Montessori 101 and a Guided Tour of the Montessori Classroom by The Montessori Foundation

MONTESSORI MONTESSORI

A SPECIAL PUBLICATION OF THE MONTESSORI FOUNDATION

WHAT EVERY PARENT NEEDS TO KNOW INCLUDING A GUIDED TOUR OF THE MONTESSORI CLASSROOM AND ITS MANY MATERIALS

We're Here to Help! The Montessori Foundation offers a comprehensive resource of all things Montessori at their website, montessori.org. This member-based website offers decades of archived material, from articles and webinars, to a complete bookstore. It is updated daily and offers the most current research and tips for parents and educators alike.

The Montessori Family Alliance It’s all about you! The mission of the Montessori Foundation’s Montessori Family Alliance is to help build a sense of community and appreciation among the parents of Montessori students everywhere. We want to help you become more engaged and better informed. We provide answers to common concerns and a safe, comforting library where parents can browse and learn without judgement—it can be embarrassing to ask your child’s teacher about certain aspects of the ‘hows and whys’ of Montessori. Raising children can be challenging, choosing Montessori is not easy, and often has consequences in our social circles and family dynamics that we can help you navigate. If you are a Montessori parent, you may already be a member of the MFA. Ask your school administrator for login information and join the conversation.

For more information about your current membership or about joining the MFA or IMC visit montessori.org or call 1 (800) 655-5843.

COPYRIGHT © 2019 BY THE MONTESSORI FOUNDATION. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. THIS BOOK OR ANY PORTION THEREOF MAY NOT BE REPRODUCED OR USED IN ANY MANNER WHATSOEVER WITHOUT THE EXPRESS WRITTEN PERMISSION OF THE PUBLISHER EXCEPT FOR THE USE OF BRIEF QUOTATIONS IN A BOOK REVIEW. PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

TABLE OF CONTENTS 4

Montessori for the 21st Century

The Many Faces of Montessori in North America

What Makes Montessori Different?

An Appreciation of Dr. Maria Montessori

A Day in the Life of a Montessori Child

Montessori: A Historical Perspective

BRADENTON, FL 34212-8921

Some Basic Information Every Montessori Parent Should Know

MONTESSORI.ORG

Montessori's Youngest Students: Infants & Toddlers

PART 1: A Guided Tour of the Early Childhood & Elementary Montessori Classrooms

FIRST PRINTING, 2019 ISBN 978-0-9746387-3-7 MONTESSORI FOUNDATION PUBLISHING 19600 E STATE ROAD 64,

EDITOR Joyce St. Giermaine PRESIDENT Tim Seldin PROGRAM DIRECTOR Lorna McGrath

PRACTICAL LIFE ¡ SENSORIAL ¡ GRACE & COURTESY

EVENTS & MEMBERSHIP Margot Garﬁeld-Anderson

A Philosophy of the Montessori Curriculum

OFFICE MANAGER Don Dinsmore

Practical Life

GRAPHIC DESIGN Katrina Costedio

Lessons in Grace and Courtesy

Teaching Peace & Compassion

The Sensorial Exercises

PART 2: A Guided Tour of the Early Childhood & Elementary Montessori Classrooms

ADVERTISING Joyce St. Giermaine

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READING, COMPOSITION & LITERATURE ¡ MATH ¡ SCIENCE ¡ GEOGRAPHY HISTORY ¡ CULTURAL STUDIES ¡ THE ARTS ¡ HEALTH & WELLNESS

through all stages of print production. Events & Membership Margot Garﬁeld-Anderson

The Montessori Approach to Composition, Reading & Literature

margot@montessori.org

Montessori Math: From the Concrete to the Abstract

Addition with the Golden Beads & Stamp Game

The Second Plane of Abstraction

The Passage to Abstraction

History, Geography & Cultural Studies

lornamcgrath@montessori.org

Hands-On Science: The Montessori Way

Phone 941-309-3961

The Arts, Health, Wellness, and Physical Education

Toll Free 800-632-4121

Where Do We Go From Here? Montessori High School

Phone 941-309-3961 Toll Free 800-632-4121 Fax 941-359-8166 Montessori Family Alliance Lorna McGrath

Fax 941-745-3111

Montessori FOR THE 21ST CENTURY

Dr. Maria Montessori opened her first school, Casa dei Bambini, in Rome, Italy more than a century ago. After more than one hundred years, the Montessori approach has proven that it is vibrant and adaptive to the challenges of the 21st century. As parents and educators who have spent years around Montessori children, we know that Montessori works! Despite the proof of more than a century of positive results, questions remain: n

What is Montessori?

How is it different than traditional education?

Will it work for my child?

Isn’t Montessori a very structured environment?

Do Montessori classrooms have structure?

They want to normalize my child?

Are we crazy to enroll our child in a Montessori school?

Could our child adjust to a traditional education after years in Montessori?

How can we find or establish an infant/ toddler, elementary, or secondary Montessori program for our children?

At the Montessori Foundation, we try to help parents sort through this information, so that they can reassure themselves that Montessori is not going to leave their children academically handicapped and unable to make it in the ‘real’ world. It is not easy to put Montessori into context, when the rest of the world seems so completely committed to a very different approach to raising children. We prepared Montessori 101 to help parents discover and reconfirm what Montessori children know: Montessori works! TIM SELDIN PRESIDENT

Is Montessori just for young children?

THE MONTESSORI FOUNDATION

To learn more, visit our website: montessori.org

EDUCATION IS NOT SOMETHING THAT THE TEACHER DOES. IT IS A NATURAL PROCESS THAT DEVELOPS SPONTANEOUSLY. —Maria Montessori

The Many Faces of Montessori IN NORTH AMERICA

here are at least six thousand Montessori schools in North America, and it is estimated that there are some twenty-two thousand schools worldwide. Montessori schools are found throughout Europe, Central and South America, Australia, New Zealand, Africa, and much of Asia. Montessori is also rapidly expanding in China and the republics of the former Soviet Union. There is tremendous diversity within the community of Montessori schools. Despite the impression that all Montessori schools are the same, perhaps a franchise, all Montessori schools have their own special qualities and tones that make them unique. Across the United States and Canada, we can find Montessori schools in almost every community. They are found in church basements, converted barns, shopping centers, former public schools, and on expansive campuses with enrollments of hundreds of children.

by TIM SELDIN

We find Montessori in suburban and inner-city public school systems. Montessori is one of the most popular and successful charter school models. Montessori schools are often found in charming homes—the outcome of the individual vision of the owner/ director. Many are found in affluent communities, but just as many serve working-class neighborhoods and the poor. We find Montessori in Head Start programs, child-care centers in our inner cities, migrant-worker camps, and on Native American reservations.

Montessori schools offer a wide range of programs. Many are focused on meeting the needs of the working family. Others describe themselves as college-preparatory programs. Public Montessori programs pride themselves on serving all children, while independent schools work hard to find the perfect match of student, school, and family values. The Montessori Foundation and the International Montessori Council (IMC) celebrate the diversity to be found among Montessori schools. Just as each child is unique, so are the schools. ¢

Some Montessori schools pride themselves on remaining faithful to what they see as Dr. Maria Montessori’s original vision, while other schools appreciate flexibility and pragmatic adaptation. Each school reflects its own unique blend of facilities, programs, personality, and interpretation of Dr. Montessori’s vision. Most Montessori schools begin with threeyear-olds and extend through the elementary grades. Every year, more schools open middle school and infant/toddler programs, and there is a growing community of Montessori high schools.

