A simple way to make your home more child-friendly and engaging is to display your child’s Montessori artwork at their eye level, rather than just at adult height. When their Montessori artwork is placed where they can easily see and appreciate it, it encourages curiosity, sparks questions, inspires creativity, and invites them to create their masterpieces. How to hang artwork for your child: Figure out your child’s eye level! Have them stand against the wall and measure. Find the appropriate place. Kneel to their level and look around the room for a good spot to hang the art, such as next to their bed, in the living room, or wherever they like to play. Choose some art! Art is everywhere–you can make or buy online prints of famous works, make copies of illustrations from their favourite books, frame old postcards, or make art from pressed flowers found around Singapore. Get your child involved in the process of choosing, too, their choices may surprise you! As they grow, the Montessori artwork should too! We suggest using 3M strips or other easily removable hanging materials so as your child grows, you can change their Montessori artwork in the frames and adjust the height. Montessori Tips: Art is everywhere, and the levels of engagement are endless: you can ask your child about the image, introduce new vocabulary through the artwork, and challenge them to make their own art! But you can also hang it and walk away– the biggest reason we hang art for our children is to beautify their space and to allow them to quietly enjoy it

This month we have a simple craft to keep those little hands busy over the Lunar New Year holiday: making hong baos, or red packets. Maybe your child won’t be filling their hong bao with money to give away this new year, but they will enjoy creating their own decorative envelope to store other treasures. How to: You can help your child to print the template and provide them with scissors, glue or tape, and crayons or markers to decorate. For younger children, you can help guide them to fold along the lines and apply the glue. For older children you may consider letting them try to make their own hong bao without the template after they successfully make it once with the template for an extra creative challenge. Here is an option for the template. Montessori tips: Montessori work relies on clear workspaces. Instead of providing all the materials at once, build the hong bao in stages and clean up in between the cutting, gluing and decorating. Conversation starter ideas: Hong bao are usually red colored for good luck in Chinese culture, do you have a favorite or lucky color? Hong baos are usually given as gifts in the new year, what would you want to give a friend for the new year? And finally, if you don’t speak Mandarin, this is a chance to learn some with your children. Here is a link for learning how to say Happy New Year!