Montessori Curriculum
What is Montessori Education?
The Montessori Method is an approach to learning that recognizes a child’s capacity to explore and absorb the world around them. The prepared classroom environment encourages self-directed learning that promotes self-confidence, independent thought and action, and critical thinking skills while fostering social-emotional and intellectual growth.
In a Montessori classroom, the child, the environment, and the teacher create a learning triangle. Everything from the furniture to the materials is sized and arranged to encourage independence even in the youngest child.
Each Montessori classroom has children of mixed ages (2.9-6 years old). The younger children learn by observing their older peers, while older children take on the leadership role and become role models to the younger children.
The children stay with the same teacher throughout their preschool and kindergarten years. This practice allows the child to become well acquainted with the environment and the teacher to plan individualized lesson plans based on each child’s unique interests and abilities.
In addition to setting up a rich and engaging environment, a trained Montessori teacher utilizes her observational skills to guide each student in her care. Closely observing each child enables her to prepare individual and small group lessons, and create a nurturing environment that supports the development of a whole child; mind; body, and soul. Observations also help the teacher determine when to stand back or when to offer help, when to let mistakes play out, when to encourage, and when to help settle disagreements or let children resolve conflicts themselves.
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Exercises of Practical Life
Children are fascinated by daily life activities, and they want to increase their independence and physical skill. A Montessori classroom provides a range of activities, from pouring, dishwashing, chopping, fixing snacks, and washing a baby — all arranged to allow children to work independently and repeatedly to increase their fine and gross motor skills. The pleasure of concentration that a child experiences while learning to pour without spilling or sweeping, or arranging flowers is the foundation of a love of learning.
Sensorial Materials
Sensorial materials help develop the child’s five senses. They allow children to sort things by size, shape, color, touch, sound, temperature, and weight. For instance, they can grade materials from dark to light and large to small. Montessori sensorial materials teach children to classify their sensorial impressions in an organized, orderly, and scientific manner.
An example of Sensorial Materials is Cylinder Blocks, which provide the first stage of experiences in visual discrimination of size; there are four types of Cylinder Blocks for the child to arrange; varying in one, two, or three dimensions. The work is self-correcting and promotes independence in the child’s work.
Language Materials
The first step in developing language skills is learning to hear individual sounds and see and feel their shapes. This makes it possible for a child to put those sounds together to make words. The idea is that making words of your own comes first—reading another’s words will follow. Reading activities start with short vowel words; long vowel sounds, double vowels, silent ‘e’ and other idiosyncrasies of English spelling and pronunciation follow. Writing and reading can be parallel processes. A child may be confidently reading “dog” and “sun” and writing Ire and “Ifnt”, but would not yet be reading “giraffe” and “elephant”. Eventually writing the snack list or a page for the Daily News becomes a natural part of daily life, as does reading books for practice and pleasure.
Mathematics Materials
With the mathematical apparatus, every piece of material isolates one concept and these isolated concepts integrate to form the basis for further development of the child’s mathematical understanding. The first activities introduce counting and the quantities and names for the numbers 1 to 10. A child can use a variety of materials that represent numbers as quantities and sizes: putting apples on trees or grading segmented rods. Later the child is presented with addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division using single numbers and using units, tens, hundreds, and thousands. They can literally carry and borrow and change the quantities involved. As they put them together and take them apart, they perceive and internalize the interplay of the numbers. This allows them to work with increasingly abstract concepts and gives a foundation for memorization which comes later. “I just did it in my head.” Science & Nature At King’s Wood we aim to bring to life a child’s inherent curiosity about the natural world. Science and nature study materials are always available, and they change throughout the year. There may be activities focused on the qualities of water, magnets or electricity. We may study weather, bodies; ocean animals, birds, trees, and each year we hatch eggs and butterflies.
Geography & Cultural Studies
The geography activities include materials representing the earth’s physical qualities—land, water, mountains; valleys; forests; deserts—and its man-made divisions —countries, states; distinctive places; and ways of daily life. Each class also chooses a particular country to focus on for part of the year. They try the food, try on clothes from that region, learn new songs and dances, read stories, and play games of their chosen country.