BRING THE CHILD TO THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF HIS OWN DIGNITY, AND HE WILL FEEL FREE. WE SEE NO LIMIT TO WHAT SHOULD BE OFFERED TO THE CHILD, FOR HIS WILL BE AN IMMENSE FIELD OF HIS CHOSEN ACTIVITY. —Maria Montessori

What Makes Montessori Different? Over the last century, Dr. Maria Montessori’s ideas have had a profound and growing inﬂuence on education around the world. However, while individual elements of her program are ﬁnding their way into more traditional classrooms every year, there is a cumulative impact that we see when schools fully implement the entire Montessori model, which creates something quite distinct.  Montessori schools begin with a deep respect for children as unique individuals. They work from a deep concern for their social and emotional development.  Montessori schools are warm and supportive communities of students, teachers, and parents. Children don’t get lost in the crowd!  Montessori consciously teaches children to be kind and peaceful.

 Montessori classrooms are bright and exciting environments for learning.  Montessori classes bring children together in multi-age groups, rather than classes comprised of just one grade level. Normally, they span three age levels. Children stay with their teachers for three years. This allows teachers to develop close, long-term relationships with their pupils; understand each child’s learning style very well; and to encourage a strong sense of community among the children. Every year, more non-Montessori schools adopt this effective strategy.  Montessori classrooms are not run by the teachers alone. Students are taught to manage their own community and develop leadership skills and independence.  Montessori assumes that children are born intelligent; they simply

learn in different ways and progress at their own pace. The Montessori approach to education is consciously designed to recognize and address different learning styles, helping students learn to study most effectively. Students progress as they master new skills, moving ahead as quickly as they are ready.  Montessori students rarely rely on texts and workbooks. Why? Because many of the skills and concepts that children learn are abstract, and texts simply don’t bring them to life. Also, in the case of reading, many reading series fail to collect first-rate, compelling stories and essays; instead, Montessori relies upon handson concrete learning materials, direct learning experiences, and the library, where children are introduced to the best in literature and reference materials.

 Learning is not focused on rote drill and memorization. The goal is to develop students who really understand their schoolwork.  Montessori students learn through hands-on experience, investigation, and research. They become actively engaged in their studies, rather than passively waiting to be taught.  Montessori challenges and sets high expectations for all students, not only those considered ‘gifted.’  Students develop self-discipline and an internal sense of purpose and motivation. After graduation from Montessori, these values serve them well in high school, college, and in their lives as adults.  Montessori schools normally reflect a highly diverse student body, and their curriculum promotes mutual respect and a global perspective.

AN APPRECIATION OF

Dr. Maria Montessori "All children are born geniuses. 9,999 out of every 10,000 are swiftly, inadvertently, 'degeniused' by grown-ups. This happens because human beings are born naked, helpless, and—though superbly equipped cerebrally—

 Students develop a love for the natural world. Natural science and outdoor education is an important element of our children’s experience.

utterly lacking in experience, therefore utterly ignorant. Their delicate sensing equipment is, as yet, untried. Born with built-in hunger, thirst, curiosity, the procreative urge, they can only learn what humanity has learned by trial and error—by billions upon billions of errors. Yet humanity is also endowed with self-

 The Montessori curriculum is carefully structured and integrated to demonstrate the connections among the different subject areas. Every class teaches critical thinking, composition, and research. History lessons link architecture, the arts, science, and technology.

defeating pride. All those witnessing the errors of others proclaim that they (the witnesses) could have been prevented those errors had only they been consulted. ‘People should not make mistakes.’ they mistakenly say. Motivated entirely by love, but also by fear for the futures of the children they love, parents, in their ignorance, act as though they know all the answers and curtail the spontaneous acts of their children, lest the children make ‘mistakes.’

 Students learn to care about others through community service.

But genius does its own thinking; it has conﬁdence in its own exploratory ﬁndings, in its own intuitions, in the knowledge gained from its own mistakes. Nature has

 Montessori teachers facilitate learning, coach students, and come to know them as friends and mentors.

her own gestation rates for evolutionary development. The actions of parents represent the checks and balances of nature's gestation control. Humanity can evolve healthfully only at a given rate.

 Students learn not to be afraid of making mistakes; they come to see their mistakes as natural steps in the learning process.

Maria Montessori was permitted to maintain, sustain, and cultivate her innate genius. Her genius invokes her awareness of the genius inherent in all children. Her intuition and initiative inspired her to discover ways of safeguarding this

 Montessori students learn to collaborate and work together in learning and on major projects. They strive for their personal best, rather than compete against one another for the highest grade. ¢

genius, while allaying the ignorant fears of parents. But the way was not always easy. Hers was the difﬁcult frontiering task of genius.”

—Buckminster Fuller

A Day in the Life OF A MONTESSORI CHILD by TIM SELDIN It’s dark at 7:05 on this mid-winter’s morning

Teddy’s morning supervision is in his normal

At 8:30, his two teachers arrive, along with

when Jeanne Saunders pulls up to the drop-

classroom.

several more children. Others follow over the

off circle at the Montessori school that her three children have attended since each was two years old.

Jeanne has made this trip so often over the years that the school feels like her second home. She works downtown and typically can’t leave work until after 5:00. Her husband teaches in the local public schools and gets off much earlier. He’ll pick the children up from the after-school program by 4:30, but if he’s late, he knows that they will be fine until he arrives. The school prides itself on being ‘family friendly,’ and working families appreciate its extended day and summer camp. Teddy, Josh, and Jennifer definitely think of the school as their second family. Jennifer is one of those children who, after ten years in Montessori, speaks about her school with affection and conviction. Visitors often find her coming up, without a moment’s hesitation, to greet them and offer a cup of coffee or campus tour. When people ask her if she likes Montessori, she will smile and say, “Sure. How could anyone not love it here? Our teachers are our best friends, the work is really interesting, and the other kids are like my brothers and sisters. It’s a family. You feel really close to everyone.” Jennifer walks Teddy, age four, and Josh, who’s seven, up to morning supervision. After dropping them off, she walks down the hill to the upper school, where she is a seventh grader. She joins two of her friends in the commons, sits, and talks quietly, waiting for her first class to start.

After hanging up his coat, he walks over to Judy, the staff member in charge of his room until school officially begins at 8:30. He asks if there is anything ready to eat. Judy suggests that he help himself. He scoops out a bowl of cereal from a small bin and adds milk. He takes his morning snack over to a table and eats. Children and their parents drift into

next few minutes until all thirty students and two teachers quietly move about the room. Montessori children work with hands-on learning materials that make abstract concepts clear and concrete.

They allow young students to develop a clear inner image of concepts in mathematics, such as: How big is a thousand? What do we mean when we refer to the ‘hundreds’ column? and What is taking place when we divide one number by another? This approach makes sense to children. Through this foundation of concrete experiential learning, operations in mathematics, such as addition, become clear and concrete, allowing the child to internalize a clear picture of how the process works.

Teddy and another child have begun to work together to construct and solve a mathematical problem.

the room every so often, and gradually the number of children in the early morning program grows to fifteen. After eating his breakfast, Teddy walks over to the easel and begins to paint with Teresa, a little girl, just three, who has only joined the class over the last few weeks. They paint

quietly, talking back and forth about nothing in particular. Eventually, Teddy tires of painting and cleans up. He is tempted for a moment just to walk away and leave the easel messy, but he carefully cleans up and puts his materials away, as he has learned from more than two years in Montessori.

