How to do Montessori when you're a slob!

This post expands on some thought from the previous post.

I am a terrible housekeeper.  I hate it.  I don't see the clutter until it gets to an absurd level or someone is coming over.  I'm not a hoarder but when I see those hoarder houses on TV, I think that is what I am always struggling against, that I could so easily become that person!  I always feel like I have my finger in the dike so to speak, holding back the flood of disorganization, but at any moment the wall will break!  And I hate cleaning.  I'm terrible at it too.  I never seem to do it as well as others.  I'm so slow!  I think maybe I'm allergic to dust because cleaning actually gives me a headache and I often get all woozy feeling.  I'm really clumsy and I can't tell you how many times I've banged my head or slipped and fallen or tripped over the vacuum cord, etc.  LOL.  I am so weird.  I've never heard anyone talk about this kind of reaction.  I was raised in a strict household and my mother kept our house of 10 kids in order.  When I moved out I fell apart.  I think it is one of the ways my ADD manifests itself.

Anyway, I do the bare minimum and for many, many years I've been in survival/maintenance mode.  But then I get into jags where there's something bugging me or I've been inspired and I'll go after it like crazy.  For example, the rest of the house will be crazy but my dresser drawers will be organized.  For many years I had have a cleaning service come in twice a month to deep clean things. I tend to do a lot of spot cleaning as I go, and putting on a timer and racing around trying to get some specific task done.  Or if I am entertaining, I'll clean for that.  Literally if I plan to have people over, I will have to plan a week in advance on how to get the place looking decent; at least the part of the house they will see.  This might be part of the reason I've become more and more introverted over the years.  LOL.

So if you are as disorganized as I am, setting up a classroom type Montessori system is nigh impossible.  I remember going over to another homeschooling mom's house years ago and she had an extra room that looked exactly like a Montessori classroom, so pristine and beautiful.  But it was an extra room that her kids actually weren't allowed to go in when 'school' hours were over.  I could never in a million years manage something like that.

I noodled this quandary around in my head for about a year and then fell into my own approach.  The most lived in section of our house is the combo kitchen-family room.  So that's the area I most concentrate on for maintenance cleaning.  But because it is constantly lived in, basically it is just trying to keep chaos at bay so that the space is usable.  However, since I could more or less keep chaos to a low roar in this area, that's where I set things up.

Different elements of my 'preschool' set up:

• In one corner of our family room we had a little toy kitchen set and a little kids table with two chairs.  From about 18 mos or maybe even younger to about age 4, they loved to play in their kitchen.  I can't tell you how many cups of pretend coffee I have been given by my children.  They would pretend to cook, have little tea parties for stuffed animals and each other, play restaurant, etc.  Sometimes it would go through periods of disuse but then at some point they would begin to play there again.  It was a most satisfying little play center for them.

• An easel, which got moved around.  Sometimes I moved it right by the kitchen table so I could show my kids something I was talking about to them.  Sometimes it was set off in a corner where the kids could draw or write on it for themselves.  I kept the markers and chalk up on top of the fridge when I had toddlers who might decide to decorate the walls.  Older kids could ask for the markers and then I'd keep tabs on them.  I was fairly diligent about it.  I think we only had a few minor mishaps that way.  (Though the wall up in one of the bedrooms became a sort of mural that we had to eventually paint over!).

• Two baskets under the coffee table:  one had activity books and library books.  The other had blocks - lots of various wooden blocks and also little wooden farm animals and fences, etc.

• On the end of our kitchen counter we had our rather informal math learning station.

• I would set out two Montessori trays each morning.  The sensorial one would go on top of the coffee table.  The other one would go usually on the kitchen table and was either a messier activity or food related.

• The front hall which is just off the family room had the biggest space to put out a floor puzzle.  I had about three big puzzles or maybe four I would rotate through.  One was Moses in the bulrushes.  One was the solar system.  One was of the earth, with kids from different countries ringing it in a circle.  I'm pretty sure I had one of the alphabet too, though my memory is hazy on that one.  I also seem to recall one with jungle animals. 

• Sometimes, though, instead of putting out a puzzle there,  I would put out a big bowl of dried beans and lots of dishes and cups and scoops or shovels.  It was almost like playing in a mini sandbox.  The kids would scoop and pour and when it got too messy I could quickly sweep it up (or they would sweep with a little hand broom and dustpan).  I didn't really care about random dried beans occasionally escaping.  Sooner or later they got swept or vacuumed up. (IMPORTANT NOTE!  Don't put out beans until your children having gotten past the point of putting them up their noses.  Ask me how I know this!!!)

As I said in the last post, In the mornings I would be the first to rise.  I would come downstairs to have my coffee and quiet time before the kids got up.  During this time I would set up the two trays.  The kids would wander down and begin to play.  The older kids would eventually be called to the table for breakfast.  Everyone would eat and I would do my reading aloud.  Then we'd do copy work, with the littlest ones drifting off to play again while the older ones remained at the table. About mid-morning I would pack up the trays and the puzzle/bean bowl.  Here's the thing. The dishes would often wait until it was time to cook dinner and then I'd realize oh darn I can't even get to the sink!  But for some reason I would remember to clean up the trays and put them back on their shelves. 

Anyway, I just want to give reassurance to moms like me.  In this era of pinterest and Marie Kondo where there is so much pride in having gorgeous, well appointed homes where the minutest detail has been thought through (or so it seems), perfection can really be the enemy of the good.  Our society isn't really home friendly.  It's a place where we display our consumption and 'express' ourselves.  Though I personally think 'expressing' ourselves is overdone because everybody seems to get on the same bandwagon of 'granite counter tops' or having this fad or that fad in their house.  Every home has to be 'open concept' or some such thing.  So much for individual expression!   In this day and age of most homes being empty most of the time while parents go off to work and kids go off to daycare and school, it isn't really a place of living and learning, so much as a place to collapse at night and entertain oneself as a distraction.  That's probably overly cynical, but I myself, being a homemaker who wasn't so good at the pinterest/HGTV aspect of it, always felt defeated in that realm of my life.  What I did enjoy though was being able to be with my children and watch them grow, explore and discover the world.  That was the thing that counted more than anything for me.  I look around my cluttery home and say:  People LIVE here.  Praise God!