Meal time with the Montessori weaning table

I have been using this Montessori weaning table and chairs with the babies since the first day Sweetpea came here.  It is working amazingly well.  Both babies are well supported in the little chairs and they are able to concentrate on the task at hand which is of course eating and learning to feed themselves.

The table is left bare when we are not using it and once I have prepared breakfast or lunch I put the place mats on the table.  We have been doing this for five weeks now and I can say to Sweet pea "It's lunch(breakfast)time and she sees me putting on the place mats.  She will shuffle her way over to the table, pull up on it and make her way into the chair that I have pulled out for her.  Baby J who is still not on the move is still lifted into the chair.

As I mentioned in a previous post I decided to put the table in the Infant area instead of the kitchen because we just don't have enough room for it in there.  I put down four foam play mats underneath it to protect the carpet and they work really well.  I can easily wipe and sweep up any spills.

Before I call the babies to the table I make sure that I have everything I need so I don't have to leave them while they are at the table.  I put everything in a little basket shown here.  At this meal they each have their own little ceramic bowl of red lentils, a spoon, small plate for pita bread and cucumber and a small glass for drinking.  I also include a pitcher for refilling their glasses and a small bowl with two wet cloths.

Sweetpea and Baby J are almost 3 and a half months apart so are at very different stages in their journey of independent eating and drinking. 

If I was a gold star giving kind of gal Sweetpea would definitely get one for eating.  She is a fantastic eater both in the fact that she will eat almost anything and also that she can feed herself.  She loves to eat and is very focused at every meal.  Her mama began offering her a spoon around 11 months I think and she would take it and feed herself and then give it back so her mama could get another spoonful of food for her.  She has now developed so that she can completely feed herself with the spoon.  She does an amazing job of picking up the food in her bowl with the spoon and getting it into her mouth.  For Sweetpea I just leave her the bowl on the table and also give her a side plate with a finger food on it.  She alternates between feeding herself the finger food and the spooned food.  The one thing I do have to watch out for is that she will just keep putting the finger food into her mouth until it is gone no matter how full her mouth gets.  What I do is for example just put one small triangle of pita bread on her plate and don't give her another until her mouth is empty.  If we have smaller pieces of food I will bring another plate that I keep and just keep giving her about three pieces at a time until she has finished the ones in her mouth.

She drinks out of a glass but is still getting used to the feeling of it.   As I mentioned before Sweetpea is very focused on eating and will almost never mess about with the plate or utensils.

 

Baby J is another personality altogether.  He is quiet a little joker and loves to try and do things to "impress" Sweetpea.  She takes absolutely no notice whatsoever but he still tries.  He will blow raspberries in his drink or make funny sounds which he thinks is hilarious.  He is quite rambunctious while eating and still loves to explore his place mat and side plate.  I will give him a side plate with his finger food on it but if he starts messing about with it I take it away.  Once he has calmed down I will put it on the table again with a piece of food.  I keep his bowl on the table closer to Sweetpea and spoon out a helping for him.  I give him the spoon and he feeds himself and then gives me the spoon to get another helping.  He does this for about half the meal and then usually looses interest and I will feed him another few spoonfuls before he is done.  I keep his glass with me and will offer it to him several times throughout the meal.  He will pick it up and drink out of it and then give it back to me.  He is so confident (or cheeky) now that he just holds it and drinks with one hand just like the big people.  He usually doesn't last at the table as long as Sweetpea before he starts playing with his place mat.  That is when I know he is done and I give him his cloth.  He also tries to take off his bib.

The whole meal usually lasts about 10 to 15 minutes.  Once I have wiped them off I pull out their chairs and help them down from the table.  I then take all of the items back to the kitchen and wipe down the table and mats. 

 

They are both so used to sitting at the table that they never try to get off their chairs or move around until they are finished.  Sometimes I just die of cute watching them eat their meals and have their little conversations.