Using sets of number cards, each decides how many units, tens, hundreds, and thousands will be in his addend. The cards showing the units 1 to 9 are printed in green; the cards showing the numbers from 10 to 90 are printed in blue; the hundreds from 100 to 900 are printed with red ink; and the cards showing the numbers 1,000 to 9,000 are printed in green again, because they represent units of thousands. As Teddy and his friend construct their numbers, they decide how many units they want, find the card showing that quantity, and place it at the upper right-hand corner of their work space. Next they go to the ‘bank,’ a central collection of Golden Bead material, and gather the number of unit beads that corresponds with the number card selected.

This process is repeated with the tens, hundreds, and thousands. The two addends are combined in the process we call addition. Beginning with the units, the children count the combined quantities to determine the result of adding the two together. If the result is nine or less, they simply find the large number card that represents the answer. If the addition has resulted in a quantity of ten beads or more, the children stop at the count of ten and carry these unit beads to the bank to exchange them for a ten bar: ten units equals one unit of ten. This process is repeated with the tens, hundreds, and thousands.

child-sized environment. When they are hungry, they prepare their own snack and drink. They go to the bathroom without assistance. When something spills, they help each other carefully clean things up. We find children cutting raw fruit and vegetables, sweeping, dusting, washing windows. They set tables, tie their own shoes, polish silver, and steadily grow in their self-confidence and independence. Noticing that the plants need watering, Teddy carries the watering can from plant to plant, barely spilling a drop. Now it’s 11:00, and one of his teachers, Ann, comes over and asks him how the morning has been going.

They engage in

It’s about 10:00 now, and Teddy is a bit

converting from the letter name, d, to the sound it makes, duh. Continuing on with two or three additional letters, Ann slowly helps Teddy build a collection of letters that he knows by their phonetic sounds. Ann leads Teddy through a three-step process. “Teddy, this is duh. Can you say duh? Terrific! Now, this is a buh (the letter b). Teddy, can you show me the duh? Can you give me the buh? Fine. Okay, what is this (holding up one of the sandpaper letters just introduced)?” Teddy responds, and the process continues for another few minutes. The entire lesson is fairly brief; perhaps 15 minutes or so. Before long, Teddy will begin to put sounds together to form simple three-letter words.

hungry.

He walks over to the snack table and prepares himself several pieces of celery stuffed with peanut butter. He pours himself a cup of apple juice, using a little pitcher that is just right for his small hands. When he is finished, Teddy wipes his placemat.

Teddy’s day continues just like the morning began.

He eats his lunch with the class at 11:45, after which he goes outside with his friends to play in the snow. After lunch, the Spanish teacher comes into the room and begins to work with small groups of students.

Clearing up his snack has put Teddy in the mood to really clean something, and he selects table washing. He gathers the bucket, little pitcher, sponge, scrub brush, towel, and soap and proceeds slowly and methodically to scrub a small table. As he works, he’s absorbed in the patterns that his brush and sponge make in the soap suds on the table’s surface. Teddy returns everything to its storage place.

When he is finished, the table is more or less clean and dry. A four-year-old washes a table for the sheer pleasure of the process; that it leads to a cleaner surface is incidental. What Teddy is learning, above all else, is an inner sense of order, a greater sense of independence, and a higher ability to concentrate and follow a complex sequence of steps. Teddy moves freely around the class, selecting activities that capture his interest.

In a very real sense, Teddy and his classmates are responsible for the care of this

Eventually, she taps Teddy on the shoulder and asks him if he would like to join her for a lesson. He smiles, but graciously declines. He is too engaged in the project that he’s chosen.

conversation about his latest enthusiasms, which leads Ann to suggest another reading lesson. She and Teddy sit down at a small rug with several wooden tablets on which the shapes of letters are traced in sandpaper. Ann selects a card and slowly traces out the letter d, carefully pronouncing the letter’s phonetic sound: duh, duh, duh. Teddy traces the letter with his tiny hand and repeats the sound made by his teacher. Teddy doesn’t know this as the letter d. For the next year or so, he will only call it by its phonetic sound: duh. This way, he never needs to learn the familiar process of

In the afternoon he does some more art, listens to selections from a recording of the Nutcracker, works on his shape names with the Geometry Cabinet, and completes a Puzzle Map of the World. When the day is over, Teddy has probably completed twenty to thirty different activities, most representing curriculum content quite advanced for someone who, after all, just turned four two months ago.

But when his dad picks him up at 4:50, his response to the usual question of “What did you do in school today?” is no different from many children: “Oh, I don’t know. I guess I did a lot of stuff!” ¢

Montessori A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE by TIM SELDIN

Maria Montessori’s time has come. Once considered a controversial figure in education, today she is recognized as one of the 21st century’s leading advocate for early childhood education and the research that she began changed the course of education.

any famous figures in child psychology and education studied her ideas and work and were strongly influenced by her, including Anna Freud, Jean Piaget, Alfred Adler, and Erik Erikson. Likewise, many elements of modern education have been adapted from Montessori’s theories. She is credited with the development of the open classroom, individualized education, manipulative learning materials, integrated curriculum, teaching toys, and programmed instruction. Over the last few decades, brain research has confirmed the validity of Dr. Montessori’s pioneering insights into how children learn best. Maria Montessori was ahead of her time. She was born in 1870, in Ancona, Italy, to an educated but not affluent middle-class family. She grew up in a country that was very conservative in its attitude toward women. Despite the considerable opposition of her father and teachers, Montessori pursued a scientific education and was one of the first women to become a physician in Italy. As a practicing physician associated with the University of Rome, she was a scientist, not a teacher. It is ironic that she

became famous for her contributions in a field that she had rejected as the traditional refuge for women, at a time when few professions were open to them other than teaching, home-making, or the convent. The Montessori Method evolved, almost by accident, from a small experiment that Dr. Montessori carried out on the side of her busy medical practice. Her genius stems not from her teaching ability, but from her recognition of the importance of what she stumbled upon. As a physician, Dr. Montessori specialized in pediatrics and psychiatry. She taught at the medical school of the University of Rome, and, through its free clinics, she came into frequent contact with the children of the working class and poor. These experiences convinced her that intelligence is not rare and that most newborns come into the world with human potential that will be barely revealed. Her work reinforced her humanistic ideals, and she made time in her busy schedule to support various social-reform movements. Early in her career, she began to accept speaking engagements throughout Europe on behalf of the women’s movement, peace efforts, and child labor-law

reform. Montessori became well known and highly regarded throughout Europe, which undoubtedly contributed to the publicity that surrounded her schools. In 1901, Montessori was appointed Director of the new Orthophrenic School attached to the University of Rome, formerly used as the asylum for the ‘deficient and insane’ children of the city, most of whom were probably of diminished mental capacity. She initiated reform in a system that formerly had served merely to confine mentally handicapped youngsters in empty rooms. Recognizing her patients’ need for stimulation, purposeful activity, and self-esteem, Montessori insisted that the staff speak to the patients with the highest respect. She set up a program to teach her young charges how to care for themselves and their environment. At the same time, she began a meticulous study of all research previously done on the education of the mentally handicapped. Her studies led Montessori to the work of two almost forgotten French physicians of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: Jean Itard and Edouard Seguin. Itard is most famous for his work with a youth who had been found wandering naked in the forest, having spent ten years living alone. The boy could not speak and lacked almost all of the skills of everyday life. Here apparently was a ‘natural man,’ a human being who had developed without the benefit of

