itsy-bitsy-spider

I've been blogging in French, since we live in France, buy our art supplies in French stores, and need to network primarily with other French homeschoolers and Montessori fans - the few there are!

I had originally hoped this would be a common effort with someone else interested, but that didn't work out and I've taken the plunge alone. Since I don't feel I can manage speed-materials-making and learning myself how to do presentations, and learning how to manage my son's activities all at the same time, I'm waiting to get a critical mass of things together before we start. That'll probably be late October or early November. I guess my posts will get fewer and farther between then.

I'm doing this now because it seems inevitable that I'll eventually have to integrate a bit of English to make our blog accessible to family and friends and the occasional English speaking visitor off a forum I've posted on. It's not that I don't want to, it's just that doing everything twice is so time consuming! So I've decided that I'll just put a little summary in English at the top of each article. I've now done this retroactively on all my posts over the last two weeks of this blog's life. Your added perk being a non-French speaker is that you will be spared my pages-long meanderings J

I'm American, my husband is French, we live in the South of France in a fairly rural area but 40 min from a Big Smoke, major airport, an Ikea, etc. Our little boy turned three this summer.

In France, public education is free from 3 years old, in some "sensitive"(read lots of immigrants or difficult social conditions, closed factories...) areas from 2. And generally, people use it, even non-working or unemployed parents. I saw figures somewhere (haven't checked them, don't quote me on this) that between 2 and 3 % of three year olds are not enrolled at least half-time in an official school, and only 1 percent of 4 yr olds.

So there is a lot of social pressure to put your kids in school, everyone just assumes you will. And of course, I'm not living in a big cosmopolitan city, so my business is -well - everyone's! 
I think the bottom line is, the French school system later on is so high pressure-to-perform, that parents are worried that if their kids miss out on something they won't make the grade later on. A secondary explanation is the French people's great obsession with qualification. There is a grass roots belief here that if you are not born into a profession or have at least a two year degree in it, that you aren't and won't be competent to exercise it. This is confirmed in one's jobhunting, where only the training you've had in the company's specific expertise is relevant, a 4 or more year college degree in another field doesn't even give you a C for effort or proof of maturity with recruters. Preschool teaching is considered a profession just as University teaching is, and people naturally and unquestioningly delegate it to someone who is more qualified. 
 

I started this blog, right from the beginning with material making that I explain in some detail, since we don't yet have as many blogs and idea resources in French. An important thing to add is that ready-made materials are much much higher here. Home improvement and crafts supplies are also higher cost, and easy-to-follow how-to books like the one I use just don't exist yet in French. There's one but I think it's much more about general theory and setting up your household environment. Typically somebody here interested in Montessori will read the absorbent mind and then shell out big bux for training since that's about the only way to get detailed information. Then there's no budget left for material. There are quite a few people here doing an awful lot with awfully little.
My main structure is Gettman's Basic Montessori but I've collected ideas and pictures of material for a while off professional vendor's sites and English speakers' blogs. If you see an idea here that was yours, post me and I'll give you credit! In the unlikely event that you see something you like and would like a how-to in English, ditto.