on my shelf: in a montessori home

[This post submitted to Living Montessori Now's Montessori Monday 10/1/12.]

I want to write a weekly series on books that I have found formative and informational for our growing family thus far.  These are the books that make up my the "parenting" section on my shelf.  Some are long, some are short (some even have pictures!).  Some of them disagree with one another, but the thing that keeps them all on my shelf is that they made me have an a-ha! moment about my baby and her relationship to our family.

First up is a very short volume called In A Montessori Home.  This was recommended to me by the talented April of Goose Designs.  She is a Montessori Assistant to Infancy, and helped me understand how to apply some Montessori principles to our home life.

 I bought it through the website of the North American Montessori Teachers' Association.  It is by Sarah Moudry.  It is primarily composed of pictures of various ages of children in their home settings.  The book focuses on children aged 0-3.  What I absolutely love about it is the resource lists.  Moudry tells you exactly where to look for Montessori-inspired furniture, clothing, diapers, toys, feeding equipment, and more.  It is a very accessible book, and could be a first read for anyone looking at making some changes in their home environment.  It is also quite inexpensive.  This is the one I had my husband look at when I went on my little Montessori bender, because I knew it would keep his attention and offer some quick talking points.  Also, it's not very dogmatic.  Some of the Montessori stuff I run across seems very rigid - like if you get the tiniest detail wrong you might as well not be trying to implement any of it.  Moudry is accommodating, and offers solutions that will work for lots of families, rather than insisting that you scrap all your baby's stuff and start from scratch. 

However, for some of you, this book might just whet your appetite.  Moudry doesn't go very in-depth, rather, she recommends some heavier hitters at the end in a "further reading" list.  It did help my imagination, though, to see what different people have done in their homes with this philosophy.

All in all, a keeper.