culture and socialization with his own kind. Itard hoped from this study to shed some light on the age-old debate about what proportion of human intelligence and personality is hereditary and what proportion stems from stimulation, experience, and learned behavior. Itard’s experiment was a limited success, for he found the ‘wild boy’ uncooperative and unwilling or unable to learn most things. This led Itard to postulate the existence of developmental periods in normal human growth. During these ‘sensitive periods,’ children must experience stimulation or grow up forever lacking the adult skills and intellectual concepts that they missed at the stage when they can be readily learned! Although Itard’s efforts to teach the ‘wild boy’ were barely successful, he followed a methodical approach in designing the process, arguing that all education would benefit from the use of careful observation and experimentation. This idea had tremendous appeal to the scientifically trained Montessori and later became the cornerstone of her Method. From Edouard Seguin, Montessori drew further confirmation of Itard’s work, along with a far more specific and organized system for applying it to the everyday education of the handicapped. Today, Seguin is recognized as the father of special education. From these two predecessors, Montessori developed the idea of a scientific approach to education, based on observation and experimentation. She belongs to the ‘child study’ school of thought, and she pursued her work with the careful training and objectivity of the biologist studying the natural behavior of an animal in the forest. She studied her mentally challenged youngsters, listening and carefully noting everything that they did and said. Slowly, she began to get a sense of who they really were and what methods worked best. Her success was given widespread notice

when, two years after she began, many of Montessori’s ‘deficient’ adolescents were able to pass the standard sixth-grade tests of the Italian public schools. Acclaimed for this ‘miracle,’ Montessori responded by suggesting that her results proved only that public schools should be able to get dramatically better results with ‘normal’ children.

perceptual training devices. To Montessori’s amazement, the young children took the greatest delight in learning practical everyday living skills that reinforced their independence. Each day, they begged her to show them more, even applauding with delight when Montessori taught them the correct use of a handkerchief.

Unfortunately, the Italian Ministry of Education did not welcome this idea, and she was denied access to school aged children. Frustrated in her efforts to carry the experiment on with public school students, in 1907, Montessori jumped at the chance to coordinate a day-care center for working-class children, who were too young to attend public school.

Soon the older children were taking care of the school, assisting their teacher with the preparation and serving of meals and the

This first Casa dei Bambini, or Children’s House, was located in the worst slum district of Rome, and the conditions Montessori faced were appalling. Her first class consisted of sixty children from two through five years of age, taught by one untrained caregiver. The children remained at the center from dawn to dusk, while their parents worked. They had to be fed two meals a day, bathed regularly, and given a program of medical care. The children themselves were typical of extreme inner-city poverty conditions. They entered the Children’s House on the first day crying and pushing, exhibiting generally aggressive and impatient behavior. Montessori, not knowing whether her experiment would work under such conditions, began by teaching the older children how to help with the everyday tasks that needed to be done. She also introduced the manipulative perceptual puzzles that she had used with the mentally challenged children. The results surprised her, for unlike the other children, who had to be prodded to use the materials, these little ones were drawn to the work she introduced. Children, who had wandered aimlessly, began to settle down to long periods of constructive activity. They were fascinated with the puzzles and

Montessori child carrying soup in classroom c. 1912.

maintenance of a spotless environment. Their behavior as a group changed dramatically, from street urchins running wild to models of grace and courtesy. It was little wonder that the press found such a human-interest story appealing and promptly broadcast it to the world. Montessori education is sometimes criticized for being too structured and academically demanding of young children. Montessori would have laughed at this suggestion. She often said, “I studied my children, and they taught me how to teach them.” Montessori made a practice of paying close attention to their spontaneous behavior, arguing that only in this way could a teacher know how to teach. Traditionally,

schools pay little attention to children as individuals, other than to demand that they adapt to our standards. Montessori argued that the educator’s job is to serve the child, determining what is needed to make the greatest progress. To her, a child who fails in school should not be blamed, any more than a doctor should blame a patient who does not get well fast enough. It is the job of the physician to help us find the way to cure ourselves and the educator’s job to facilitate the natural process of learning. Montessori’s children exploded into academics. Too young to go to public school, they begged to be taught how to read and write. They learned to do so quickly and enthusiastically, using

women gave them a marvelous collection of lovely and expensive toys. The new gifts held the children’s attention for a few days, but they soon returned to the more interesting learning materials. To Montessori’s surprise, children who had experienced both, preferred work over play most of the time. If she were here today, Montessori would probably add: Children read and do advanced mathematics in Montessori schools not because we push them, but because this is what they do when given the correct setting and opportunity. To deny them the right to learn because we, as adults, think that they shouldn’t is illogical and typical of the way schools have been run before. Montessori evolved her Method through trial and error, making educated guesses

were capable of selecting their own work; she removed the cabinet and replaced it with low, open shelves on which the activities were always available. Today, this may sound like a minor change, but it contradicted all educational practice and theory of that time. One discovery followed another, giving Montessori an increasingly clear view of the inner mind of the child. She found that little children were capable of long periods of quiet concentration, even though they rarely showed signs of it in everyday settings. Although they were often careless and sloppy, they responded positively to an atmosphere of calm and order. Montessori noticed that the logical extension of the young child’s love for a consistent and often repeated routine is an environment in which everything has a place.

Montessori argued that the educator’s job is to serve the child, determining what is needed to make the greatest progress. To her, a child who fails in school should not be blamed, any more than a doctor should blame a patient who does not get well fast enough. special manipulative materials that Dr. Montessori designed for maximum appeal and effectiveness. The children were fascinated by numbers. To meet this interest, the mathematically inclined Montessori developed a series of concrete mathematical learning materials that has never been surpassed. Soon, her four- and five-year-olds were performing four-digit addition and subtraction operations and, in many cases, pushing on even further. Their interests blossomed in other areas as well, compelling an overworked physician to spend night after night designing new materials to keep pace with the children in geometry, geography, history, and natural science. The final proof of the children’s interest came shortly after her first school became famous, when a group of well-intentioned

about the underlying meaning of the children's actions. She was quick to pick up on their cues and constantly experimented with the class. Montessori tells of the morning when the teacher arrived late to find that the children had crawled through a window and gone right to work. At the beginning, the learning materials, having cost so much to make, were locked away in a tall cabinet. Only the teacher had a key and would open it and hand the materials to the children upon request. In this instance, the teacher had neglected to lock the cabinet the night before. Finding it open, the children had selected one material apiece and were working quietly. As Montessori arrived, the teacher was scolding the children for taking them out without permission. She recognized that the children’s behavior showed that they

