Maria Montessori

One of my favorite educators of all time is Maria Montessori.  I love her thoughts, her ideas and her love for children.  I was first interested in her when I heard of Montessori private schools many years ago.  I wanted to have money to send my kids to a Montessori school, but of course was never given the blessing of wealth.  Or maybe it's a blessing that I didn't have any money.  I began researching many Montessori books when my oldest was a little boy, never fully intending to homeschool, but I wanted a Montessori home.

I watched a movie about Maria Montessori and was further inspired.  She loved children and believed that they all have greatness within them and it is up to their caregivers to inspire and lead them along helping them find that greatness that they are already born with.
She  believed in quiet and meaningful activities that apply to real life.  I love this idea.

I've further been researching her ideas and trying to implement them into my home.  One book that I recently read is called Montessori,  The Science Behind The Genius.  I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in alternative free education.  She believes that kids should be left alone to themselves to learn, of course being provided with materials and inspiring teachers.  She also believed that children desire order and beauty.  This book is great, because it validates her findings with research.  It's always nice to have research to back up your beliefs. Amazingly, an interesting read.  I truly believe that she was inspired.  One last thing that I learned from her is that we need to expose our kids to beautiful music, art, nature....All these things are things that even young children desire and can naturally recognize.  What a great person she was.  I'm grateful for her research and findings.

The Tuttle Twins Learn About The Law by Connor Boyack

We read these books tonight with our great lawyer Dad.  We learned about the law for Family Home Evening and my husband read this to us.  It was an interesting book with lots of thought provoking ideas about freedom and standing up for freedoms.

It is about some 9 year old twins that interview their neighbor for a report at school.  Their neighbor goes on telling them about The Law.  Their neighbor tells them that we all have rights and need to protect those rights.  He explains that he serves others because he wants to not because he is forced to.  This book goes on to tell that when the government forces you to do something they are violating your rights.  A very good book to explain to kids about freedom and protecting our rights.  Definately keeping this for our family library.

The Knights of The Right by M'Lin Rowly

Please Mommy, read us more....  What Mom doesn't love to hear this from their kids.  My kids have loved these books especially my 6 year old.  My oldest has read all of them twice.   I have loved reading them to my kids.  Even though they do talk about some heavy issues like drugs and what not.  It's about some kids who meet with King Arthur to earn different pieces of armor when they make good choices.  These books instigated so many discussions about not cheating, telling the truth, not taking prescription medications and many more things.  My kids really loved these and So did I.  I'm glad that we came across these books at Deseret Book.  The best of all is that they were written by a high school student.  Definately, inspirational.