The Montessori Inspired Home: The Dining Space

As I searched through photos to begin this post, I realized there are almost no pictures of our dining area! The reason is that during shared meals, we almost never have our phones and cameras nearby. Ample studies show the benefits of families sitting down together to share mealtimes. In today's world, this is a rarity. Some families aim to share one meal a day, some maybe once a week. Everyone has busy schedules and when you throw particular eaters into the mix and tired toddlers, sometimes by the hour that dinnertime rolls around, all of our emotions are on high as our energy dwindles to an all-time low. 

No, mealtimes at our table don't quite look like the ones portrayed on television. Before I had children, I promised I'd never become a short order cook. The family meal would be the family's meal! Now I see why my mother often made two or three different dinners each night before sitting down to eat her own. To keep the peace. And at the end of a long day of play and work, peace is one thing in high demand here. Many times, S eats the bulk of his dinner before dinner time. He may taste some of the family's dinner, he may just sit with us and eat foods he does like or he may just play in the living room. When you are three, there is a high desire to control the world around you and few things in the world that are set up for three-year-olds to control. As such, food becomes a high area of control for toddlers. We do what we know: we involve S in meal preparations and making appropriate choices (from which dishes to use to which foods to eat). We involve him in our shopping and menu planning and even in gardening and growing some of the produce we eat. We do what we can to ensure he has adequate nutrition and opportunities to try new foods often and repeatedly. And beyond that, we [try] to relax and step back and breathe. I am a fully recovered picky eater--I wish I could be a little pickier about what I eat these days!

Today happens to be Tisha b'Av--a fast day for us adults. S and Y are the only folks eating and drinking around here, so making some simple adjustments and additions to our dining space in advance will surely have come in useful today! For the sake of this post, the Dining Space incorporates both the areas of our kitchen where we cook and prepare meals as well as the areas where we eat. Setting up a kosher kitchen in a small living space means that our "kitchen" genuinely extends beyond that room itself. Additionally, the Dining Space incorporates all of the activities of preparing food to eat, actually eating it and cleaning up afterward. I've written before on involving kids in the kitchen and cooking activities. For the sake of brevity, I won't go into a lot of those ideas in this post, but I will surely continue to post on the subject in the future. Without further ado, here's a peek at some of the ways we have set up our Dining Space to be family accessible and Montessori inspired:

• The dining space is a place where meals are shared and families connect. It is also an opportunity for children to learn about nutrition and health, how to carry out a conversation, how to exchange the pleasantries and social graces of sharing meals together and, on special occasions, how to welcome guests. It is also a place that is integral to learning about family and religious traditions. With the exception of days like Tisha b'Av, many Jewish holidays are centered around shared foods and stories!

• The table is a place where meals are shared as well as one where activities and work are done. Having a table that accommodates the whole family at each age and stage is a must for our home. Some folks like to use high chairs to assist smaller children in sharing a space at the family table. We have always preferred ones that allow for S to be right up at the table with us and favor the wooden restaurant style in our home. It is also quite nice to have tables and chairs that are at child level for eating and for working at. We have a little table and chairs where S does eat most of his daytime meals and snacks. We tend to eat our dinners all together at the family table.

Sometimes kitchen work is done right at the family table, like on Make Your Own Pizza Night! We picked fresh tomatoes from our garden and prepped a variety of other toppings along with homemade pizza dough. Two out of three solid-food consuming family members even Ate Their Own Pizzas that night--and S tried a few bites of his.

Learning how to use a serving spoon and serving dish is an important skill. Offering opportunities to practice this helps instruct children not only on the motor skills associated with successfully transferring items from a bowl to their plate, but also teaches about portion control and sharing a community meal with family members and/or guests.

•  The kitchen is a space where meals are prepared and food is stored. It is a small and busy space in our house. It is not necessarily accessible for children (or even adults) in and of itself, so we make creative solutions to challenges within the space. It is an integral room for teaching about the laws of kashrut and also for learning about food preparation, safety with knives and ovens and stoves, cleanliness and safety with food and more!

