Toys and activities

What We Did All Summer (of 2014)

Saturday, October 25th, 2014 7:17 pm | By Stephanie Woo
Mackenzie learning the Chinese Alphabet

Mackenzie learning the Chinese Alphabet

Since I haven’t written for such a long time, I keep thinking that the first blog that comes out must be perfect. I’ve been waiting for perfect, but perfect never happens and, really, it’s the wrong way to look at it. So if this blog post rambles on, forgive me, I’m just gonna give it a go. 

What a summer we’ve had! 

This was the most upheaval we’ve gone through together as a family, and I wasn’t ready to write about it till we’ve come out the other end. Our friends and family went through all the ups and downs with us. We’re lucky they still love us after what we’ve put them through!

I last left off in June, when Mark and I both got our AMI certifications in Portland and were on our way to Taiwan. We spent two months there. Brooke and Mackenzie attended my mother’s school, Ms. Lam’s Montessori school, while Mark and I worked in the school. He taught soon-to-be first graders, while I observed and taught in both primary and toddler classrooms. 

I grew up knowing that our family ran Montessori schools. But it didn’t mean much to me because I didn’t have kids and Montessori was just something Mom did. Now that I’ve been trained in two levels (0-3 and 3-6), I’ve taught at a few schools, observed at many other schools and been a parent with children who have attended a couple Montessori schools, I have a lot more experience evaluating schools. As strange as this may sound, I was completely surprised to discover for myself just how excellent my mom’s school is. Mark and I were so impressed, we even decided to forego our own egos and opt to continue what my mom started. What does that mean? We are going to open a Ms. Lam Montessori school here in the US. 

We left Taiwan in August, where we continued the next part of our summer adventure in California. I’ve always thought I would love California – sunny, beautiful and the perfect place for a school. Well, dream and reality did not mesh this time. Because everything was new, it turned out to be extremely difficult for us to accomplish all we wanted to do. I was also pregnant when we arrived in California, and when I had a miscarriage – most likely due to the stress of the situation (more on this later) – I knew this was not the place for us.  One month after we arrived, we decided our future is where we came from: back home in Brooklyn, NY. 

We landed in New York in mid-September and moved back into our own building in Williamsburg. The second we arrived, we were immediately surrounded by friends and family – don’t know why we ever thought we belonged anywhere else. We immediately started working on opening our new school. There’s permits, handbooks, websites, classroom design. We’ve got a long to-do list!

Meanwhile, we did something radical. We decided to send Brooke and Mackenzie (3 years 10 months) to public school until our school opens. Why? The school is right next to our house; there were two open spots; it’s just for 2-3 months; we need to save every penny to renovate our school and buy the best materials for our future school. Sometimes logistics win.

I’ve had moments of doubt, but overall, public school has been an interesting experience. The most surprising thing is this: everyday, when they come home, they don’t want to go anywhere or do anything. Not even the park. They just want to stay home and work. They are totally concentrated and self-sufficient until dinnertime, which is about 3 hours.  I don’t know what they do all day at school, but I think some part of them craves working independently. 

Brooke washed ALL of those dishes in the drying rack with just sponge and dish soap

At home from school, Brooke washed ALL of those dishes in the drying rack!

After school activity - Mackenzie builds with Magnatiles

After school activity – Mackenzie builds with Magnatiles for hours

Well, here we are, at the other end of our summer adventure and settled into our new – hopefully permanent – life and home. It feels FANTASTIC to be writing this blog from a home I can finally call my own.

Learning Geography Through Fun and Play!

Wednesday, April 23rd, 2014 12:03 am | By Stephanie Woo

In November, Mark and I went to our children’s school for “Parent’s Night” so they could show us what they’ve been working on. We discovered that they had started working with the World Map!

Then one day they came home and over dinner, the two of them spontaneously broke into song. Like this:

That was a clear sign to me they were interested in the names of the continents. So I immediately bought a globe on Amazon.

A great way to introduce globes to children is to start with the basics. I would point to a blue part and say, “Ocean.” We’d turn the globe to find more oceans. Then I would point to the colored parts and say, “Continent.” And then together, we would find more continents. Our globe also has raised surfaces for mountains, so I would point to those and say, “Mountain,” then ask them to find several more mountains. 

Whenever I tell them stories about our family and friends who live faraway, like A-gong and A-ma (grandpa and grandma) who live in Taiwan, Grandfather who lives in Austin, TX or Great-uncle who lives in Paris, we would take out the globe to find those cities and countries together. If we travel – for example, we went to Seattle a couple weeks ago – we would look for those on the globe as well. 

I started looking for a way to teach them the Chinese names of countries. I never buy any Montessori material for our home if I know they have it at school, so I didn’t want to buy the wooden Montessori maps. Then I saw this GeoPuzzle Map. I must confess the quality is just above average. It requires adult presence because the puzzle pieces move around quite a lot, so it can be frustrating for a 3-year-old to do on her own. However, it serves my purpose: it is different enough from what they have at school and I can use it to casually introduce the Chinese names of these countries. To them, they don’t know the difference, it’s just a fun puzzle they want to play with a lot! 

Between 0-6, the child is in the Sensitive Period for Language. Between 3-6, the child has an insatiable desire for vocabulary words. There is really no limit to how much vocabulary they can learn during these few years. Learning all the continents and then all the countries within those continents is easy (and interesting!) for them during this age. 

The other day, M picks up a cookie, bites it into a long oval and exclaims, “South America!” She also sings a little song about Kazakstan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. It’s all fun and play – a foundation for geography just happens to come along with it. 

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The foundation of a child’s life starts in the first year. If you set up the first year right, things will be much easier moving forward. Perhaps you have a child between 0-12 months. Or you plan on having a child. Or you are interested in learning more about this age group. Join my next Long Distance Course, starting April 26th! Take the course from the comfort of your home and learn at your own pace!

How to Praise Your Child (and a Great Practical Life Activity)

Monday, April 7th, 2014 11:26 pm | By Stephanie Woo

We live up in the mountains where mornings and evenings get very cold. Whenever we start a fire, B and M are there to help us.  M (3 years 1 month) has experienced the process so many times, she can pretty much do the whole thing by herself, as long as an adult is there to help her light the fire. 

M starts to clean out yesterday’s ashes…

and dumps it out in the trashcan.

She starts scooping again…

…gets a big scoopful, then dumps it in the trash.

After several trips, the fireplace is now clean and ready for new firewood.

She lays down firewood Mark has cut and prepared – starting with one large piece at the bottom…

…and some smaller pieces at top.

She gets the fire starter.

Then she gets the torch. Don’t worry, dear readers – Mom’s the one who lights it!

It’s lit!

Now we have a warm fire to enjoy the rest of the day!

Look around your home and see if there is a task your family does everyday that your child could participate in – and maybe take over. Let them have the choice of doing the activity everyday, but a child under 5 is too young to be required to do it everyday.

When your child starts to help out around the house, don’t feel like you need to reward them or praise them excessively. If you rely heavily on qualitative praise (like, ‘you’re so smart’) or giving your child rewards (like toys, money or cookies) – it will take away from their own sense of accomplishment. Pretty soon, you’ll find that they only do things for your praise or reward. And their joy of doing the activity diminishes.

The best way to praise your child is by using simple phrases like, ‘You cleaned the fireplace,’ ‘You helped wash the dishes’ or ‘You brought your dishes to the sink.’ These descriptive praises tells them you noticed what they did – and your acknowledgement is all they need.