How to host a Montessori parent/toddler group

I love the Montessori method and incorporate it into everyday life at home as much as I can.

For months I planned to host a Montessori parent/toddler group, to share my enthusiasm.  Finally, a few weeks ago, I did it!
You can skip to the activities half-way down if you don't want to read my ramblings in the first part of the post.

Why, and who do you think you are anyway?!

I have no training, but Montessori accords so closely with my own parenting philosophy.  To me Montessori isn't just a limited educational method confined to school settings, but a whole philosophy of childhood, perhaps even humanity in general.  This group wasn't a step by step guide to theoretical Montessori with lots of specialist equipment, and secret knowledge.  The aim was to show how  easily an ordinary parent, with limited means and no teaching qualifications, can incorporate Montessori into their home.  Opportunities arise all the time to give toddlers more independence, and a chance to practise some really important skills. It also gave the children a chance to experience Montessori in a group setting, without having to send them to a Montessori nursery five days a week.

I'd love to have access to something like this on a more regular basis, but you have to start somewhere.

Who and where?

The age group was babies and 2 year olds, so the activities were mostly based on "practical life".  The community centre room was large, and cheap, and also has access to an outdoor area (although it wasn't used that day) and lots of really fun gross motor large play equipment. I think the freedom to move your body freely and just have a run and tumble and a laugh is just as important, indeed far more important, at this age than developing pre-writing and pre-maths skills.  This aspect of Montessori/childhood is something I see lacking in some of the examples of Montessori and other nurseries I have seen. Right, off the soapbox now....

Stop blathering, and just tell me about the activities FOR GAWD'S SAKE, girlfriend!

I focussed on setting out activities that used everyday objects from home, along with some common (but Montessori-esque) puzzles and toys. I didn't want people to think they needed to buy lots of expensive activities.  You will see from the photos that this was all very rough and ready, with an emphasis on rough. So e.g. I used a small milk carton with holes in it as a watering can for plant care.  I must admit, I did panic buy some more specialist equipment, just before the group.  But did I use most of it?? NOPE!  Lesson learned there.  For now.  I've listed the activities below.

PRACTICAL LIFE

Spooning lentils
Pegging dollypegs onto a cup
Snapper dressing frame
Squeezing water from a sponge into a bowl

Care of plant

Tonging pom poms from one shallow dish to another
Latchboard

Dress up doll

Wash and dry a chair

Sweep paper into a dustpan and brush and into a bin

SNACK PREPARATION )

Peeling and slicing an apple
Spreading hummus on oatcakes
Pouring water
Peeling and slicing a banana

PRE-MATHS/SENSORIAL

Shape puzzles

Shape sorter
Shape, colour and size sorter

(no photo)
One-to-one correspondence with ice-cube tray and pom poms
Categorising/Matching - buttons, candles and pieces of wood
Abacus with pegs and rings

Object permanence box

Straight and curved dowel

Nesting wooden boxes

Smelling bottles (filled with cocoa, coffee and fennel)

Ukelele

Colour tablets

Blue paint chart cut up to sort according to shade

Stereo (in background) with CDs for children to play

Rough and smooth sandpaper

Puzzles

ART

A glueing activity

A framed Van Gogh print and a piece of my daughter's glue art (to show how you can show a child a print of a masterpiece for inspiration!)*

LITERACY/SINGING/BABY CORNER

Books

A seasonal poem

Animals and cards to match

Bottles with primary colour water

Fabric with different textures but the same colour
Emotion cards

SCIENCE EXPERIMENT

Well, I just had to get them doing the magic powder experiment ...

And here is it in action

So how did I organise it?

I shared the cost of the hall hire with some friends.  It took some time to think of and gather the activities together initially.  But I then put each "category" of activity in a different bag (e.g. all the practical life stuff together, all the snack prep stuff together etc), so set up on the day took 15-20 minutes.  If I did this again, I already have my list of the different categories of activities so would just have to slightly change each activity for interest.  In fact really I shouldn't change it at all as it's all about repetition at this age. 

How did it go - any lessons?

The afternoon went well, with lots of interest from the kids. It was so fascinating to see how all of the kids had different focuses and interests. I honestly thought they would spend all their time cavorting on the excellent slides and ramps.  But nope, the other activities really engaged them too, so that was a success.

As for lessons learnt for next time....well  I need to find some way to demonstrate the activities to the parents so that they can model them to the kids. With Montessori the kids have to be shown how to use the materials the proper way first, and then left to get on with it, practise and make their mistakes.   As a youngest child, I am not the world's best leader, so I fell down a bit here. I also think, despite really trying to limit the number of activities, I still had way too many!  On the day, all this wasn't so important though. I did prepare short guides to Montessori at least for people to read in their own time.  A good time was had and ideas were shared.

If anyone has any tips on running a parent/toddler group, Montessori or otherwise, I would love to hear them. Did you avoid my pitfalls, or have you any great ideas?

Linking with Deb at livingmontessorinow

*This particular glue art was made without seeing the print though, it just reminded me of the Van Gogh so I printed it off.  She is not an artistic genius just yet ha ha.