In the kitchen, a step stool allows shorter family members to join in the process of cooking and baking and even washing produce or dishes. S almost always wants to use his step stool to join in--even if it's just to watch what we're doing as we cook. S knows which side of our kosher kitchen is for Meat and which side is for Dairy. On his own, he taught himself how to clear dishes from the table and place them in the proper bin for washing! This was a helpful reminder for me that he is ready for more responsibilities within our dining space and meal times.

Kids love to be in the kitchen with us! In an ideal world, I'd always have some sort of kitchen work set up and available for S to do while I'm cooking. In the real world, this is not the case. Rather, having an open door policy (where S can easily enter and leave the kitchen at his will) and having something out for him to play with while we're in there is a great way to compromise within this space. I love having our sensory table in the kitchen. It means that S can be close by while I'm cooking or tending to laundry in there. It also is an easy-to-clean space and floor so that he can easily tend to his own spills when they happen with help from us as needed.

Children love to imitate adult activities. Part of setting up our home to include children in adult activities is making "adult activities" accessible to the children. Another part is offering dramatic play opportunities to pretend about adult activities, like working in a kitchen, taking care of babies, and pretending to go to work or to the store. Many times when we are cooking in the kitchen or preparing meals, S will busy himself with work in his own kitchen area!

We recently added a small set of plastic drawers to our dining area by the kids' table to store a selection of dishes and materials S might need for meal and snack times. Color coded drawers help him remember what goes where. Labels will be added in the future to incorporate a print-rich environment, even though he is a pre-reader at this point. I don't keep all of the kids' dishes in the drawers, but rather a small selection so that S can choose his favorite color bowl or cup without the constant kitchen cabinet battle we used to have! The child-level shelf on top also creates the perfect space for some self-care items like tissues and wipes (and at some point I will include a mirror for being able to see the yogurt all over his face that needs to be wiped off!). It's also a great space for a spray bottle and washcloth for tending to tabletop spills.

S associates blue with "dairy" so the dairy dishes are kept in the blue drawer.

S associates red with "meat" and we keep the meat dishes in the red drawer. Labels are useful in the absence of color coding and gentle lessons and reminders are also helpful. When teaching children about keeping a kosher home, it's important to instruct and remind, but not to be harsh. Mistakes happen even with the adults in the home and we want keeping kosher to be a mitzvah our children are eager to keep and not fearful of.

Not surprisingly, S's favorite new addition has been the spray bottle of homemade cleaner and the washrag! I simply filled a plastic spray bottle with water, a squirt of dish soap and a drop of lavender oil. You can alternatively use a bit of castile soap, choose a scent you prefer, or just plain water. Providing a variety of cleaning tools like sponges or scrub brushes can also introduce new practical life-skills. I prefer to have only one tool out at a time for now and to rotate it. S got really into cleaning his table and was desperate for more things to clean--his chairs are super clean now, too! The fact of the matter is that spills happen and rather than being frustrated about them or cleaning them up myself each day, we've created a setting where S has more ownership and responsibility within our shared space.

Almost all public places are equipped with a water fountain at child level. Schools have sinks at child level. And yet, our homes have sinks that are too high to reach and getting water means needing an adult to help or a step stool to reach the sink. Additionally, at least for me if I don't have a water cup or bottle right next to me, I often forget to hydrate. Proper hydration is so important during the heat of the summer and all year round. We bought a set of small glass pitchers to fill with water for S to pour into a cup and drink from throughout the day. Glass with a three year old, you ask? Yes! Children can (and should) be taught how to handle materials that are fragile. Our preschool uses these pitchers as well even in their two year old classrooms. Given information about how to handle them safely, children tend to be very respectful and cautious with "real" materials like glass. That said, each parent is the expert on his/her child and you know if your child is not ready for glass. Plastic pitchers would be just as useful to practice with! And as with any learning opportunity, proper supervision is a definite must. Practicing pouring and liquid portion control are skills that are mastered in this setup. Knowing also that spills may occur, it can be a helpful reminder to keep a dry washrag out so your little ones can tend to overflows as they occur.

If you happen to be fasting today, I hope this post has not left you too hungry or thirsty and that your fast is easy and meaningful. We'll be back soon with more views into our Montessori inspired home and a fun story stretcher as well. Until then, happy playing!