The Kavanaugh Report

Every week, Gus' Montessori school sends us a few pictures of him working at school. Lately these pictures have included a picture of Gus working on the Montessori trinomial cube. If you aren't familiar, the trinomial cube is a material that mixes both sensorial and math impressions. In Children's House, it's mostly a sensorial work that gives the impression for mathematics later on.  This post contains affiliate links at no cost to you.  The trinomial cube itself is made of different cubes in different colors and shapes that need to be placed back in a box in a very specific order. The trinomial cube comes after the binomial cube which is a smaller, simpler material.  What's amazing about both the binomial and trinomial cubes is that they represent algebraic equations and will be brought back into the child's life in late elementary school as they are being introduced to the specific mathematical concepts. It's a very cool way to prepare a child for abstra...

Toddlers and preschoolers approach the world differently. Even though we tend to think of them as similar, they aren’t the same. Toddlers have an unconscious absorbent mind and walk through the world soaking up everything around them. Preschoolers have a conscious absorbent mind and are driven to manipulate and refine their understanding of their environment. Gus is squarely in the preschool years now. He’s constantly challenging himself to refine, learn, and grow. When it comes to learning about colors, he no longer needs to know basics like “yellow” and “red” but has moved on to refining colors to things like “buttercup” and “rust.” He’s moving into a new relationship with colors seeing them as a spectrum with many shades. This post contains affiliate links at no cost to you.  In order to support this exploration, I've made sure to have some opportunities in our environment for deeper exploration with colors. Since Gus does go to Montessori school, I want to be careful not to jus...

Montessori bedrooms can look and feel a lot of different ways depending on a family's space. In this episode, Nicole and Amy talk about how they have used Montessori to create their children's sleeping spaces. They explore the qualities that are important to find in Montessori bedrooms. Finally, they address some of the challenges of creating a bedroom space including sharing rooms and what toys to have in the bedroom.  Show Notes... Shelf Help Episode 3 - Floor Beds and Art Museums Baby Proofing with a Montessori Floor Bed The Movement Area verses the Sleep Space    Thanks for joining me for today's podcast! If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, share and leave a review in your favorite podcast app. If you are interested in finding Shelf Help in a podcast app, it is available on  Apple  |  Spotify  |  Stitcher  |  Google .  ---

I've said this before but one of my favorite parts about homeschooling this year and having the kids home more has been incorporating the Great Lessons into our home life. Cosmic education is just the most amazing part of the Montessori method in the elementary years. Giving children the "big context" of why and how the universe came to be is literally what is missing from many (if not all) traditional elementary programs. Finally, truly bringing these lessons to life in our home and given me the confidence to continue this tradition long after life returns to normal (and likely everyone returns to in-school, in-person learning.) 

I can't pretend to be some amazing seamstress or something like that, but my kids are learning to sew. Sewing is such an amazing activity for a Montessori home. It is the perfect combination between art and practical life work. Plus it is really great for fine motor control. Depending on your child's age, there are so many awesome sewing activities for kids to undertake.  In our home, Nora and Gus are at the point where they hand sew fairly independently, creating projects from their minds or from some simple examples. This is made possible by our sewing box. Today, I thought I would share what's inside our sewing box to make that possible.  This post contains affiliate links at no cost to you.  Our Sewing Box Our box is from a brand called Goki. I can't find a source for it in the U.S. anymore but I do see that it's available in Europe. But, honestly, the exact box isn't super important. Any organized box or container is completely fine. Make sure the box isn...

This week we return to the topic of screen time and answer some listener questions about how we approach certain screen time scenarios. Questions included how we approach sports, restaurants and traveling. Again, we stress that every family will make decisions that feel right for their own individual families and children.  This post contains affiliate links at no cost to you.  Show Notes... Shelf Help Ep. 8 - From the ABCs to Swearing Shelf Help Ep. 46 - How We Approach Screen Time A practical life opportunity for all ages: grocery shopping Henry and Mudge Series     Thanks for joining me for today's podcast! If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, share and leave a review in your favorite podcast app. If you are interested in finding Shelf Help in a podcast app, it is available on  Apple  |  Spotify  |  Stitcher  |  Google .  ---

Sewing is having a moment in our house right now! All of a sudden, everywhere I look is little hand sewn projects. We have a few new pillows around here, lots of fabric with people's names sewn onto them, and even some doll clothes. It's so interesting watching all of this as a person that really can't sew. I can hand stitch a tiny bit, but beyond that I'm completely clueless.  And while Nora has always loved sewing projects, it's really Gus that is driving the new interest in sewing these days! At 4-years-old, he is patient and dedicated to his work. He can plan a project and see it through, even over the course of a couple days. It's been really fun to watch this blossom in him and I can't help what great work it is for his hands as he starts to explode into writing.  This work definitely hasn't come out of nowhere! He has been working with sewing type activities for many years. Starting with bead lacing , and move through a variety of activities as he...

I feel like Ive had a very complicated relationship to weather my entire life. I feel like I've been told either directly or indirectly that unless it's sunny and warm, you don't go play outside. Rainy days are for inside play.  We sung "rain, rain go away!" Cold weather is a no.  It's taken a long time to try and unlearn these views and to see all weather as valuable and fun. I've been working hard at instilling those same values with my kids from the start. We don't have bad weather, we have different weather. And each of those weathers have different ways to prepare for being outside.  This post contains affiliate links at no cost to you.

At 16 to 17 months, Teddy was still not super into using the materials on his shelves. He would spend a few minutes, a few times a day choosing a few things off of his shelves. While absolutely every toddler is different, I do think it is interesting to see what they enjoy. Heres a quick look at the toys that were on Teddy's play shelves from 16-months to 17-ish months.  This post contains affiliate links at no cost to you. From left to right, top to bottom:  Silicone Rainbow * - a huge hit, this has been on the shelves for many months  Haba Pegging Toy - Gus liked this a lot more, but it will make another appearance soon  Lakeshore Learning Tower* ( similar ) - this exact toy is retired, but it's been a good challenge for Teddy Horizontal Ring Slide - too challenging for Teddy and always ends in a screaming fit  Balls on Pegs * - Teddy's favorite toy PlanToys Stacking Tree * - a fun challenge, he stacks randomly at this point  Monti Kids Peg Drop* ( simi...

Tiny babies can interact with their environment in so many interesting ways. The Montessori mobiles offer a variety of interesting experiences for babies to explore in developmentally appropriate ways. In this week's episode, Nicole and Amy talk about their experiences with Montessori mobiles. We address a variety of mobiles, when to introduce them, and how we use them. 

I was just thinking the other day about how incredibly lucky I am to have been able to witness four little humans walk through this world. At one point, a doctor told me I might never have another child and just the amazing people who have been born since then really just blow me away. But, having a few kids has really opened my eyes to how different they all are from each other, even with the exact same parents, the exact same parenting approach, environment and more.  I thought it would be fun to do a little comparison between Gus and Teddy at 18-months just to illustrate this point. Nearly everything has been the same for these two, and yet, they are completely different little people.  Play Going through pictures, I noticed some of the same things on their shelves, but not a ton. The things Gus loved, are not the same as the things Teddy is frequently using right now. But, even looking a bit deeper, how they play is very different. Gus was often sitting still and working a...