Episode 5: Lower Elementary Part 1

This week I get to learn from the amazing Bianca Solorzano about infant nutrition and weaning. Bianca is an Infant Head Teacher I have had a pleasure of knowing and working with for the last several years. She tells me all about the fascinating lives of infants and offers tons of great tips and information.  

Welcome back to our series on Montessori Lower Elementary. In this episode I have a conversation with Head of School and Elementary expert Letty Rising.  

A brief break from our Lower Elementary series, in this episode I catch up with friend and Toddler guide Kyoko Uchida and we discuss a Montessori Northwest workshop on joyful student engagement we attended in San Fransisco. For more information, including fantastic workshop opportunities for teachers, parents and community members, please visit montessori-nw.org/workshops-events/.  

On this episode I interview Dr. Eric Daniels about childhood development during the Lower Elementary years, what makes a good student and what he has learned working with students of all ages. Dr. Eric Daniels is currently a Head of School and has over 12 years of experience in education.  

On this episode I have a conversation with educator Jesse McCarthy about how he discovered Montessori and how families can implement Montessori philosophy at home. Jesse has over 12 years of experience as an educator and started working at LePort back in 2004 as a teacher. Since then he has worked as a principal, curriculum developer and has designed programs to for employee and program enrichment. You can find his writings at mariamontessori.com and follow his blog at jemslife.com. Also mentioned is the work of Haim Ginott who you can learn more about here. You can now subscribe to Montessori Moment on iTunes! Find all our previous episodes and have new episodes download automatically.  

This week I interview my esteemed colleague, Carmen Calvo, about sibling rivalry. As a Montessori guide with over 20 years of experience with children from 0-12, Carmen shares her strategies for how to best support children who are experiencing jealousy or feeling competitive around their siblings (or friends). We discuss the negative feelings that can grow between siblings and how to help foster healthy relationships. Please feel free to comment in with your questions or topic suggestions. Thanks for listening!  

Welcome back! In this episode I interview my parents about what their experience having a preschooler/kindergartner, how they picked a school, and what they wish they knew back then. We also talk about what it was like for them to watch me go through the Montessori teacher training and visiting the classrooms I have worked in. Enjoy!

Welcome to Montessori Moment! My name is Liz Monsen and I have been working as a Montessori guide(teacher) since 2013. I have a B.A. in history from Reed College, a M.Ed. in Education from Loyola University and my AMI teaching diploma from Montessori Northwest. I currently work in a primary (ages 3-6) environment in southern California.  I am excited to share our first episode with you. While I have created this podcast as a way to share information and resources with the families in my community it is available for anyone interested in Montessori. Please leave comments, topic suggestions and questions in the comments section. It is my hope that we can eventually do a listener question section at the end of each episode :-). Enjoy!