Montessori Tides School – Jacksonville Beach, FL

Last week Ms. DeAnne, Lead Toddler Directress, kicked off our self-toileting series with an introduction to toileting. This week Ms. Johanna Porter, Lead Toddler Directress is giving us a clearer understanding of how we can support the child in developing awareness in relation to toileting.

If you are unable to view the embedded video below, click here.

It has been said, “Awareness is the prerequisite for growth,” and that is true for toilet learning as well. Awareness grows as the child collect and assimilates information. So our goal is not to see how quickly the child masters self toileting, but how we can successfully support the child in his formation of independent functioning, coordinated movement, language, and will.

Steps to help develop awareness:

Cotton diapers- Are the greatest tool in developing early awareness, starting from birth. If they are changed as soon as they are wet, the child gradually

The Montessori Tides prepared environment is equipped with special didactic materials that are, according to Dr. Maria Montessori, “keys to the world,” because she carefully designed them to make the world accessible to the child. They also aid the child’s psychic development toward functional independence. She found children who are “functionally independent” are happy, well-adjusted children that can think for themselves, do for themselves, and are disciplined enough to understand the consequences of their actions.

Dr. Montessori developed the Montessori Materials over 100 years ago. In 1907, in the first Montessori Children’s House, she began experimenting on the effective use of the materials by allowing the children to freely explore with them while she observed how they responded to them. Because their use had proven to be so successful, today Montessori Tides authentic school still uses these materials to implement

Today’s parents are inundated with thousands of resources on Potty Training. This plethora of resources, representing so many people with differing back grounds and experiences, offers contradictory advice and too often leads parents to find themselves, delaying this developmental milestone. Add to the confusion over what or who’s advice to follow, the frustration so frequently experienced by parents who” just aren’t ready yet,” and the task of “training” can be transformed from a joyful  journey to a tedious and challenging experience.

The Montessori way to Toileting is a liberating approach, freeing both parent and child from pressure facilitated through the parent’s efforts, and allowing the process to be a natural one which grows out of the child’s interest, and a desire for independence and self-respect.  We are thus continuing to line up the prepared environment with the developmental needs of the

As you may have remembered from our last blog we are focusing on the beginning of a new year on our growth from 2011. Last time we marked the growth in the child at Montessori Tides School. This time we mark the growth in the school itself.

Detailing this growth goes beyond an outward or upward measure. After all, real growth begins inwardly. As I have watched the school progress throughout 2011, I believe there are definite milestones worth admiring. Two of these milestones we have already discussed and celebrated. First, was the joy of having our upper-elementary classroom restored. Second, in 2011 we celebrated our 25th year in Jacksonville Beach.

An old proverb states that “as the twig is bent, so grows the tree.”We know that early childhood training does, indeed, set the direction of

As 2011 draws to a close, it’s great to look back at a year as beautiful as it was extraordinary, detailing its many marks of growth. When gathering my thoughts to write this blog, I had a snapshot picture come into my mind.  In the snapshot I saw a hand marked measuring line. Similar to the one my grandmother has on the inside of her closet door. Each year she marked the height of her children, so she could see how much they had grown.This visual equivalent of growth began to resonate with me and I accepted to solely adopt this view is only the visible result of the unseen process that growth really is. When I think back to a family growth chart there is always a year or so where the measuring line appears the same, having an