That mats that are in the picture have now disintegrated so I have to get some new ones.  Once I have them I will start to give one to Sweetpea to help me to bring to and place on the table.  Once she is walking confidently she will have her own little basket which will have a few things she can use to set the table and I will have her help to clear a few things as well.  I am also going to attempt to make bibs that they can start to put on and take off on their own.

So what happens after the meal?  Well the potty of course......

Check out Living Montessori Now's Montessori Monday for more Montessori inspiration.



Montessori weaning table and chair

At five and a half months Baby J was more than ready to eat solid food.  For a few weeks before he started we had him sitting up at the table at dinner time to be part of the family.  He watched intently at all of us bringing the food to our mouths and made chewing movements with his mouth.

 

One thing I've been really excited about trying out with Baby J is his Montessori weaning table and chair.  My husband cut the legs down on a side table we had from Ikea and he made the chair out of some wood from an old shelf.  It always helps to have a handy husband!

We use the table usually for breakfast and lunch when it's just the two of us and he eats at the big table with the rest of the family for dinner.

Here he is having his breakfast.  We use real china for all of his dishes as well as little metal spoons.  He has his own little glass and pitcher as well.  Sometimes he likes to have his own spoon and other times he just enjoys helping me move the spoon to his mouth to get the food and then lets go so I can get another spoonful.

Looking at this picture the only plastic on this table is the cup holding my morning smoothie! Eventually Baby J will be able to get to his table himself and we will have his dishes and place mat on a nearby shelf for him to set his own place. Check out The Full Montessori to see the weaning table and chair in action.

Blackberry picking and Birthday gifts

There are two reasons why I haven't been posting much lately.  The first is that we are really just laying back and enjoying the last days of summer.  The second is that my husband has become slightly addicted to playing poker on Facebook and has been hogging the laptop!

Anyhoo, last week our longtime family friend Uncle P came to visit us from England.  L really enjoyed playing with him since he is up for almost anything.

Here they are picking blackberries.  L amazes me with her dedication when blackberry picking.  She will stay out there for hours hunting down all of the 'low' blackberries.  She was the same last year.  It also surprises me that she doesn't eat them all! 

 After we pick them we wash them and freeze them on cookie sheets.  Once they are frozen I put them into Ziploc bags.  Perfect for smoothies etc.  I love free food!!!

 L is invited to a birthday party on Saturday.  My philosophy on gifts is that the person giving them has to be directly involved in the whole gift process.  We decided to make a little memory game for L's friend using rocks we found at the beach.  We had a great time trying to find round flat rocks together.  I painted on the little beach themed pictures and L painted the two rocks at the top.  We then modge podged them and put them in this little basket.

We tested out the game a couple of times to make sure it worked and may just have to make one for ourselves!

Early green thumb and the crappy side of Montessori!

I am so lucky that my mom has been able to share her love of gardening with L.  In the spring the two of them planted their little vegetable garden with peas, lettuce, carrots, tomatoes,broccoli, cauliflower and two strawberry plants.

This has been such an amazing learning experience on so many levels. 

L can see how plants grow and produce food.

She learns to tend and take care of plants.

She learns the patience of waiting until something is completely ripe before picking it and eating it. 

Every morning after breakfast L checks the garden to see what is ripe and ready for the picking.  Lately it's been peas which she picks and we all eat from the shells.

Yesterday it was the prized strawberry she's been checking on for weeks.  She was soo proud and savoured every last bite!

Today she came into my bed(I was lucky enough to have a lie in)and woke me up showing me her very first teeny tiny carrot that was shaped like an L.

Next year L and her granny have even bigger plans and will be researching ways to keep slugs and other pests away from their prized plants!

*Warning talk of poo coming up*

With it being summer all of us have been enjoying all of the wonderful fresh fruit.  Especially L.  This has lead as you can imagine to some seriously soft bowel movements! The other day L had an accident in her underwear so my mom took her to the bathroom.  While L was on her little toilet my mom rinsed out her underwear first in the toilet, then in the sink and hung them over the bathtub to dry.
Well my little Montessori girl watched the whole thing with wide eyes.  Next day at around the same time L was in the bathroom and all was quite.  I went to check on her to find her underwear hanging on the side of the bathtub again.  I asked her what she'd done and she said " I had an accident so I washed them in the toilet then hung them up"
Yikes! What can you say to that!! The next day it happened again and I realised I'd better nip this new not so desirable activity in the bud.  We've cut down a bit on the fruit and go to the toilet together at "poo" time now!

