Jacaranda Tree Montessori

A Montessori playgroup in Amsterdam for babies, toddlers, preschoolers

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10 December, 2014 By Simone Davies

A warm and cosy December

December already! Bring on the cold weather so we can enjoy snuggling up inside with hot drinks, baking and crafting with the kids, and enjoying some twinkling lights on these long dark evenings.

News from the classroom

We’ve been celebrating Sinterklaas in class these last weeks. We baked pepernoten together (recipe below), I added some Sint gluing activities to the craft area, and we all enjoyed singing lots of Sinterklaas songs at circle time.

Sinterklaas - knutselen met dreumes, een stoomboot maken

Pepernoten
It’s never too late to bake pepernoten even if Sinterklaas is now heading back to Spain on his steam boat. So for those of you who would like to try it at home, here is the recipe.

150 g (2/3 cup) butter
135 g (3/4 cup) brown sugar
10 g (2 teaspoons) ’speculaas spices’
250 g (1 1/4 cup) self raising flour
a pinch of salt
4 tbsp milk

Preheat oven to 160 °C (320 °F). Cut cold butter in little chunks and knead through sugar, speculaas spices, salt and self raising flour. Add the milk bit by bit until the dough is smooth and supple. Start making little balls (a bit smaller than a marble). Your kids can help with this: if you give them little pieces of the dough, they will love making the little balls! Line the little balls up on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and flatten them slightly with your thumb (I make two batches). Bake for about 15 minutes until light brown.

Getting ready for Christmas
We have our little Christmas tree ready in the classroom – it’s about 30cm tall and sits on a table where the children enjoy hanging wooden ornaments. I like how the children like to place lots and lots in one place!

A Montessori Christmas tree

Next week we’ll be adding some festive craft into the mix too. Will be fun.

School holidays
We have one more week of classes before the school holidays commence. Please note the last class before the holiday break will be Friday 19 December. Classes will restart from Monday 5 January.

My new project – The Montessori Notebook

Did you see my news last week? I have just launched a new idea to the world, The Montessori Notebook – where you’ll be able to find all my notes, ideas, and e-courses about the Montessori approach.

I want to help you all bring Montessori into your daily life. Give you ways to better understand your kids. Practical tips you can use at home. Answers to your questions. And in early 2015, I’ll be giving my workshops online so you can follow along at home, wherever you are in the world. I can’t wait to meet you all over there.

Very soon there will also be a website and e-newsletter too.

So if you haven’t already, I would love for you to come over and follow along! The link to the Facebook page is here: http://www.facebook.com/themontessorinotebook.

And, don’t worry, Jacaranda Tree Montessori is not going anywhere. This new idea will just help me to reach more people. I am so excited!

Upcoming workshop

Hey hey hey! It’s this Saturday. Yes, our Festive Craft Extravaganza is nearly here. The morning session is completely booked out, but we have a couple of spaces in the afternoon session from 3pm to 4:30pm if you would still like to join us. Follow the registration link here: https://www.jacarandatreemontessori.nl/shop/festive-craft-extravaganza-afternoon/.

We are going to be decorating cookies and making beautiful decorations for your house. Plus you can make wrapping paper, take some fun festive photos, and of course there will be singing too! Looking forward to it.

Christmas cookies

Getting ready for a Montessori Christmas

1. Blog post
I had a plan. I was going to get all my Christmas shopping done by 30 November. Wrapped and ready to go. And a homemade advent calendar. You can read the blog post here: https://www.jacarandatreemontessori.nl/2014/11/13/getting-ready-montessori-christmas/. There are also lots of Montessori gift ideas too if you are still looking for ideas.

Well the plan was good, has been moderately successful, but better than last year in any case. A box of presents has been shipped off to my nieces and nephews in Australia, most of the Christmas shopping is done or ordered online. But wrapped and ready it aint. There’s always next year!

2. More Montessori Christmas ideas
And if you are looking for some activities to set up in the home, you should check out “A Merry Montessori Christmas” by Aubrey Hargis. Aubrey is a fellow Montessori blogger and has put together over 20 Montessori Christmas activities. You’ll see she even has a version of decorating a small Christmas tree, just like we do each year in our classroom :). It’s US$4,99 to download – I am not an affiliate but just think it is a fun selection of activities for kids from 2 to 6 years old.

Cover-232x300

Guest blog post

And if you still have time for one more thing, I’m very honoured to have my blog post about visiting museums with young children featured on The Montessori Bloggers Network. If you missed it before, it’s got lots of fun ideas for making trips to museums interesting for your kids. Follow the link here: http://montessoribloggersnetwork.com/making-museum-trips-fun-young-children/. Yes, that is a cute photo of my kids at the Art Gallery in Sydney aged nearly 2 years and the other just a few months old. I love that shot.

visiting museum with young children
I’ll see many of you in class this week and next. But as this is the last post of the year, I’m sending you all much love for the festive season and look forward to catching up in 2015. Miss you already!

