Montessori vs. Traditional Education

This weekend/week we will be finishing our makeshift classroom that we have designated in our home (pictures to follow). We felt it was important to designate a room strictly for school activities that way the kids understand can really get in the mood when its time for school.

We don’t designate a specific time for school since its child led education. We let them choose what they want to do within reason of course and I like to take real life and turn it into a learning experience… it doesn’t get more hands on then that!

My next few blogs I will explain what subjects we will be participating in and why we chose those subjects. For now I wanted to share with you a Montessori vs. Traditional education table to help you better understand the differences between the two.

The following table shows the differences between Montessori and traditional schools.

MONTESSORI

TRADITIONAL

- Three-year age span - Motivated by self-development - Self-correcting materials - Hands on learning manipulating objects - Individual learning - Teacher is observer and directress - Cycles of activity completed within child’s time - Few interruptions - Freedom to move and work - Materials used in sequence with presentations - Work for joy and sense of discovery - Environment provides discipline - Encouraged to help each other - Child chooses materials  - Child sets own pace - Emphasis on concrete - Reality oriented - Recognition of individual sensitive periods - Child free to discover alone - Carefully organized environment - Multisensory materials to develop specific skills - Self education through self correcting materials - Respect of child foremost

- All one age - Teacher motivated - Teacher corrects errors - Teacher lectures - Group learning - Teacher is the focal point and dominant influence - Activity cycles determined by set time - Frequent interruptions - Assigned specific class periods - Materials are used with no prior instructions - Work because you have to complete task - Teacher provides discipline - Seek help from teacher - Teacher sets curriculum - Teacher sets pace - Emphasis on abstract - Much role playing and fantasy - All children are treated alike - Teacher continuously guides child - Materials placed at random - Play materials for non-specific skills - Use of reward and punishment in motivation - Community needs take precedence

Is Surrogacy Selfish? I Find Myself Asking Myself This Question

This subject has crossed my mind a few times but I guess I always brushed it off. While surfing I stumbled upon this “blog” I guess you would call it and while I read it I couldn’t hold back from crying. Read it and then I will continue.

http://sonofasurrogate.tripod.com/

When I started considering surrogacy I was only 19, had just found out I was pregnant with twins and just not in the best situation. I knew that I wasn’t ready to peruse anything. As I became more stable I started looking into it more seriously and looked for “the perfect couple”. I talked to a LOT of couples/singles, must have been around 30 or so and as eager as they seemed they just didn’t seem right for me. When I finally did find my “perfect couple” I was so excited I didn’t really try to get to know them as much as I should have. When we met it seemed so right that I just knew they were the ones and I was ready. After reading a lot blogs and articles it seems that I was lucky that it went as smoothly as it did.

When I became pregnant, money, them backing out, miscarriage, it was the last thing on my mind. I guess I was so focused on trying to make them feel comfortable, gain their trust and reassure them that I never focused on much else. And after reading this “blog” I guess I forgot to think about the baby and what potential effect it may have on her as she grew up. it wasn’t until in the last 6 months that I really started thinking about it but I always put it in the back of my mind. Recently when these feelings came back strongly, the mother assured me that it would be ok, and I did believe her.  After reading this, I’m scared all over again.

During my whole pregnancy I never felt connected to the baby, ever. Was I wrong for that? Yes, it was best that I didn’t, it made it easier, easier for me, the intended parents, but was I wrong? I was focusing so much of my emotions on the intended parents and how much they wanted this that I never gave myself a chance to get attached. To me, it never felt like she was mine, it always felt as if she had been trying for 14 years to come into this world with almost as many failed attempts that maybe this was the only way she could come though. In my mind I was just giving her back. This is how I feel, this is how the parents feel but how does SHE feel. Regardless of how she is raised, regardless of the love she will get from her mommy and daddy and regardless of how much she is told that she was wanted, the reality is that each child is an individual and will come to their own conclusions and the honest truth is that she may feel unwanted by me, that she was just made for a purpose.

This boy obviously went through a lot and his situation isn’t completely like ours. Me and my IP’s are pretty close, we can easily hang out as friends and it not revolve around the baby, they reassure me that she will always know who I am but the fact of the matter is, its still possible for her to share some of the same feelings this boy feels. I can try and prepare myself for the unknown but when it comes to this subject I just don’t think I would ever forgive myself if she felt this way.