Her children took tremendous delight in carefully carrying their work to and from the shelves, taking great pains not to bump into anything or spill the smallest piece. They walked carefully through the rooms, instead of running wildly, as they did on the streets. Montessori discovered that the environment itself was all important in obtaining the results that she had observed. Not wanting to use school desks, she had carpenters build child-sized tables and chairs. She was the first to do so, recognizing the frustration that a little child experiences in an adult-sized world. Eventually, she learned to design entire schools around the size of the children. She had miniature pitchers and bowls prepared and found knives that fit a child’s tiny hand. The tables were lightweight, allowing two children to

move them alone. The children learned to control their movements, disliking the way the calm was disturbed when they knocked into things. Montessori studied the traffic pattern of the rooms as well, arranging the furnishings and the activity area to minimize congestion and tripping. The children loved to sit on the floor, so she bought little rugs to define their work areas, and the children quickly learned to walk around them. Through the years, Montessori schools carried this environmental engineering throughout the inside and outside environment, designing child-sized toilets and low sinks, windows low to the ground, low shelves, and miniature hand and garden tools of all sorts. Some of these ideas were eventually adapted by the larger educational community, particularly at the nursery and kindergarten levels. Many of the puzzles and educational devices now in use at preschool and elementary levels are direct copies of Montessori’s original ideas. However, there is far more of her work that never entered the mainstream, and educators, who are searching for new, more effective answers, are finding the accumulated experience of the Montessori community to be of great interest. Maria Montessori’s first Children’s House received overnight attention, and thousands of visitors came away amazed and enthusiastic. Worldwide interest surged, as she duplicated her first school in other settings, with the same results. Montessori captured the interest and imagination of national leaders and scientists, mothers and teachers, labor leaders and factory owners. As an internationally respected scientist, Montessori had a rare credibility in a field, where many others had promoted opinions, philosophies, and models that have not been readily duplicated. The Montessori Method offered a systematic approach that translated very well to new settings.

This is the ﬁrst Montessori school to open in the United States (Tarrytown, New York, circa 1911)

In the first thirty-five years of the twentieth century, the Montessori Method seemed to offer something for everyone. Conservatives appreciated the calm, responsible behavior of the little children, along with their love for work. Liberals applauded the freedom and spontaneity. Many political leaders saw it as a practical way to reform the outmoded school systems of Europe and North America, as well as an approach that they hoped would lead to a more productive and law-abiding populace. Scientists of all disciplines heralded its empirical foundation, along with the accelerated achievement of the little children. Montessori rode a wave of enthusiastic support that should have changed the face of education far more dramatically than it has. Montessori’s prime productive period lasted from the opening of the first Children’s House in 1907 until the 1930s. During this time, she continued her study of children and developed a vastly expanded curriculum and methodology for the elementary level as well. Montessori schools were set up throughout Europe and North America,

and Dr. Montessori gave up her medical practice to devote all of her energies to advocating the rights and intellectual potential of all children. During her lifetime, Dr. Montessori was acknowledged as one of the world’s leading educators. Modern education moved beyond Montessori, adapting only those elements of her work that fit into existing theories and methods. Ironically, the Montessori approach cannot be implemented as a series of piecemeal reforms. It requires a complete restructuring of the school and the teacher’s role. Only recently, as our understanding of child development has grown, have we rediscovered how clear and sensible was her insight. Today, there is a growing consensus among psychologists and developmental educators that many of her ideas were far ahead of their time. As the movement gains support and continues to spread into the American public school sector, one can readily say that Montessori, begun more than one hundred years ago, is a remarkably modern approach. ¢

Basic Information THAT Every Montessori Parent

SOME

SHOULD KNOW

Why do they call it a Children’s House? In her research, Dr. Montessori noted specific characteristics associated with the children’s interests and abilities at each plane of development. She argued that a school carefully designed to meet the needs and interests of the child will work more effectively because it doesn’t fight human nature. Montessori taught teachers how to “follow the child” through careful observation, allowing students to reveal their strengths and weaknesses, interests and anxieties, and strategies that work best to facilitate the development of their human potential. This focus on the “whole child” led Dr. Montessori to develop a very different sort of school from the traditional adult-centered classroom. To emphasize this difference, she named her first school the Casa dei Bambini—the Children’s House. There is something profound in her choice of words, for the Montessori classroom is not the domain of the adults, but rather a carefully prepared environment designed to facilitate the development of the children’s independence and sense of personal empowerment. This is the children’s community. They move freely within it, selecting work that captures their interest. Even very small children assist with the care of the environment. When they are hungry, they prepare their own snacks. They go to the bathroom without assistance. When something spills, they help each other carefully clean up.

Generations of parents have been amazed to see small children in Montessori classrooms cut raw fruits and vegetables, sweep and dust, carry pitchers of water, and pour liquids with barely a drop spilled. The children normally go about their work so calmly and purposely that it is clear to even the casual observer that they are the ‘masters of the house.’ Montessori’s first Children’s House, opened in 1907, was made up of sixty inner-city children. In her book, The Montessori Method, Dr. Montessori describes the transformation that took place during the first few months, as the children evolved into a ‘family.’ They prepared and served the daily meals, washed the pots and dishes, helped the younger children bathe and change their clothes, swept, cleaned, and worked in the garden. These very young children developed a sense of maturity and connectedness that helped them realize a much higher level of their potential as human beings. While times have changed, the need to feel connected is still as strong as ever. In fact, for today’s children it is probably even more important. Montessori gives children the message that they belong—that their school is like a second family.

The Prepared Environment Montessori classrooms tend to fascinate children and their parents. They are normally bright, warm, and inviting, filled with plants, art, music, and books. There are interest centers filled with intriguing learning materials, mathematical models,

maps, charts, fossils, historical artifacts, computers, scientific apparatus, perhaps a small natural science museum, and animals that the children are raising. Montessori classrooms are commonly referred to as a ‘prepared environment.’ This name reflects the care and attention that is given to creating a learning environment that will reinforce the children’s independence and intellectual development. You would not expect to find rows of desks in a Montessori classroom. The rooms are set up to facilitate student discussion and stimulate collaborative learning. One glance and it is clear that children feel comfortable and safe. The Montessori classroom is organized into several curriculum areas, usually including: language arts (reading, literature, grammar, creative writing, spelling, and handwriting); mathematics and geometry; everyday living skills; sensory-awareness exercises and puzzles; geography; history; science; art; music; and movement. Most rooms will include a classroom library. Each area is made up of one or more shelf units, cabinets, and display tables with a wide variety of materials on display, ready for use as the children select them. Students are typically found scattered around the classroom, working alone or with one or two others. They tend to become so involved in their work that visitors are immediately struck by the peaceful atmosphere.

It may take a moment to spot the teachers within the environment. They will normally be found working with one or two children at a time: advising, presenting a new lesson, or quietly observing the class at work.

Why do Montessori schools group children together in such large multi-age classes? A typical Montessori class is made up of 25 to 35 children, more or less evenly divided between boys and girls, covering a three-year age span. This practice has been a hallmark of the Montessori approach for almost one hundred years. Classes are guided by a certified Montessori educator, teaching with one or more assistants or by two Montessori teachers. In some situations, a class may be led by someone who is still in the process of completing the extensive Montessori teacher education process. On completion, teachers receive their Montessori certification. Classes tend to be stable communities, with only the oldest third moving on to the next level each year. With two-thirds of the children returning each fall, Montessori encourages a much closer relationship among children and their peers, as well as among children and their teachers. The levels usually found in a Montessori school correspond to the developmental stages of childhood: infant (birth through 18 months); toddlers (18 months to age 3); early childhood (age 3 to 6); lower elementary (age 6 to 8); upper elementary (age 9 to 11); middle school (age 12 to 14); and secondary/high School (age 15 to 18). At each level, the program and curriculum are logical and highly consistent extensions of what has come before. Many non-Montessori pre-schools are proud of their very small group sizes, and parents often wonder why Montessori classes are so much larger. Schools that place children together into small groups

assume that the teacher is the source of instruction; a very limited resource even in a small class. These schools reason that as the number of children decreases, the time that teachers have to spend with each child increases. Ideally, they would have a one-on-one tutorial situation.

misguided and Montessori guides can’t imagine teaching in any other way.

