All About Us

This is our Blog

I'm Rusty mum to H (13) and J (8). I'm married to Sarah and we live in the south west of the UK. I did my montessori training what seems like a life time ago now and I am doing and update as well and dipping my toes into steiner.

I work a s childminder and in my spare time like reading and pottery, I mostly work with older children doing a mixture of structure and free range home ed.

my setting is a normal terraced house with resources almost popping off the walls. There is often a mix of montessori materials and Steiner art materials, though over the summer of 2017 we might have a space rejig.

HOW WE STEINER

Montessoris original idea for an Erdkinder was based on the idea of the adolescent learning for life
So a mixture of very practical skills, farming skills and academic rigour.
We teach life skills as the basis of our curriculum, both children are encourage to care for their living space and feed our pets, Harriet is learning to cook well. This summer we are upgrading the garden ith a vegetable patch and a fire bowl with the aim to cook outside as well as growing vegetables to eat.
We follow the child with a plan do review cycle, I have weekly or fortnightly meetings that plan the learning they need to do over the following weeks, I'm them there to facillate learning and to review progress.

This does mean they learn responsibility very early, and understand that work has to be completed and the environment kept tidy.

We use a Steiner Curriculum as a baseline but with the Montessori Erdkinder responsibility thread, so they leave home with life skills as well as qualifications for life in the wider world.

GOING OUT

We aim to do a child led going out day for at least 1.5 days a week, including Harriet and Joe planning travel, food and learning outcomes. It's allows great responsibility and means at 18 they will both be equipt for the wider world.