The Horme Studio

Someone was doing a little measuring exploration!

I absolutely love finding these little signs of cognitive development. It’s the outward expression of what’s going on in their brains, what they notice, what they are attracted to and what sensitive period or human tendency may have been at work. Hello mathematical mind!

Also, the children do not like the 1 number rod to be alone and they don’t like zero to be empty. A few weeks ago when I introduced zero with the spindle box, the noticed that we were running out of spindles as we were counting for the 9 slot and they reserved on so 0 would have something, too. It kind of melted my heart a little bit.

What does a messy desk with a random stack papers have to do with Montessori pedagogy? Role modeling.

A few weeks ago, I was preparing some documents in preparation for meeting with a local Montessori school team. It was the afternoon, nearing the end of the day. Most of the children and my apprentice guide were outside while I did the last of the tidying up for the day.

One child stayed inside with me while I finished up and as I was going around the environment touching up things here and there, he followed behind me, mimicking everything I did. The last thing I did before we went outside together was take a stack of papers from the printer and place them on my desk.

That plain half sheet of paper is his contribution to placing the papers on the desk 💗

It something that could so easily overlooked, but when your eyes are open and you can see the child for the developing human they are, it’s this that reminds you the impact you can have on these young children.

✨Be the role modeling they deserve ✨

hit it out of the park again!

Such a lovely set up and thoughtful details were present and appreciated by all. Such a great idea to add the bird feeder DIY as a party favor!!

A flash back to November!

Leading up to Thanksgiving, we did some extra food prep around pumpkins. We started with two pie pumpkins and built on that.

The first thing we did was cut open the pumpkins and pull out the seeds. We roasted the half pumpkins then scooped out the soft insides.

The next day, we used our manual food processor to make pumpkin pies. I found mini pie crusts, so each hold got their own pie!

We had a lot of pumpkin puree left after the pies, so we decided to make pumpkin bread the following week. Again, we used the manual food processor to combine wet ingredients and then added it in to the mixed dry ingredients. We had a pan of pumpkin bread that we were able to eat everyday with our snack!

A few notes about this process:
1. There was one child that was very confused about using the pumpkin for food. Pumpkins were solidly set in their mind as a decoration!

2. Amazing sensorial exploration activity! Some were hesitant at first to touch the pumpkins innards in the beginning, but by the end, after watching their peers, everyone was participating in the removal of seeds.

3. I was surprised how many children were eager to eat our makes! Only one child was uninterested in sampling our pumpkin foods.

4. It’s really hard to take photos of the children working on food prep 😅

This was so fun for all of us and I am really proud of this activity. It was wonderful that it went over two weeks of school and so pleased with children being able to be part of the process of pumpkin to food!

Well, hello out there!

It has been really quiet here as I have been taking time to expand our school, participate in some exciting legislation coming down the pipeline, and assess the direction and purpose of this account.

Other than all that (🙃) the children have been growing and thriving! As they have been transitioning into the primary room, old favorites of mine are coming out and they are all building a love of exploration with the new activities.

I have also seen tremendous social growth in the children as they all grow closer to and turn three. It’s been so wonderful to observe them emerge from their unconscious beginnings and into their conscious absorbent minds 🥰

Moving forward with this account, I am interested to hear from you all: what do you enjoy most about the stories I share? Philosophy? Material making? Cute children pics 🤣

Share below!

This little board with letters and animals has been a fun and much loved addition to our shelves! And before anyone calls it out - yes it capitals, yes it’s print, yes it’s non-realistic animals. This is what was available!

With one child is busy working with the moveable alphabet, the others are curious and gaining interest in it. We use this board collaboratively and make the sound of the letter and find the animal with that sound at the beginning. It’s a phase of simply giving them exposure to this concept before diving deep into it. And yes, it’s in the toddler environment because that’s what they’re interested in 😊

I am looking forward to building this up into more sound games, sound to symbol matching and sand paper letters - which are cursive, by the way 😂