I’m looking forward to a cosy break in Amsterdam. I’ve a list of festive things I want to do like visiting Intratuin to see the Christmas displays, snuggling up with my kids, drinking lots of hot chocolate, and baking lots of cookies!

Have yourselves a great one…

Filed Under: Art and craft, Christmas, Montessori, our classroom

13 November, 2014 By Simone Davies

Getting ready for a Montessori Christmas!

GETTING READY EARLY FOR A MONTESSORI

Some fellow Montessori bloggers are putting together some posts on their Christmas ideas for this year and am super happy to join them. Below my post you’ll find links to their great ideas too.

Getting ahead on the Christmas shopping

I was reading a blog post last week (sadly I don’t remember which one) and the person was sharing that they did all their Christmas shopping – and had it wrapped – by the end of November. I thought this idea was genius. I am so going to try to do this! Anyone want to join me? We’ll be the smug ones ice-skating and enjoying hot chocolate on Christmas eve :).

December has a way of just slipping through your fingers and it’s hard to slow down to enjoy it all.

So to get you started, here is a super duper Christmas post for you!

1. Make an Advent calendar

I have shared in past years how much we love to make our own Advent calendar. I have been doing this for around 5 years and the kids are still asking if we can do it again.

I buy 24 craft envelopes and decorate them with the numbers 1 – 24. These are hung from some baking twine with small pegs along our front windows. One year I even sewed some bunting from Christmas fabric and added felt pockets.

Homemade advent calendars

Then make a list of all our favourite Christmas things to do together, write each idea on a paper slip, and pop one in each pocket.

Here are some ideas:

1. Eat oliebollen (a Dutch donut)
2. Make Christmas cookies
3. Take a photo with the Christmas lights
4. Go iceskating at Museumplein
5. Decorate the Christmas tree
6. Put on Christmas music
7. Write Christmas cards
8. Make paper snowflakes

Get the idea?

2. Santa sacks

Even though my kids are well beyond believing in Santa Claus, I still find it fun to put together a small stocking of presents which they find on their beds on Christmas morning.

santa sack

We keep it pretty simple but generally I put in:

* something to eat
* something to make
* something to read
* something to play with
* some cute stationery for school

As we live in Amsterdam, there may also be something fun for their bike too, or something that they need.

3. Christmas presents

We have Christmas lunch together and then open presents from under the Christmas tree. The kids are lucky to get presents from the family and we generally buy one larger gift.

Last year I put together some ideas for presents for young ones. I would still recommend these toys so pop over here to get some fun ideas for your kids:

* Montessori Gift Guide, Part 1 of 4 – Babies

* Montessori Gift Guide, Part 2 of 4 – 1 to 2 year olds

* Montessori Gift Guide, Part 3 of 4 – 2 to 3 year olds

* Montessori Gift Guide, Part 4 or 4 – Preschoolers

My kids are now 14 and 12 years old and still like to play with Lego. Keep them young eh. They have an idea to turn the attic into a Lego world so I’m going to add another set to their collection. You can’t have too much Lego, can you?

Hope you enjoy the silly season as much as I do. I would love to hear about the rituals you are developing for your kids and any great gift ideas too.

Ho ho ho!

Montessori Friendly Gift List Round Up

And I’m pleased to share some ideas from some of my favourite Montessori bloggers with some more great gift ideas. Be sure to check them out:

The Kavanaugh Report – A Montessori Friendly Christmas Round Up
Child Led Life  – Top Gifts for Preschoolers
Milkweed Montessori – A Merry Montessori Toddler Gift List
Every Star Is Different  – Renae’s Guide to Toy Gifts that Won’t Break
Golden Reflections Blog – 10 Gift Ideas for Toddlers Who Love Animals
Study At Home Mama – One You Want, One You Need, One You Wear, One You Read
Natural Beach Living – Best Montessori Preschool Gift Guide
The Natural Homeschool – The Ultimate Gift Guide for the Montessori Home
Montessori Nature – Educational Gifts for Children

Filed Under: Christmas, inspiration, Montessori

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The Montessori Toddler book, by Simone Davies


– NOW AVAILABLE IN AMAZON AND ANY BOOKSELLER –
* Learn to understand your toddler better
* Find alternatives to time out and help them become responsible humans
* Get rid of the chaos and set up cosy spaces at home
* Create beautiful Montessori activities for their age
* And more…
<<< MORE INFO HERE >>>

The Montessori Baby book, by Simone Davies and Junnifa Uzodike


– NOW AVAILABLE IN AMAZON AND ANY BOOKSELLER –

* Help you bring Montessori into your home from conception, birth and the first year
* Learn how to show your baby respect the Montessori way
* Set up your home for your baby with a lot less than you think
* See how capable your baby is and learn to follow their interests and timeline
* And more…
<<< MORE INFO HERE >>>

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