My New Store is Here!
Hello, everyone! After a little bit of an absence, I am back. During the past three months, my incredible web designer, David, and I have been hard at work designing a new store that keeps the best parts of Montessori for Everyone but with an updated look and more features to make it easier for all of you (and me) to use.
David has done most of the work, but he’s kindly listened to all of my requests so that the final design is a true collaboration, and is more beautiful than I ever even imagined.
Categories
We’ve rearranged the categories, breaking many of the major categories into subcategories. This has allowed me more flexibility in listing the items, and hopefully will make things easier to find. As always, there’s a search box at the top right so that you can search for items by keyword.
Blog
The biggest changes are at my blog. The blog categories have also been expanded and rearranged, and now there’s a blog search box (separate from the store items search box) so you can look for posts both ways. If you’re searching for a phrase, using quotes (“”) around the phrase will help you find the post you’re looking for more quickly.
I intend to resume blogging every Monday, as before, with occasional posts on other days (like contests, etc.) Please make sure you’re subscribed to my blog feed either through a feed reader or by email (see sign-up box on the right). I have lots of great new posts lined up, and I’m eager to resume interacting with all of you through my blog.
Spanish Materials
I’ve added a new category to my store: Spanish. I am really excited to offer these materials. Made with the help of a native Spanish speaker, they cover beginning vocabulary, grammar, and more. I will be adding a few new Spanish items every month.
New Botany Materials
I also have three new Botany items this month: Types of Herbs, Types of Fruit – Beginning, and Types of Fruit – Advanced. Each one features spectacular pictures as well as helpful information to use when presenting the materials. Look for more new Botany materials soon!
New Free Downloads
I’ll continue to introduce at least one new download every month; you can find them here: New Downloads.
Help Us Out!
As with any site launch, there might be things you can’t figure out, links that don’t lead to the right place (or nowhere at all), or other issues or suggestions. I would really appreciate you letting me know if you see anything like that; you can email me at: montessoriforeveryone@gmail.com.
I’ve been wanting to update my site for a long time, but even in my wildest dreams, I never could have imagined it looking so beautiful. Re-doing my site was pretty complicated and time-consuming, but totally worth it. I hope you all agree!
Welcome back!
Congratulations for a new look! Very clean and welcoming!
Just wanted to let you know that you have a reader in Israel too…:)
Lori,
You are right, it is beautiful…congratulations!
Thank you, ladies! So glad you like the new look. Thanks for stopping by
Site looks GREAT!
Question: being new to Montessori – how do I stay abreast of what my child is learning, how he is doing, if there is continuity in the work?
Beyond my constantly badgering my poor son as to what he did in school, I have no clue.
Are there progress reports or updates? Does any work tend to come home? Beyond the beginning or the year and end of year conferences, how does a parent know how their child is doing and what they are doing?
Hi, Shawna! You really need to ask your child’s teacher about that. I used to send home a mini-progress report each week, with some info about what the child had done that week. But, I did ask the parents to trust me, and let them know I wasn’t going to send a lot of stuff home. Most Montessori schools are like that.
However, at the conferences, I showered them with info, like progress reports, and let them see all the child’s written work up until then. It was plenty, so that they didn’t need a lot in between.
I also let the parents know that if anything came up (problems with work, or anything else), I would let them know, so “no new is good news”. They felt free to tell me about anything their child had said about school, or ask me any questions they had.
But, I do think that part of the process of putting your child in Montessori is choosing the right school/teacher, so that you don’t need to frequently ask them how your child is doing.
As far as your son, most kids aren’t good at delineating what they’ve learned that day – it may take time to sink in, or be an on-going process. And, at the end of the day, they’re often mentally and physically exhausted. So that’s not really the best way to find out.
A couple of options: ask the teacher if you could observe for an hour or so every few months; ask if the teacher could jot down some work your son has done, maybe every month? I found that parents could see their children making progress just based on how they acted at home (for instance, the child might volunteer information on something they had learned, if it came up at home) and that let them know that the child was learning and growing.