Homeschooling in the Methow Valley - Weeks Two/Three

I came into this like many of you, I'm sure, idealistically hopeful that our family would use this time as an experiment in Montessori home school. After all, I brainstormed my hopes and dreams: protect children from being on screens while they are away from the structure of the school day, send letters to family members sharing fun facts about our adventures and each other, work with the individual and group activities I've laid out for them to choose from. Then of course I pictured sharing us in all our successful glory with the social world every day and having time to pull together sample schedules for you to model your own efforts after. In reality, this is a very slow ramp-up, and I've felt the chaos more than I have the order, even heading into our third quarantine week. Sure, it's getting better. But, I had no idea how much I would miss the sweet time away from my children that school used to provide.

The photo above is of one fed-up moment when Coco, done with Pearl's craziness, decided to cover her in tape to neutralize her. It certainly served to distract and provide joy, if not perfectly illustrate how we were all feeling about her behavior. Cue exasperated happy face. I'm working on getting from pure anxiety and overwhelm to more of a sense of routine.

Pictured above is the start to the Montessori inspired area of our living room featuring materials like our brand new salmon lifecycle and classic world landmarks. I can promise you they have not touched many of the materials but our hope is as we get into a routine they will gravitate to choosing some of these to work with.

The awesome idea above is thanks to my good friend and teacher of the year, Hana Baker! She shared this amazing resource, so we made one for each girl and let them choose how they go about their learning. Click the image above or here for a printable version you can use.

Stay in touch, friends! We've been overwhelmed by the continued outpouring of support, love, and relate-able social media posts. We can get through this together!

Megan and the Montessori 123 Team