There Are Several Distinct Advantages to the Montessori Classroom Model In a well-run established Montessori class, children are typically far more independent and self-disciplined. One factor that makes this possible is that each class

MONTESSORI ENCOURAGES CHILDREN TO LEARN FROM EACH OTHER. BY HAVING ENOUGH CHILDREN IN EACH AGE GROUP, ALL STUDENTS WILL FIND OTHERS AT, ABOVE, AND BELOW THEIR PRESENT LEVEL OF DEVELOPMENT. But the best ‘teacher’ of a three-year-old is often another child who is just a little bit older and has mastered a skill. This process is good for both the tutor and the younger child. In the Montessori approach, the teacher is not the primary focus. Montessori encourages children to learn from each other. By having enough children in each age group, all students will find others at, above, and below their present level of development. This also makes Montessori schools economically more viable, allowing schools to attract teachers with far greater training and experience. Some parents worry that by having younger children in the same class as older ones, one age group or the other will be shortchanged. They fear that the younger children will absorb the teachers’ time and attention, or that the importance of covering the kindergarten curriculum for the five-year-olds will prevent them from giving the three- and four-year-olds the emotional support and stimulation that they need. Experience has shown that both concerns are

ideally retains two-thirds of its class as the new term begins. Each child has her own learning style. Montessori teachers treat children as individuals and customize lessons to fit their needs, personality, and interests. Since Montessori allows children to progress through the curriculum at their own pace, there is no academic reason to group children according to one grade level. In a mixed-class, children can always find peers who are working at their current level. Working in one class for two or three years allows students to develop a strong sense of community with their classmates and teachers. The age range also allows the especially gifted children the stimulation of intellectual peers, without requiring that they skip a grade and feel emotionally out of place. To accommodate the needs of individual learners, Montessori classrooms have to include curriculum to cover the entire span of interests and abilities all the way through the oldest and most accelerated students in the class. This creates a highly enriched learning environment.

In these multi-level classrooms, younger children are constantly stimulated by the interesting work in which the older ones are engaged. At the same time, in multi-level classrooms, older students serve as tutors and role models for the younger ones, which helps them in their own mastery (we learn things best of all when we teach to someone else) and leaves them beaming with pride.

Those Mysterious Montessori Materials: The Road from Concrete to Abstract Thinking All children and most adults learn best through direct experience and the process of investigation and discovery. Most students do not retain or truly grasp much of what they ‘learn’ through memorization.

Asking a child to sit back and watch a teacher perform a process or experiment is like asking one-year-olds not to put everything into their mouths. Children need to manipulate and explore everything that catches their interest. Anyone who has lived with children knows that this is true. It’s ironic that most schools today still teach primarily through lecture, textbooks, and workbooks. Most students still spend their

days sitting behind a desk praying for the recess bell to ring. Dr. Montessori recognized that concrete learning apparatus makes learning much more rewarding. The Montessori learning materials are not the Method itself; they are simply tools that we use to stimulate the child into logical thought and discovery. An important concept is that for each age level of the Montessori curriculum, there is an extensive collection of carefully defined educational materials that are the equivalent of the chapters in a traditional textbook. Each material isolates and teaches one concept or skill at a time. In developing the materials, Dr. Montessori carefully analyzed the skills and concepts involved in each subject and noted the sequence in which children most easily master them. She then studied how children seemed to be able to most easily grasp abstract concepts and designed each element to bring the abstract into a clear and concrete form. The materials are displayed on low, open shelves that are easily accessible to even the youngest children. They are arranged to provide maximum eye appeal without clutter. Each has a specific place on the shelves, arranged from the upper left-hand corner in sequence to the lower right, following their sequence in the curriculum. The materials are arranged in sequence from the most simple to the most complex and from the most concrete to those that are the most abstract. Because of the order in which they are arranged in the environment, children can find precisely what they need whenever they wish. Each of the Montessori materials is designed to allow children to work independently, with only the slightest level of introduction and ongoing support from the teachers. This is made possible by a built-in design element, the ‘Control of Error,’ which allows students to determine for themselves if they have done each exercise correctly.

The materials can be used repeatedly at different developmental levels. Each material has multiple levels of challenge. Lessons are brief introductions, after which the children repeat the exercise over many days, weeks, or months until they attain mastery. Interest leads them to explore variations and extensions inherent within the design of the materials at many levels over the years. For example, the Trinomial Cube, which presents a complex and challenging three-dimensional puzzle to the five-yearold, is used to introduce the elementary child to the algebraic concept of the exponential powers of polynomials.

The Montessori Curriculum Montessori offers a rigorous and innovative academic program. The curriculum is organized into a spiral of integrated studies, rather than a traditional model in which the curriculum is compartmentalized into separate subjects, with given topics considered only once at a specific grade level. In the early years, lessons are introduced simply and concretely and are reintroduced several times over succeeding years at increasing degrees of abstraction and complexity. The course of study uses an integrated thematic approach that ties the separate disciplines of the curriculum together into studies of the physical universe, the world of nature, and the human experience. Literature, the arts, history, social issues, political science, economics, science, and the study of technology all complement one another. This integrated approach is one of Montessori’s great strengths. As an example, when students study ancient Greece, they also study Greek mythology, read stories and novels set in the Grecian world, create authentic costumes, build models of Greek buildings, and explore

Grecian art. They study the climate, ecosystems, flora, fauna, and natural resources of the world of the ancient Greeks. And they prepare plays, celebrate festivals, and re-stage their own version of historical events.

A Typical Day In Montessori, the school day is not divided into fixed-time periods for each subject. Teachers call students together as they are ready, for lessons individually or in small groups. A typical day’s work is divided into ‘fundamentals’ that have been assigned by the faculty, and self-initiated projects and research selected by the student. Students work to complete their assignments at their own pace. Teachers closely monitor their students’ progress, keeping the level of challenge high. Teacher feedback to students and parents helps students learn how to pace themselves and take a great deal of personal responsibility for their studies—skills that are essential for later success in college and in life. We encourage students to work together collaboratively, and many assignments can only be accomplished through teamwork. Students constantly share their interests and discoveries with each other. The youngest experience the daily stimulation of their older friends and are naturally spurred on to be able to “do what the big kids can do.”

How can Montessori teachers meet the needs of so many different children? Montessori teachers do more than present curriculum. The secret of any great teacher is helping learners get to the point that their minds and hearts are open and they are ready to learn, where the motivation is not focused on getting good grades but, instead, involves a basic love of learning. As parents know their own children’s learning styles and temperaments, teachers, too, develop this sense of each child’s uniqueness by developing a relationship over a period of years with children and their parents.

