A Glimpse into the Primary Upper West

2022-05-15T20:17:01-05:00February 4th, 2022|Categories: Early Childhood, Montessori|Tags: , , , , |

By Laura Hosek, M.Ed., Primary Guide, Upper West It’s been a strange couple years for everyone, everywhere across the sphere we call home. Humans have been stretched and balled, left to rise, deflated, then molded into an adaptive new.  I’ve been baking a lot on the weekends— it’s fun and sets up a beautiful analogy... We, adults, are much like bread in the oven: while still a bit pliable and a few tricks can work to keep us changing in the direction we prefer, but [...]

Food and Life

2020-12-29T13:49:10-06:00October 1st, 2020|Categories: Parenting|Tags: , , , , |

By Maren Stark Schmidt And They Call It Veggie Love… When do we learn to love vegetables? For most of us, it is usually before the age of seven. During the first six years of life children are in a sensitive period of learning that involves refining the senses, which includes, of course, taste and smell. Introduce new foods ten times. Presenting a variety of vegetables to the young child helps create a later preference for vegetables in the older child and adult. When introducing [...]

If At First You Don’t Succeed…GREAT!!

2019-12-05T16:20:14-06:00October 5th, 2019|Categories: Montessori, Parenting|Tags: , , |

By Pilar Bewley Mistakes, we make them every day. Regardless of their magnitude, they all share one common characteristic: they teach. “We learn from failure, not from success,” wrote Bram Stoker in Dracula. Mistakes are essential to our growth and development and yet in our society they are taboo. At some point in our lives most of us have passed the buck instead of taking responsibility for our errors; in our culture messing up something you readily acknowledge. Since we have such a negative view [...]

Seven Harmful Traits

2019-12-05T16:30:07-06:00September 5th, 2019|Categories: Parenting|Tags: , , , , |

by Maren Stark Schmidt Ever notice how a word, a phrase, a quote or a book title keeps popping up? Over the past couple of years the following Gandhi quotes keeps showing up in my studies. Every time I read these seven statements I am astounded at the wisdom conveyed in so few words. Gandhi is attributed with saying that these seven characteristics, the most spiritually perilous traits to humanity: Wealth without work Pleasure without conscience Knowledge without character Commerce without morality Science without humanity [...]

Why Simplifying May Protect Our Children’s Mental Health

2019-08-04T22:47:16-05:00June 4th, 2019|Categories: Parenting|Tags: , |

By Tracy Gillett When my Dad was growing up he had one sweater each winter. One. Total. He remembers how vigilantly he cared for his sweater. If the elbows got holes in them my Grandma patched them back together. If he lost his sweater he’d recount his steps to find it again. He guarded it like the precious gift it was. He had everything he needed and not a lot more. The only rule was to be home by dinner time. My Grandma rarely knew [...]

Let Children Get Bored Again

2019-08-04T22:34:54-05:00March 4th, 2019|Categories: Parenting|Tags: , , |

Boredom teaches us that life isn’t a parade of amusements. More important, it spawns creativity and self-sufficiency. By Pamela Paul “I’m bored.” It’s a puny little phrase, yet it has the power to fill parents with a cascade of dread, annoyance and guilt. If someone around here is bored, someone else must have failed to enlighten or enrich or divert. And how can anyone — child or adult — claim boredom when there’s so much that can and should be done? Immediately. But boredom is [...]

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