If you’ve been following along on Instagram, you know that this Most Important Shelf has gone through many variations of names [including (jokingly)(mostly…) Basic Human Decency Shelf, I Shouldn’t Even Have  To Make This Shelf, Let’s Move to Canada Shelf, What the @&!$ Shelf, and Can We All Just Love Each Other Shelf].  I’ve finally settled on World Peace Shelf, because that’s what we need today.

I don’t know where all of you are from, dear readers, but over here in America, things are not going well.  Discrimination veiled as constitutional rights, national security, and self-protection means that people must fear for their lives because of who they are, what they look like, or what they believe.  Ridiculous, cruel comments are being said as if they are completely normal and justified.  There is good in this world, but lately it feels like a very hateful place.

Racism (and every other form of discrimination) develops because of a fear of the unknown.  In our house, there will be no unknown.  We will learn everything we can about people who are different than us, so we can  build bridges instead of walls.  We will be the good we wish to see in the world, so that our children grow up with peace and love in their hearts.

I hope you will join us.

“If hope and salvation are to come, they can only come from the children, for the children are the makers of men.”  ~Maria Montessori

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The “What’s On Our World Peace Shelf” series will run for the next seven days to focus on each of the works I have selected for our shelf.  I would like to extend a special thank you to the following Etsy shops for collaborating with me on this project:  Margaux Makes, Happy Place Art, Tanglewood Hollow, & Mindful Teaching.  Please check back each day to find out what activities we have put together to teach World Peace.

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To begin, I have a few items that I picked up at Target as a simple way for us to begin discussing the fact that there are other places in the world.

 

The first object on our World Peace Shelf is a globe.  It’s not a Montessori globe, it’s just a regular globe that I already had as decoration.  I put a star on our location so L can always find it.  We use this globe as a point of reference for all of the other works on the shelf as we discuss where other places are and who lives there.

This is a quick activity I put together from the Target bargain bins — I picked up a pack of their flag flashcards for just a dollar!  There are a lot of cards in there, so I decided to break it up by continent.  We are starting with North America, since that is where we live.  I put all of the flags of North America in a bowl and printed a map of North America for reference.  L is only two and a half, so at this point, we are mainly using the cards to talk about the shapes and colors on all of the flags.  This also brings up that discussion point of:  “Not everyone lives in America!”

Come back tomorrow for a cute work I found that also helps develop size discrimination and ordering skills!

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