This guest post is written by my friend Tracey H., who recently wrote the tutorial for the felt map. Over the next few weeks, you’ll be reading more from her, as she shares with us her insights on teaching/using Montessori. From talking with Tracey, I’ve learned she is continuously reading and researching, to find out the best methods, new ideals, and strategies for teaching – both for her own children as well as for the students she teaches at a local Montessori school. Personally, she’s introduced me to several amazing author-educators, and we’ve had a lot of great discussions about methods/suggestions for teaching.
For this current series, she shares strategies to develop handwriting in a Montessori fashion, especially at home. Without further ado, here’s her latest contribution…
One of the beauties of Montessori is how one can see the child's hand develop, so that it is strong for ease of handwriting. I love how it starts from an early age, building that strength in a child's hand, with so many different avenues. It amazes me when I have my two year old touch my hands, to feel how her little delicate hands have not yet got their strength. But then my four year old is sturdy in his hands; they are strong. When I feel other four or three year olds, I'm amazed how their hands are not as strong nor developed.
So this post is on how I try to capture many moments in my home to encourage strong hands.
When I first had my son, I read a lot of Glenn Doman's work. Predominantly from his book, How Smart Is Your Baby, he had exercises to develop the wrists, and awareness of space and balance. I did many of these with my baby. The one thing that stood out, was to develop the wrists - by motivating a lot of pouring exercises. So with rice or sand, my toddler would transfer and transfer. Then buckets and bottles a plenty in the bath for more pouring. His pouring ability was so well defined. Tea parties, more practice. If you have a boy, please find him a tea set! 
Boys, along with girls just love tea parties. Scrounge your second hand stores for glass/ceramic milk jugs. The weight of these are so important. In this picture, I bought the tea set from a restaurant outlet - they go for so cheap! And yes, they do chip and break - but the children also learn to be so careful, they don't want their toys to break. Initially I used small metal set.
I would put small objects in his high chair to pick up, so that he could practice his pincer grip. (Yes, I give my 1 year olds many small things – kids lose their interest to put everything in their mouth after a while. Fortunately, they didn't swallow things - especially with their lego-crazed brother, we never had any problems.) I'd look for many opportunities for him to practice this grip, including with wooden puzzles.
The other Doman exercise to develop the hand was have your baby lie in front of you on his back, then to put your fingers into your babies hands. They would grip, and then you try to lift them up, going a bit higher each time, until they can stand of their feet. This was a great game. We almost got Izaac's feet off the ground with this exercise. When they are older, the monkey bars at playgrounds - get them doing this as much as possible.
At about 2 and a half, Izaac started being interested in mazes. This was a new turning point for me in my journey with hand development. Izaac was becoming strong in his hands. I bought a maze book and taught him how to do the mazes, but for longevity (frugality) sake, I insisted that he was not allowed to use a pencil with the book, he had to use his finger. In the beginning, he would trace hard with his finger, pushing against the book. He was very into his maze book and in time, his finger tracing got lighter and lighter. Unbeknown to me, he was developing a beautiful soft touch to "writing", along with his pouring exercises, still developing a strong hand control.
Second time around, with my little girl, I've once again introduced more and more pouring. The kids have a water post in the kitchen. So she pours herself water whenever she wants. I then zip a tray under her work, and give her some small bowls, milk jugs whatever, so that she can pour. In the picture, you will see the water post. This was the work my daughter put out for herself this morning. She knows where the bowls are and helps herself. To date, she has never dropped a bowl.
From when she could stand on her own, I would give her pouring work and a year later she is still obsessed. It is great when cooking, if she comes through to the kitchen I'll grab some mung beans, rice, or her favorite - my coffee granules - and off she will go pouring. We soak and then rinse our rice before cooking it. In the last few weeks, instead of the rice just sitting there in water, I give it her and off she goes, pouring water into it, transferring it, then leaves it to "soak". Any moment to just capture more pouring.
My son wasn't interested much in play-doh, but my daughter is. This is such a valuable, cheap solution to building those tender hands and giving them 
sensorial activities. Once again I dig into my kitchen cupboards to find new interests. I've used toothpicks, little stones, blunt knifes, forks, anything in the drawers, sticks. The other day I found candles - oh she sang 'happy birthday' over and over again, as she made 'cupcakes'. In the picture, my just turned 2 year-old has just managed to use these play-doh push-through toys. I was surprised - older 
children than her I've observed still can't do it.
On our way to a holiday, I found these squirters. They have to put the one end into the water and then squeeze to water out. I love how this is building their hands and is so much fun. It's our favorite bath toy at the moment and really building their strength.
I hope you found this article useful on just how to work and work on developing those little hands and at the same time, minds of young ones.
In my next post, I'm going to focus on how to 'seize the day' - finding opportunities to to encourage handwriting, especially for our non-artsy interested children.
About Tracey:
I am Tracey, originally from Cape Town, South Africa, but now happily living in the nation’s capital, Canberra, Australia. Wife to gorgeous husband, Rod, devout Christian. Grateful to be following my God-inspired dream to be homeschool mum to 4 year old and 2 year old. It's busy as I also do Autocad drafter at home. Was formally a Software Developer contractor. I mainly aim to homeschool with Montessori guide, but in typical Montessori, I try to observe my little gems and adapt to what is a fun, prepared and an enjoyable environment, which is hard for a typical messy!
Jo at A Bit of This and A Bit of That made a set of extension cards, found here. I really like that her set has a lot of overlapping images, ie, the cylinders are stacked on top of one another… I SO wish there were more sets of patterns like these! (Photo credit: Significant noise)
pages from lesson 24, art on pots (