Dr. Montessori believed that teachers should focus on children as indivduals, not on the daily lesson plan. Montessori nurtures the human potential, leading children to ask questions, think for themselves, explore, investigate, and discover. Our ultimate objective is to help them to learn independently, retaining the curiosity, creativity, and intelligence with which they were born. Traditional teachers tell us that they “teach students the basic facts and skills that they will need to succeed in the world.” Studies show that in many classrooms, as much as 40 percent of the day may be spent on discipline, test preparation, and classroom management. Montessori educators play a very different role. Wanting to underscore the very different role played by adults in her schools, Dr. Montessori used the title directress instead of teacher. In Italian, the word implies the role of the coordinator or administrator of an office or factory. Today, many Montessori schools prefer to call their teachers guides. Whatever they’re called, Montessori teachers are rarely the center of attention, for this is not their class; it is the Children’s House. Normally, Montessori teachers will not spend much time working with the whole class at once. Their primary role is to prepare and maintain the physical, intellectual, and social/emotional environment within which the children will work. Certainly, a key aspect of this is the selection of intriguing and developmentally appropriate opportunities for learning to meet the needs and interests of each child in the class.

courtesy, and self-discipline that will allow them to become full members of society; ¾ to help children learn how to observe, question, and explore ideas independently; and ¾ to create a spirit of joyful learning, helping children master the skills and knowledge of their society. Montessori guides rarely present a lesson to more than a handful of children at one time, and they limit lessons to brief, efficient presentations. The goal is to give the children just enough to capture their attention and spark their interest, intriguing them so that they will come back on their own to work with the materials. Montessori guides closely monitor their students’ progress, keeping the level of challenge high. Because they normally work with children for three years, guides get to know their students’ strengths and challenges, interests, and anxieties extremely well. Montessori guides often use the children’s interests to enrich the curriculum and provide alternate avenues for accomplishment and success.

Montessori Teaches Children to Think and Discover for Themselves Montessori schools are designed to help children discover and develop their talents and possibilities. While learning the right answers may get children through school, learning how to become lifelong, independent learners will take them anywhere! Montessori teaches children to think, not simply to memorize, pass a test, and forget.

Montessori Guides Have Five Basic Goals: ¾ to awaken children’s spirit and imagination; ¾ to encourage children's normal desire for independence and high sense of self-esteem; ¾ to help children develop the kindness,

Rather than present students with the right answers, Montessori educators tend to ask the right questions and challenge them to discover the answers for themselves. Older students are encouraged to do their own research, analyze what they have found, and come to their own conclusions.

Respect and Independence: The Foundation of the Montessori Approach Montessori does not believe that intelligence is fixed at birth, nor is the human potential anywhere near as limited, as it sometimes seems in traditional education. These beliefs have been confirmed by the research of Jean Piaget, Howard Gardner, Angela Duckworth and many others. We know that each child is a full and complete individual in her own right. Even when they are very small, children deserve to be treated with the full and sincere respect that we would extend to their parents. Respect breeds respect and creates an atmosphere within which learning is tremendously facilitated. Success in school is directly tied to the degree to which children believe that they are capable and independent human beings. If they knew the words, even very young children would ask: Help me learn to do it for myself! By allowing children to develop a meaningful degree of independence and self-discipline, Montessori sets a pattern for a lifetime of good work habits and a sense of responsibility. Students are taught to take pride in doing things well.

Freedom of Movement and Independently Chosen Work Children touch and manipulate everything in their environment. In a very real sense, the adult mind is ‘hand made,’ because it is through movement, exploration, and manipulation that children build up a storehouse of impressions about the physical world. Children learn by doing, and this requires movement and spontaneous investigation. Montessori children are free to move about, working alone or with others at will. They may select any activity and work with it as long as they wish, so long as they do not disturb anyone, damage

anything, and put it back where it belongs when they are finished. Many exercises, especially at the early childhood level, are designed to draw their attention to the sensory properties of objects within the environment: size, shape, color, texture, weight, smell, sound, etc. Gradually, children learn to pay attention, seeing more clearly small details in the things around them. They begin to observe and appreciate their environment, which is a key in helping them discover how to learn. Freedom is a critical issue as children begin their journey of discovery. Our goal is less to teach them facts and concepts, but rather to help them fall in love with the process of focusing their complete attention on something and solving its riddle with enthusiasm. Work that has been assigned by adults rarely leads to such enthusiasm and interest as does work that children freely choose

for themselves. The Montessori classroom is a learning laboratory in which children are allowed to explore, discover, and select their own work. Children become comfortable and confident in their ability to master the environment, ask questions, puzzle out the answer, and learn without the constant intervention of an adult.

What is the most important thing that children get from Montessori? The Montessori approach is often described as an “education for life.” When we try to define what children take away from their years in Montessori, we need to expand our vision to include more than just the basic academic skills. Normally, Americans think of a school as a place where one generation passes down basic skills and culture to the next. From this perspective, a school only exists to cover a curriculum not to develop character and self-esteem.

In all too many traditional and highly competitive schools, students memorize facts and concepts with little understanding, only to quickly forget them when exams are over. Studies show that many bright students are passive learners. They coast through school, earning high grades, but rarely push themselves to read material that hasn’t been assigned, ask probing questions, challenge their teacher’s opinions, or think for themselves. They typically want teachers to hand them the ‘right’ answer.

ones while we continue to fill their minds with the so-called basics. Mathematics will never make them loving, nor will accurate knowledge of the size and shape of the world help them to appreciate its beauties. Let us lead them during the first years to find their greatest pleasure in nature. Let them run in the fields, learn about animals, and observe real things. Children will educate themselves under the right conditions. They require guidance and sympathy far more than instruction.”

The problem isn’t with today’s children, but with today’s schools. Children are as gifted, curious, and creative as they ever were, when they’re working on something that captures their interest and which they have voluntarily chosen to explore.

Montessori schools give children the sense of belonging to a family and help them learn how to live with other human beings.

Montessori schools work to develop culturally literate children and nurture their fragile sparks of curiosity, creativity, and intelligence. They have a very different set of priorities than traditional schools and a very low regard for mindless memorization and superficial learning. Montessori students may not memorize as many facts, but they do tend to become self-confident, independent thinkers who learn because they are interested in the world and enthusiastic about life—not simply to get a good grade. Montessori believed that there was more to life than simply the pursuit of wealth and power. To her, finding one’s place in the world, work that is meaningful and fulfilling, and developing the inner-peace and depth of soul that allows us to love are the most important goals in life. Helen Keller, inspired by Montessori, wrote: “I believe that every child has hidden away somewhere in his being noble capacities which may be quickened and developed if we go about it in the right way, but we shall never properly develop the higher nature of our little

To reduce these principles to the most simplistic form, Dr. Montessori proposed that we could make peace by healing the wounds of the human heart and by producing children who are independent, at peace with themselves, and secure. Dr. Montessori envisioned her movement as essentially leading to a reconstruction of society. Montessori schools are different, but it isn’t just because of the materials that are used in the classrooms. Look beyond the Pink Towers and Golden Beads, and you’ll discover that the classroom is a place where children really want to be—because it feels a lot like home.

Help ... Our Montessori school wants to ‘normalize’ our child! Normalization is a term that causes a great deal of confusion and some concern among many new Montessori parents. Normalization is a terrible choice of words. It suggests that we are going to help children who are not normal to become ‘normal.’ This is not what Dr. Montessori meant. Normalization is Montessori’s name for the process that takes place in Montessori classrooms around the world, through which young children learn to focus their intelligence, concentrate their energies for long periods, and take tremendous satisfaction from their work.

