How do you keep their interest?

[Sarahsmommy1008]

My plans to follow a curriculum are falling through, so I've been looking online for something else and stumbled across a Montessori blog post linkup.  There are a lot of activities listed that I think will be helpful for DD. 

For example:  transferring pompoms/beads using tongs/spoons.  After a minute or two, DD gets frustrated using the tongs/spoons (I've given her a couple to choose from) and ends up having more fun just dumping them everywhere and gets bored.  If I am going to invest in buying the beads, pompoms, tongs, etc.  I want her to spend more than 2-3 minutes playing with it.  I can see her having the same issue with sorting/stacking, patterns.

So how do you keep them interested?

[metooo]

Few thoughts...First off how old is your DD?  The younger the child the shorter the attention span. Working on developing attention span is actually one of my main goals of preschool.  It's something that takes time and practice.  Anyway I find with my kids most of the time when they aren't interested in something it's either because it's to hard, to easy, or to confusing for them. It sounds like it might have been a bit hard for her. If you are interested in the Montessori method there are several good books about it. I think one was Montessori in the home..... or  something like that......

I have sort of used a montessori method with my youngest child(although, I did encourage a lot of montessori ideas with my older kids too). We started last year when she was about 20 months. It's like montessori meets playschool lol. Anyway, one of the big things I do is give her choice. I set out several different things but she gets to pick and choose what she will do and how long she will work. I  pay close  attention to what she is choosing, how long she is working, whether it seems challenging etc.  

We start very simple and slowly extend activities.  For instance we started doing transfer activities with one bowl with beans, one spoon, and one empty bowl. This was enough for her at the time. Then we moves to using colored "gem" stones, then we did two different colored gems and two different colored bowls to match them too, then two different colored gems with plain glass bowls to sort them into.I just started giving her tongs or tweezers instead of a spoon. The first time i gave her tweezers we went right back to just two bowls no sorting. It's all very gradual. 

Another thing I do is pay attention to presentation. I try to make it pretty, use real items (glass bowls, pretty cups etc.). It's also important to remember why you are doing something. Like with pouring activities we started with rice and very small pitchers, in the next  few months she should be graduated to pouring her own drinks and at that time I won't give her that work anymore.  

I personally do not require her to use the materials I set out they way I planed them to be used(this is not Montessori at all lol). I don't however let her misuse things, dumping everywhere would not be ok with me. lol   I try to work with her interests too. Last year we did a lot of montessorish things. This year she seems to be very into dramatic play so I might end up doing more of those type of activities with her instead.  If they are bored there is usually a developmental reason...  

As far as budget I really did not spend very much. I would say under 15$. I did however, have quite a big stash of art/craft supplies already.  I bought metal cookie sheets and dish pans from the dollar store (about 5-6$ total) to put out activities on, a cute cup/pitcher from goodwill for 1$, some tongs, funnels, and scoops from the dollar store....Pretty much everything else I use I already owned. 

Blog here's a blog I just  started. I haven't put any post from what we did last year on there, but it still should give you an idea on how we do it and the types of things I put out. She spends anywhere from 15 minutes to one hour working. I like to see her spend 40-60 mins working but some days she just isn't that interested. :) 

[nkpmsjb]

Lots and lots of praise, stopping when it becomes too frustrating.  A lot of times with my son I have to work up to developing an interest for an activity.  We'll do it for a couple of minutes at first, and because he doesn't understand/ doesn't have the motor skills, he gets very frustrated, so we stop and try again the next day.  Let me tell you what a difference a day makes, he is usually better at it after a good sleep.  When he succeeds I praise him like crazy, and as he goes I tell him how good he is at it.  Eventually he is begging to do it.

If that doesn't work I'll bribe him, I'll tell him I will let him do (instert a more appealing activity) if he just tries to sit down and do it.

[Jesca4u]

that's why I don't follow a set curriculum, we just go with the flow.  I ask my daughter what she feels like doing in the morning, math, reading, spelling, writing, workbooks, etc and just go with it.  If she gets frustrated we move onto something else to keep it fun for her.  I always save the last 30 mins for starfall.com.

[utkallie]

I have found that when my DD becomes uninterested, then she's either past that skill or it's so far over her head that it just frustrates her to even try. We're very go with the flow. I hardly ever have a set plan for what we will do each day!