Being a surrogate has been relatively easy up till now. It’s been over 2 years and besides being happy for the parents, very little feelings have come up on my part. Now I am starting to think that a part of me was selfish and that I jumped into something that I wasn’t completely prepared for, because you can’t always prepare for the unexpected. “it takes a very selfless person to do what you are doing”, that helped my feeling stay away but reading this “blog” makes it more real and harder to deny.

here is more from his blog that also share other similar stories. http://sonofasurrogate.tripod.com/blog/

More Of My Tattoo In Progress

Here is more of my unfinished tattoo. 

here is the link to see what the butterflies, cocoon, Caterpillar and cherry blossoms mean to me

http://rlifew5plus.blogspot.com/2011/04/my-new-tattoo.html

the unfinished dandelions remind me "to see beauty where others see nothing" and the tire swing reminds me to never take life seriously. To always be fun, carefree and comfortable in my own skin, just like my kiddies.

spots still need to be filled and color added but so far I am happy with it!

Halloween 2011

It's been way to long since i have blogged but with the move, ridge and Nathans birthday, Halloween, our wedding reception and Christmas i just haven't found the time to blog. 

in September we moved to ASU family housing and kept busy juggling Nathans school schedule me working nights a couple times a week and unpacking. we unpacked pretty fast but its always those random boxes that seem to take forever. around the same time we were busy planning our reception and making everything for that since it was a DIY reception so those random boxes got shoved in the corner and left for a good month, out of sight out of mind right?

we celebrated Ridges birthday Oct. 5th with our family of 5, Nathans mom, sister and her son Jax with Teppanyaki (The kids fave) and cake for desert. Nathans Birthday was just 2 days later so we really just combined the two. we may have done a dinner or something but to be honest i don't really remember.

our reception was Nov. 26th, the weekend after thanksgiving and we stayed really busy with that but i will save that for another blog when we get our pictures back .

for now i will just leave you with some pictures from Halloween.

we went to Schneph farms with the kids and they had fun as always. they all rode the rides and this year they decided to go on the roller coaster. At around that time we were the only people there so it was nice not having to stand in line. the roller coaster was small and looked very child friendly. boy was i wrong!!! maybe it was because we were the only ones on it or maybe looks can be deceiving, either way, that thing was scary. jazzy cried. even though Ridge wasn't crying he was scared poopless and Jayvin was having the time of his life.  I may or may not have screamed myself.

 we have made it a tradition the last couple years to make the kids costumes. with the exception of Ridge because Rick and Anna have bought his two years in a row as a birthday present. this year Nathan and i made all three of them.

This isn't a random picture. Nathan told Jazzy to find him a costume from their dress up box. she came back with this flower hat. Nathan being his witty self told her he was a "daddy-lion" he cracks me up. He didn't actually wear it though.

 we let them pick out what they wanted to be. Jazzy picked an angel. she was excited to wear make-up for the first time. daddy wasn't thrilled but he had to admit how stinkin cute she looked!! (notice the naked-ness. Like i promise in all my other blogs i swear my kids have clothes, they just hate wearing them at home)

 we bought one big foam pumpkin from the craft store (at $10 each i couldn't fathom spending $30 on pumpkins) this year we have began a new tradition. the kids get to pick a picture and carve the pumpkin themselves. this is why we decided on fake pumpkins that way we can set them out every year and hopefully be able to look back at them and see how the kids imagination have grown over the years. I'm sure as they get older we will buy individual ones but for now one sufficed. it was easier to have the kids draw the object on paper and then i traced it onto the pumpkin and Nathan carved it.

Jazzy drew a cat and what a lovely cat it is!

 this is Ridge's. not sure what it is but he did a great job!

 Jayvin decided that the pumpkin just wasn't a pumpkin without a face, so a face he drew.

I guess I fibbed, We didn't make Ridge's costume, I completely forgot till i got down to this picture, he insisted on wearing one of his dress up costumes. We made a robot costume for Jayvin which i think came out really cute. He went around the whole night saying that he had "Home Depot" legs. My favorite part of his costume are the two round push lights on the front of him. I joked that he was "flashing" me when he turned them on. at the bottom are just some light switches. 

I let the kids pick out a costume for mommy and they said "bunny" so a bunny I was. They actually had ears and tail already in their dress up stuff so that was easy.

this was the first year they have gone trick or treating. we usually stay home and hand out candy since we normally take them to Schneph farms, of the Halloween events they have at church. But there aren't many kids that do trick or treating around here so we went to ASU family Trunk or Treat to do our trick or treating and then went to a neighborhood to look at haunted houses which the twins wanted nothing to do with it but Ridge had a blast. 

one blog done.... way to many to catch up on!