Dear Friends and Family,
As I write this newsletter I am preparing for a tour in Umbria that begins in Montefalco, the birthplace of Adele Costa Gnocchi. It is for Australian teachers who wish to know more about Montessori and her educational methods. We will be very near the places where Saint Francis lived his life and the 800th anniversary of his passing is on October 4, 2026. For this occasion I wish to share with you the first letter from the Epistolario of letters between Adele Costa Gnocchi and her dearest life-long friend Marianna Antonelli. On May 10, 1900 at the age of 17 she wrote:
My dear Marianna
....if you could only see how beautiful these spring days are here in Montefalco. How true it is that nature is so splendid right now. The countryside draws itself out in such a way that it will remain enchanting for a long time. While, it must be said, Montefalco can rightly be called a paradise on Earth ... the sky, so golden, the landscape, so full of flowers ...
Without realizing it, I spoke in the plural. But I believe that here very few will feel this way, very few will feel such a throbbing adoration for this beauty. These are my impressions, that often I feel the need to share with others... but... with whom... you are not here Marianna. This feeling, this need to share our impressions, perhaps it is the need to give others the chance to enjoy them too, that which, I don't know, that which… is indefinable, that sensation one feels, in front of the beauty of nature. Saint Francis felt it too. He who found a source of emotion in every direction. He would have helped others feel moved and enchanted and fascinated, after being moved and enraptured by nature himself.
We have been very busy putting the final touches on a new Retreat Center and soon we will be able to host a Newborn retreat in Italy and honor the woman who devoted her life to furthering the newborn work on behalf of her teacher, Maria Montessori.
In May 2027 The Retreat Center Decontra will open its doors and host a deep dive into Montessori and Costa Gnocchi’s teachings on the newborn child in the first three months.
If you are interested in learning more about the May 2027 Newborn Retreat in Italy you can express your interest here Link and you will be the first to receive an invitation to participate.
The Retreat Center Decontra is located in Maiella National Park in Italy, in Abruzzo. It is the perfect place to slow down and cultivate the ability to sense and listen to the littlest ones who Montessori called i piccolini.
i piccolini are ‘the littlest ones’
It is so exciting to finally be able to share, in person, in a very peaceful environment, all that I have learned from 16 years of research in Italy on the history and practice of the direct teachings of Adele Costa Gnocchi through her student Grazia Honegger Fresco, also a direct student of Maria Montessori’s.
A pre-requisite for the newborn retreat is THE BASIC NEEDS OF BABIES COURSE. We gather together online every three weeks and the workshops are accompanied by an online prepared environment that is our “classroom” where we can explore different topics, such as THE NEUROSCIENCE OF CONNECTION. There is also the Basic Needs of Babies self-study which uses the same prepared environment but does not have an in person component.
The Basic Needs of Babies 2027 course & workshop is open now for registration at the Montessori For Life School. It will be held online from January 26 to August 31, 2027.
Early Bird pricing ends October 6, 2026
Workshops are held at 7 PM South African Standard Time which does not have daylight savings
WORKSHOPS
2 February 2027: Introduction and Orientation (2 hours)
23 February: The Spiritual Embryo (1.5 hours)
16 March: Preparing the Observation Environment (1.5 hours)
6 April: Pioneers in Birth and Birthing (1.5 hours)
4 May: The Basic Needs of a Mother and Newborn (1.5 hours)
25 May: Newborn Behavioral Observation (1.5 hours)
15 June: The Neuroscience of Connection (1.5 hours)
29 June: Final Projects: Planning (1.5 hours)
31 August: Presentation of the Final Projects (2 hours)
If you wish to join the WAITING LIST for Basic Needs of Babies and be notified about future courses - follow the link. You will be the first to know when a new cycle opens.
The Basic Needs of Babies online course and workshop is designed for 0-3 educators, parents-to-be and for parents, for curious grandparents, for health care workers and for midwives, doulas and birth attendants.
The intention of this offering is to explore the basic needs of newborns, infants and the youngest children.
The workshops offer a space for the spiritual preparation of the adult and the inner work that we must do to prepare ourselves to greet the child, which is the most important “education” we can have. In this shared space we learn to listen to babies. What are they asking of us?
This course is an opportunity to slow down, become more attuned with ourselves and as a result become more aligned with the basic needs of the newborn.
What do we need to know about the newborn child?
Why should we protect babies?
What is the ‘cosmic task’ of the youngest humans?
What are their basic needs?
Ruth Ehrhardt and I have collaborated to create this course. She is a South African traditional midwife and birth attendant, educator, author, and founder of True Midwifery and mother of four home-birthed children. She is the author of The Basic Needs of a Woman in Labour, which has been translated into more than sixteen languages and is read by birth attendants and families around the world. Born into a family of midwives (her mother, grandmother, and aunt all attended births) Ruth's work is rooted in a living tradition that honours birth as a physiological, relational, and deeply human experience. In 2013 she completed the North American Registry of Midwives' Certified Professional Midwife (CPM) programme through the African pilot programme, an apprenticeship-based model that continues to inform her teaching. Ruth has an innate trust in birth, women's bodies, and babies' intelligence. Through her teaching, writing, and educational programmes, she focuses on protecting the conditions that allow physiological birth to unfold, rather than guiding or managing the birthing process. Today her work centres primarily on education through online courses, mentorship, study spirals, and retreats, supporting birth attendants, doulas, midwives, and families around the world.
I have been researching the history of birth to three Montessori in Italy since 2008. Before this, I studied with Dr. Silvana Montanaro and Maria Teresa Vidales (Cha Cha), obtaining an AMI 0-3 diploma in 2004. In 2012 I took a course with Grazia Honegger Fresco (1929-2020). It was her final 0-3 course. Grazia was in the first 0-3 course in 1948/49 and then studied with Maria Montessori in the final Italian 3-6 course in 1951. I moved to Italy in 2016 where I then offered a Montessori 0-6 months course to nurse midwives working in public healthcare. I am fortunate to continue to work with two of Adele Costa Gnocchi's students who attended the original 0-3 course in Rome in the 1960s and who worked for many many many years with newborns and mothers. Please visit www.montessori-for-life.org to learn more.
Pace e Bene,
Karin Slabaugh
