All Posts

As the owner and teacher at a preschool located in a country setting,  I have observed the benefits and wonders of nature for Preschoolers. Children who experience nature and an outdoor learning environment will find this contributes to their healthy development. With our children having access to modern technology, there is little time in their lives to connect with the multitude of delights of creation As an educator, I ensure that the children who attend my countrypreschoo

It’s time to get in touch with nature with these nature activities! Research shows that young children derive a range of benefits from having access to nature. A young children’s relationship with nature is vital for their overall development, including better concentration, motor co-ordination, co-operative, social play and opportunities to feel connected to the larger universe of living things.  Here are some ideas: Collect pine cones to form pine cone mazes for your child

This is a beautiful hanging art activity. The children love to sprinkle the wax shavings onto the hearts and are delighted with the end result. These wax paper hearts look lovely when hung next to a window to display their beautiful melted colours. You will need: Cut out double sided wax paper hearts Wax crayons Shavings of different coloured wax crayons. You can add glitter too. An iron (Strictly for Adult use only) String or wool Thick pencil sharpener A punch To do: Ask yo

Dr. Maria Montessori established that sensorial experiences begin right when a child is born. Children use their senses in order to study their environment. By participating in sensory activities, children can consciously obtain clear information that helps them classify their surroundings. These classifications serve as stepping stones to organized intelligence, which gives children the ability to adapt to their environment. Montessori sensorial materials are materials used

This art activity is very cute and is a good vehicle for practicing fine motor skills when breaking up pieces of polystyrene. You will need: -coloured card: one for the background, one red one for the top part and brown one for the bottom. -glue – a glue stick will work well for sticking the card together but a wood glue works well for the polystyrene. -polystyrene -scissors Make a toadstool with your coloured card. Cut out pieces. Paste them onto the background card. Plac

We’ve written on this blog before about plastic bottle aeroplanes, but today we’re going to share how we made rockets from plastic bottles too. You’ll need: plastic bottle card paper paint glitter Print out the rocket fins. I fitted 12 of these on a A4 page. Then you cut out a harder piece of card for strength and put the fins on either side. Cut two slits on either side of the plastic bottle to slide the fins in. For variation you can make four fins instead of two. Use

Written by Julia Gorham Dr. Maria Montessori established that sensorial experiences begin right when a child is born. Children use their senses in order to study their environment. By participating in sensory activities, children can consciously obtain clear information that helps them classify their surroundings. These classifications serve as stepping stones to organized intelligence, which gives children the ability to adapt to their environment. Montessori sensorial mate

Written by Julia Gorham Doing and thinking for young children will contribute to lowered self esteem and undermine their self-confidence. You will create opportunities for your child to develop a lot of self-doubt by sending messages showing that you do not think that they can do things correctly, or that they should not try because you beloved it is too difficult for them. Do not ignore the pleas of the young child “I can do it by myself”. Children with high self esteem are

The Montessori dressing frames are an important part of the care of the self Practical Life Exercises in our classroom. Each frame isolates one skill of dressing and offers the child the opportunity to perfect this skill by repeating the motion over and over, thus helping her to become independent in dressing him/her self. Being able to dress and undress oneself is one of the major steps to a child’s sense of ndependence. To help children learn how to dress and undress themse

Adults and children process grief very differently. Here are some tips from personal experience about what is helpful with a preschool child dealing with grief. Be Honest. I was very open with Nicky about how things were going in hospital. As every doctor meeting arrived with worse and worse news, there wasn’t really a way to sugar coat it. I remember actually saying something along the lines of “when all these hospital visits stop”, and him asking when that was going to be

Written by JULIA GORHAM The art of communications is based upon mutual respect and this means that both parent and child allow one another to express their beliefs and feelings honestly, without fear of rejection, even though you may not agree with your child. Effective listening involves assisting children to get in touch with his feeling and entails focusing your attention on your child, attempting to understand what your child is feeling and giving your child feedback to m

Nature based schools are gaining great interest with modern, working parents. This trend has grown over 800 percent since 2012. Nature based preschools with daily exposure to nature has proven to be a vital element in early education for young children. Our Montessori preschool positioned in a beautiful, tranquil, country setting, with weekly nature walks, brings our children much joy! Guess what? Last week we noticed two white eyed owls in the school parking lot! The extract

By teaching your children healthy eating habits, and modelling these behaviours in yourself, you will enable your child to lead a healthy life style in years to come. As a young child, my mother was vigilant about healthy eating habits and this was passed onto my daughters. My mother had a vegetable garden with rows of home grown vegetables and nearby was apricot and mulberry trees. We loved pulling up carrots, spinach, cabbages, spinach, radishes and many more vegetables for

Written by Julia Gorham Encouraging healthy eating habits for young children. You will need: Ripe bananas A chopping board A knife ( Adult use only) A marking pen To do: Place a banana on a chopping board and slice 8 slithers of the banana from top to bottom. Cut the banana underneath the skin in half . Place the banana upright on a plate and spread the 8 slithers of the banana on the plate. Draw a smiley face and round circles on the slithers of the banana peel.

Fruity Flower Sculptures Written by Julia Gorham These colourful fruit sculptures were a great hit in my classroom and the children loved eating their pretty, fruity flowers too! You will need: Naartjies Purple grapes Green apples A wooden board A knife (For adult use only to slice the apples and grapes) Plates To do: Wash the fruit Peel the naartjies Cut the grapes in half Slice the green the green apples into long slivers for the stems and smaller slices for the leaves Pl