Friday, January 05, 2007

A Gift of the Present Moment


I loved this post at A Garden of Roses and Lilies.
It is about using Montessori principles creatively, with what you have on hand, when time and finances are short. It hints at a richness of thoughtfulness and care along with practical and quick ideas for making manipulatives. I especially loved the part I emphasized in bold below.

She writes:

I needed to go through my Montessori phase to have that kind of beauty and order in MY heart...then I had more insight as to how to present things to my dc as I observed they needed them.

I had to find what was necessary...I found the spine of what we needed and I was more able to supplement what else I wanted from there...I was finally seeing the children's interests and feeding them as we went along. I now knew what I was looking at and where I wanted to go from there. ....It is kinda like when a child is a toddler using every available moment to gather information about his/her world. And using that world around them to make connections. Here it is not only connections made with measured materials, it is a connection made amongst people in a family-centered environment.

Some of the most sucessful materials then become the box and the paper the present came in...the present is the present moment itself wraped around familal love and cooperation. God knew that...he put the environment together for me giving my spouse and I these unique individuals and their unique talents..now as I learn, I use what He gave me for the best good that I can...I do believe they call that being a good steward.

Maybe I can get out my Montessori books again now : )

Anyway, it seems to fit in with the "abundant" theme of celebrating and working with what you have rather than missing what you don't have or can't easily get.

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