Art & Music
Art and music are an integral part of the life of the class. Materials for “making things”—paints, markers; paper; scissors, glue; wood, and tools—are always available and always in use. While teachers may suggest some activities, children often spark each other’s interests. Teachers often highlight a particular artist whose work is engaging to children. There are musical activities for the whole group each day—singing, moving freely to music; dancing with specific moves; using rhythm instruments—and celebrations always include music. We encourage you to come and visit our classroom and watch our classes in progress.
Who is Maria Montessori?
Born in 1870, Maria Montessori was an Italian physician, educator, and philosopher who became an innovative force for educational reform during her lifetime. She was the first woman in Italy to graduate from medical school and continue her education studies. While treating children at the University of Rome hospital, Dr. Montessori studied children deemed to have mental deficiencies. With intensive observation and experimentation, she developed methods that challenged the belief of the day that these children were incapable of being taught. She used her observations to develop a teaching method suited to children of all abilities.
Dr. Montessori offered a solution when the city of Rome was grappling with the problem of under-school-age children in the city’s new housing projects being left unsupervised by their working parents and generating disturbances in the neighborhood. In January 1907, she opened the first Casa dei Bambini. The improved behavior and the academic feats of these children were praised in the press as “miracles.” Her first book, The Discovery of the Child, was published in 1909, and she continued to write, train teachers, open schools, and advocate for education that reflected a child’s learning style until her death in 1952. In the 100 years since the first Children’s House, millions of children worldwide have been educated using Maria Montessori’s insights and methods.
The Montessori Classroom
Maria Montessori believed that children and adults learn differently. Children can absorb information and the details of the culture they live in. Think of how they learn to speak their native language, learn songs, move to music, or imitate the tone of someone’s voice.
Dr. Montessori believed that children have a different approach to work. A grown-up may scrub a table because it is dirty, but children clean a table for the experience of washing a table, making swirls with the soapy water, taking the soap off with a sponge, squeezing the sponge, drying the table, emptying the soapy water, hanging the wet towels, putting everything away ready for the next person, and then doing it again.
When children are given the freedom to follow their curiosity and choose their work, they happily repeat activities and become efficient with each repetition. They can focus their attention and energy on everything from pouring into a funnel to buttoning a sweater, sorting colors, and counting beads for units, tens, hundreds, and thousands. The experience of concentration makes learning a pleasure. When children are pleased and satisfied with their work, they are adaptable and cooperative.
To support “the utilization of the inner powers of the child for his own instruction, “Montessori described a Prepared Environment where children can choose activities and materials that develop their intellectual and physical skills and allows them to grow as a friend and member of the community.
The Prepared Enviornment
The room and the materials, the children, and the teacher are all part of the experience. The environment should be organized and beautiful — a comfortable, engaging place for children and teachers.
The layout and the furnishings in a Montessori classroom, including the sinks and bathroom, are child-size to allow even the youngest children to be independent — taking care of themselves and the room.
The materials and activities in the environment are designed so that, after an initial lesson, a child can choose to work alone. Many of the materials are self-correcting. If the graduated cylinders are not placed correctly, there will be an empty space at the end. If the number rods are not counted accurately, the last rod and its number won’t match. Children can work out the problem independently, thus developing critical thinking skills in the process.
The materials are organized into categories: Practical Life, Sensorial, Art, Music, Geography, Number Work, Writing, and Reading. Science and Nature activities are also available and vary during the course of the year.
Each class has children of mixed ages – from 2 years 9 months to 6 years old. The new children can learn by watching older children, while older children can teach and be models for the younger children. The children will always be at different stages of maturity and composure, allowing everyone to experience the give and take of life in a diverse group. Children stay with the same teacher for at least three years. They not only get to know each other, but each child also gets to experience the cycle which will play out throughout their lives:
- Being new and vulnerable but curious about the work and the other children.
- Being comfortable with many activities; but still needing energy and support to continue with new work and to work out the details of social life.
- Being experienced and confident enough to have used the full range of materials and activities and to be a relaxed, skillful friend.
- Being secure enough to start the cycle over again (with a little scaffolding and encouragement).
In addition to setting up a rich and engaging environment, the teacher must also be observant. These observations are used to prepare and present lessons to individual children or small groups. And to determine when she should stand back, offer help/intervene; let mistakes play out; encourage, help settle disagreements, and let children resolve conflicts themselves. Much of the teaching is done by showing rather than saying.
