do so for a long time!

Other books that are lovely in the first year of life involve few words on the page, simple illustrations and are generally sturdy for little hands to explore (ie: the board book!). Books that have some sensory component to them are great as well since your child is learning through all his senses, not just visually. Here are a few I love.

Baby Touch and Feel Animals (DK). This book shows photographs of real animals, one per page, with something to feel on each.
Hello Baby! by Mem Fox and illustrated by Steve Jenkins. I adore both these people. Mem Fox just seems to understand children and what speaks to them at many ages. Steve Jenkins uses beautiful handmade paper to create lifelike animals. The language in this book is rich, too. “Perhaps you’re a porcupine, twitching its nose. Are you an eagle exploring the skies?”
Amazing Feelings (Scholastic). Shows simple photographs of real children with real feelings.
I See by Helen Oxenbury. A simple book about exploring the world. Also check out I Touch and I Can.
Touch, Think, Learn: Farm by Xavier Deneux. Each two page spread features a raised animal that fits into the opposite page scooped cutout. The other thing that caught my eye about this book is that each two page spread includes vocabulary words to help describe the page. For instance on the page with the donkey the words include “mane, saddle, hoof, muzzle, ear, grass, tail, carrot, grazing, swishing.” This is perfect help for tired parents!!!
The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. This book is a classic. I spent hours (no, years) reading and re-reading this book to my boys. They especially loved the page that described all the people food the caterpillar ate and then made a big deal about how sick he got!

I could go on and on but this gives you a little sampling of the type of books your baby will love. I always try to keep a little basket of books in our general living area that I rotate. Don’t overwhelm your child with too many at a time. And, perhaps most importantly, if your child doesn’t seem interested in a book put it away and keep searching for the books she enjoys. Use your local library, too. We have wonderful libraries in our town and the librarians are a wealth of information.

I hope this information was helpful to you. I’d love to hear about the books your children love. Post them in the comments, please! Next week I’ll be sharing part 2: Books for Toddlers.

One of the key principles that every Montessori teacher learns during training is to observe. As a high school and college student, observation was usually relegated to my science classes. I guess that makes sense since Maria Montessori was trained as a doctor, not as a teacher. In order to learn about children she researched, she created a natural setting for young children and then she sat back and observed the children.

It was through her detailed observations that she learned so much about young children. She watched them with no preconceived notions. She wanted to find out from the children how they learned, what was important to them and how to set up the best environment to help them grow and develop.

As a teacher, when things go awry in the classroom, one of the first things I set out to do is observe the class. Let me give you an example. At the beginning of the year I found that the students had a lot of difficulty lining up at the door (which we need to do several times a day). There was pushing and pulling, arguing and fighting. It was, frankly, mayhem. So, I took a day to observe what was going on during line up time.

When observing, you want to really just watch without opinion. So, in my example, I noticed that the children were bumping into each other, standing very close together, had a difficult time knowing what was in front of rather than beside the next person, etc.

What I always want to avoid is being negative with the children. I don’t want to be yelling or telling them what they are doing wrong. I strive always to keep things positive (easier said than done). What is best of all is if I can change the environment to solve the problem and keep myself out of it all together.

So, what did I do after observing? I placed small pieces of tape equidistant on the floor on which each child would stand. In this way the children were in a line, each person had their own space and there was less pushing and fighting. Did this solution eliminate all pushing and fighting? No. No solution is ever perfect but this one went a long way in solving our difficulties.

Of course, this example doesn’t really help you as parents. We don’t really line up our children at home! What I do want you to think about is how to observe your children and why it is so important.

In my last post I talked about setting up the environment to help maximize your child’s development. Observation can help you figure out what your child needs at his/her stage of development. So, let’s think about a few of the developmental domains and how observation can help us help our children:

fine motor – watch how your child holds things. Maybe your baby is now able to pick up an object she is looking at with little difficulty. You see your preschooler is now holding a marker with the tripod grip. Your child seems to use his left hand more than his right hand. Your child does not use both hands when drawing, putting together puzzles or eating. So how does this observation help you? If you have a child under the age of one, her fine motor skills will change drastically in this first year. You will want to provide her with toys that will help her refine her grasp and that challenge without too much frustration. Once your child is a preschooler and getting closer to that magical kindergarten age, you may want to make sure he is using both hands together and crossing midline (click here for why this is important). The tripod pencil grip is important for writing in kindergarten. Please note that not all children are developmentally in the same place at kindergarten and the tripod grip is one of these areas that develops at different times in different children. What is important is that you are aware of where your child is as he is entering kindergarten. In this way you can be attuned to things that he might find tiring or frustrating and to give his teacher a heads up.
gross motor – watch how your baby moves. Does she try to get that ball that is just out of reach? How long does she work on this before getting too frustrated? Does your preschooler like to climb, jump and catch a large ball or does he prefer to sit on the sidelines? After some time observing we can think about how we are helping or hindering our child’s development. Maybe we are so worried our child is in danger that we don’t let her climb trees or the playground equipment without hovering. Perhaps we are always stepping in at the first sound of our baby’s efforts instead of giving her a little space to work hard towards scooting to that ball that is just out of reach. Often observation (i.e. sitting on our hands so we don’t interfere) helps us change our own behavior by allowing our children to continue their behavior even when it makes us uncomfortable.
language/communication – What does your child gravitate toward? What does she like to talk about? What sounds is your baby making? Does she respond when another person repeats her sounds? Does your baby have different types of cries? Does she stop crying on her own sometimes? Are all of her sounds distress or are some just temporary frustration? Does your child use eye contact during communication? What books does your child enjoy? What books does he find boring? What subjects is your child interested in?
social/emotional – How does your child solve problems? Does your preschooler look to you (or another adult) to solve her problems for her or can she problem solve on her own? What makes your child happy, sad, angry, frustrated? How often does your child ask for help? How does your child deal with separation? How does he manage when things don’t go his way?

There is so much I could say about observation. I will leave you with this thought. Take one item about your child/family/situation that drives you crazy. Instead of yelling or talking or reading about solutions…..observe the situation for a day (or two or three). Write down everything you see or hear. Put your emotions aside for a little while. Show your notes to your spouse/partner or a good friend. Brainstorm what you think is going on and how things could change. You may be surprised with the solutions you come up with.

Here’s my last example (because I love a good story more than empirical evidence!!!) One summer my youngest son participated in a camp at our community park. The camp provided lunch for the participants. I often took my older son (who is diagnosed with autism) to the park to play at the end of the camp period and before lunch. My elder son was typically well behaved. On this particular day, around the time the park was having lunch he was having a melt down (you know, kicking, yelling, not following my direction, etc.). This was quite unusual for him. I looked around at what was happening (the other children were eating) and finally had an ‘aha’ moment. He was hungry. A bag of goldfish crackers later and he was happy, quiet and compliant.

So I encourage you to observe your children every day. Think about what they are doing, saying and how they are interacting. During times when life is stressful, take a moment (or a day or two) to sit back and observe what is really going on. It is in this kind of reflection that we can help not only our children on their developmental paths but also help ourselves on our parenting paths!

All About Books Part 1: Babies

The Power of Observation