Montessori Monday: Mud Pie Kitchen.

We're pretty big fans of Maria Montessori's method here in our family. Brixton will be two next month and maybe I'm biased, but I think he's quite bright and I believe a lot of what he knows is due to the way it was presented to him- the Montessori way. I mentioned in an entry a while ago how my interest for the method began. The last few years, I've stumbled across some wonderful blogs written by Montessori moms that have really kept me inspired as a mother and full time caregiver to Brixton. I decided that I too would like to share how we use the Montessori method in our home, and I don't know, maybe someone out there might find a little inspiration from our experiences. So here begins Montessori Monday.

When I was a kid, my mother never really let me get dirty. Playing outside all day meant that I would come into the house smelling like I played outside all day and my mom wasn't totally into that. With Brixton, we've taken the opposite approach. We try to do lots of nature activities with him in hopes that he'll learn to love the outdoors, appreciate all living things and discover so many amazing things about the world that surrounds him. I think it's important to give children lots of freedom to explore nature and Maria Montessori did too. She called them "little scientists".

A couple of weeks ago, with some inspiration from Rythym of the Home, we set up a mud pie kitchen for Brixton in our backyard. He took rocks, leaves, sticks and some unidentified fruits from our trees and used them all as ingredients to create the perfect soup.

I used the RAST nightstand from IKEA for the stove. I bought it a while ago with the intention of setting up a handwashing station for Brixton, and then I realized he really loves dumping water everywhere any chance he gets. So it's been sitting in his closet waiting for him to get over that phase. I painted the black burners on the top and set out his pots and pans from his play kitchen. I filled the big white bucket with water, gave him some topsoil and he was ready to cook.

He played and splashed and I took pictures and did the occasional pretend taste test. It was such a fun summer day activity for us, and it's definitely something I can see us doing again and again.

I think he'll love it even more when his cousins, who are little older than him, come over and really show him how to have fun with it. When that happens, I will make sure to take lots of photos and share again!