Another cute little poo story.  L always likes to sit on her little toilet and read books while she's doing her business.  The other day she told my mom she was going to do a poo.  She sat down on her toilet and said" I'm just going to read my Poocock book" not realising her slip.  A second later she did realise what she said and fell about on the floor in a state of giggles.  So did my mom!

Finally some Montessori again

Although we've been very busy with our Macedonian visitors we've managed to get a few activities in.  Next week I'm looking forward to things getting back to normal and really having time to make up some new activities for L.

I've seen this dropper activity on lots of blogs and have always wanted to do it with L.  I finally found some of those bath mat things at the dollar store and she really enjoyed it.  Although she didn't do much on the clean up!

I saw this one over at Leptir's blog.  L was totally bugging me to get it finished so she could try it out.  I put a dot on the back for self checking but she still doesn't get it.  At the beginning she just tried to match the dot.  Arg... but then she got the hang of it.  Putting the clothes peg on was an added bit of excitement.

Baba and Dedo left some money for L so on our way back from dropping them off at the airport we went to Ikea.  We got her a little igloo tent, some finger puppets and these tiny beads with little different shaped bead boards.  Once you do a pattern on the board you are supposed to be able to iron it and get a shape but we haven't gotten that far yet.  For some reason she wanted to put a pile in the middle to choose from.  This was a great work for her as it helped her to work on her patience and just take one bead at once.  She actually sat and filled the whole outside of the circle which was no easy feat!

Our first lettuce from the garden!  L was soooo excited to cut some leaves off the lettuce.  Her and Granny check the garden and tend it everyday. Thanks to Granny L is turning into quite the little gardener and knows most of the names of the plants in our garden!

Edible activities and a Mommy at the end of her rope!

Here are some activities we did today. They both seemed to have a snack theme which L really enjoyed. The first was making a pasta and Cheerio necklace. I'm amazed she actually made this as she ate about 3 Cheerios to every one that she laced!

We also shelled peas. This was fun for both of us. I love fresh peas. I helped L open the pea pods and she took out the peas and put them in the bowl. This was a really good sorting activity.

Now this is not very Montessori but I have to share. L has refused to take a nap for quite a while now. The problem is by about 4 she is really tired (not to mention I need a break!). She turns from a charming little girl into a wild banshee (well it seems like it at the time anyway). I can only take so much before I loose my patience as I'm really tired as well. So for the last two days I did the "sneaky mommy" and hauled her into the car and got onto the motorway as fast as possible. Less than five minutes and she was fast asleep! Yippee I drove to the park put on Classic FM, rolled down windows and read my book for half an hour. That is all I need to be a good mommy again and L was back to her normal self. We played in the park when she woke up. I did this at 1pm by the way so it wouldn't effect her bedtime.

Does anyone else have any suggestions? or am I doomed to be driving up and down the motorway to protect my sanity??

Rainy day gingerbread cookies

Today was our first attempt at making gingerbread cookies. I used the recipe from Maja Pitamic's book Teach me to do it myself: Montessori activities for you and your child. This is one of the many Montessori books I’ve borrowed from the library. I found it had some really good activities to use now and also some for when my daughter is older.















I think we both enjoyed making the gingerbread cookies, although there are a few things I would do differently next time. For one I would be a lot more organised and get all of the ingredients out and set up before we started. As it was I found L was a bit bored when I was trying to find certain things and sort them out. It also would have helped if I had read the recipe all the way through before starting! All in all it was an enjoyable experience and L had lots of chances to help throughout.



We haven’t gotten around to getting a step stool for her yet so I still use the highchair when she helps me bake. It was really great for this activity because the tray contained all of the flour!