As I’ve mentioned before, we are following a Montessori-inspired philosophy with Pomme’s toddlerhood. Following her interests, she has ample opportunity to learn through self-motivated exploration.  At this age, the emphasis is more on “Practical Life” skills than on ‘academics.’  She learns primarily through observation, imitation, and experimentation, as indeed human beings are designed to learn!

There is very little that we have actually ‘taught’ her.  She knows lots of things, of course, including some “academics,” but for the most part it is things she has simply absorbed.  Things that we have more directly “taught” are always under her direction — repeated as she insists, dropped when she wants to move on.  And so she is learning the alphabet and numbers from wooden puzzles (and still identifies the digit ’3′ as “cat!” since the puzzle shows 3 cats under the puzzle piece), and can count ‘by rote’ to 10, and count groups of objects accurately up to about 4.

But most of her “learning” is in practical areas, and this is most definitely from following her lead.  She demands to learn how to do things.

Following Montessori’s admonitions of letting children do things and not interfering, she is allowed to do many things not normally thought of as toddler activities.  I have learned to allow for the extra time for her to accomplish something, rather than feel a need to hurry her along by helping out.  I have also learned to stand back and let her make mistakes, and watch amazed as she figures it out without my diving in to ‘save’ her… or, if she cannot yet puzzle it out, she will calmly come to me and ask for my help.  And so I meet her only where she needs help, and not just where I assume she needs help.

And so before she was 26 months old, she was able to almost completely dress herself.  She sometimes gets her pants on backwards, and has a little trouble with shirts sometimes.  But she can pick out a complete outfit, underwear, socks, and all, and get herself ready independently.  And if you dare try to help her before she’s truly in need — watch out!

Some of her non-typical toddler activities include household things like vaccuuming, folding laundry, emptying the dishwasher, and drying dishes.  She is allowed to cut paper with scissors and slice cheese.  And she even helps me at the stove, stirring macaroni, turning hot dogs, mixing scrambled eggs.  Before we even get to the stove, she insists on helping to measure and pour ingredients, mixing and stirring it together… and cracking eggs!

So I’m sharing this video I took of her cracking eggs into a bowl the other day when we were making a white chocolate layer cake.  She actually cracked 3 eggs this time, I only caught the 3rd on video.  The first few times she helped with the eggs, a few weeks ago, she got a few little bits of shell.  Now she’s perfect every time.  She even puts away the empty shells and returns the carton to the fridge when we’re done. 

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