One mother put it this way: “My child just does not act the same now that he’s been in Montessori awhile. He usually runs from one thing to another. In Montessori, he looks interested, sometimes puzzled, and often completely absorbed. I think of normalization as a kind of satisfaction that he seems to take from what he calls hard work.” In his book, Maria Montessori: Her Life and Work, E.M. Standing described the following characteristics of normalization in the child between the age of three and six: ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾ ¾

A love of order A love of work Profound spontaneous concentration Attachment to reality Love of silence and of working alone Sublimation of the possessive instinct Obedience Independence and initiative Spontaneous self-discipline Joy The power to act from real choice and not just from idle curiosity

Kay Futrell in her book, The Normalized Child, describes Dr. Montessori’s amazement when the sixty frightened and ill-disciplined inner-city children of her first Children’s House began to respond to the new environment. Normalization is another word for what we call Montessori’s Joyful Scholars.

What outcomes can we look for if we give our child a Montessori education? There are eight primary aspects to what we look for in children who have grown up with a Montessori education: 1.

ACADEMIC PREPARATION:

Montessori prepares students both for higher education and life. On an academic level, Montessori helps students attain skills that allow them to become independently functioning adults and lifelong learners.

INTRINSIC MOTIVATION: Innate

desire drives Montessori children to engage in activities for enjoyment and satisfaction. 3.

INTERNALIZED GROUND RULES AND THE ABILITY TO WORK

WITHOUT EXTERNAL AUTHORITY:

Montessori students are comfortable with ground rules that set the boundaries for their interactions within the school community. Because these ground rules become internalized, Montessori students normally learn to behave appropriately, whether or not teachers are present. 4.

SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY: Montessori children tend to be quite sensitive to the rights and needs of others. They tend to make a positive contribution to their community. AUTONOMY: Montessori students tend to become self-directed, composed, and morally independent. CONFIDENCE AND COMPE-

TENCE: Montessori students tend to

become confident, competent, self-reflective, and, thereby, successful. They are generally not afraid of failure and learn from mistakes. 7.

CREATIVITY AND ORIGINALITY OF THOUGHT: Montessori stu-

dents become confident in expressing their own ideas and creativity. They recognize the value of their own work, respect the creative process of others, and are willing to share their ideas, regardless of the risk of rejection. Montessori students tend to take great satisfaction in self-expression. 8.

SPIRITUAL AWARENESS: Montessori

students are often exceptionally compassionate, empathetic, and sensitive to the natural world and the human condition.

Will my child be able to adjust to traditional school after Montessori? Montessori children, by the end of age five, are normally curious self-confident learners who look forward to going to school. They are engaged, and enthusiastic. What teacher wouldn’t want a room filled with children like that? Well, truthfully, over the years we’ve found some who consider these children ‘disruptive.’

Others may not understand why everyone in the class has to do the same thing at the same time. But most figure the new setting out fairly quickly, make new friends, and succeed within the definition of success understood in their new schools. Naturally, there are trade-offs. The curriculum in Montessori schools is often much more enriched and accelerated than many found in other nursery and elementary schools in the United States. The values and attitudes of the

MONTESSORI STUDENTS PERCEIVE THEMSELVES AS SUCCESSFUL PEOPLE BUT ARE NOT AFRAID OF MAKING AND LEARNING FROM THEIR MISTAKES. Disruptive? A polite, independent Montessori child, disruptive? Well, first off, let’s remember that Montessori children are real human beings, and not all children who attend Montessori schools fit the idealized description. However, enough do that the generalization is often accurate. Montessori children, by age six, have spent three or four years in a school where they were treated with honesty and respect. While there were clear expectations and ground rules, within that framework, their opinions and questions were taken quite seriously. Unfortunately, there are still some teachers and schools where children who ask questions are seen as challenging authority. You can imagine an independent Montessori child asking his new teacher, “But why do I have to ask each time I need to use the bathroom?” or, “Why do I have to stop my work right now?” We also have to remember that children are different. One child may be very sensitive or have somewhat special needs that might not be met well in a teacher-centered traditional classroom. Other children can go anywhere. In general, there is nothing inherent in Montessori that causes children to have a hard time if they are transferred to traditional schools. Some will be bored.

children and teachers may also be quite different. Learning will often be focused more on adult-assigned tasks done more by rote than with enthusiasm and understanding. There is an old saying that if something is working, don’t try to fix it. This leads many families to continue their children in Montessori at least through the sixth grade. As more Montessori high schools are opened in the United States, it is likely that this trend will continue. But other families, for financial or other reasons, don’t plan to have their children continue in Montessori. They often ask if there is any particular age level at which Montessori children tend to find the transition particularly difficult? Because of individual differences in children and the next schools that are available to them, there is no absolute answer. In general, we strongly recommend that parents plan to keep their children in Montessori at least through the end of kindergarten. Ideally, families should consider a commitment through at least elementary school; although, we can make a strong case that it is during the difficult middle-school years

that children most need what Montessori has to offer. The development of successful Montessori high school programs means that more and more students have the opportunity to discover how well prepared they were for college and later life by their Montessori education.

Does Montessori prepare children for the real world? In a word, yes! Here’s why. Montessori helps children master the intellectual skills and knowledge that are basic to our culture and technology. As Montessori students master one level of academic skills, they are able to apply themselves to increasingly challenging work across the academic disciplines. They tend to be reflective learners. They write, speak, and think clearly and thoughtfully. They have learned how to learn by doing real things in the real world—experiential learning. They have learned how to integrate new concepts, analyze data, and think critically.

in an activity for enjoyment and satisfaction. Montessori cultivates creativity and originality: Montessori students are normally exceptionally creative in their thinking and confident in self-expression. They recognize the value of their own ideas, respect the creative process of others, and are willing to explore ideas together in search of truth or new solutions. Montessori students tend to be extraordinarily self-confident and competent. They perceive themselves as successful people but are not afraid of making and learning from their mistakes. Montessori students do not see themselves as children, but as young members of the world. They tend to look up to teachers and other adults as mentors, friends, and guides, rather than as unwelcome taskmasters who place limits on their freedom.

Children who grow up in Montessori schools tend to be culturally literate, well educated, and highly successful in university and later life. Today, these skills are commonly known as high-executive function.

Children who grow up in Montessori rarely feel the need to rebel and act out. Although even Montessori children will test their parents’ resolve, they basically follow an inner creed of self-respect.They accept limits, tend to follow common sense, and to reach out to their friends and the larger community, seeking ways to help others and make a positive contribution to the world.

Montessori develops intrinsic motivation: the innate desire that drives students to engage

Montessori children are not easily influenced by their peers. Like all of us, children

who grow up in Montessori schools want to have friends, and are affected by their interests and attitudes. On the other hand, in addition to having grown up in a culture that consistently teaches and follows universal values of kindness, honor, and respect, Montessori children tend to think for themselves. Most Montessori students are exceptionally compassionate, empathetic, and sensitive to the natural world and the human condition. Montessori children tend to have all the values and attitudes that pay off in college and the real world. They aren’t afraid of hard work. They are eager to learn, think, and explore new ideas. They enjoy people and know how to develop strong friendships. They live from a basic sense of self-respect and rarely get themselves into self-destructive situations. They tend to be self-disciplined, fairly well organized., and tend to meet deadlines, come to class prepared, and actually enjoy their classes. They are the average college professor’s dream come true! They tend to become lifelong learners, creative and energetic employees, and quite often entrepreneurs. Most Montessori students grow up to be people of character; people you can trust and on whom you can depend. They have warmth, humanity, and compassionwith lives that reflect both joy and dignity. These are the men and women we hope our children will grow up to be. ¢

Editor's Note: Thirty-plus years ago, at the age of two, my son was the youngest child at his Montessori school. Now, many Montessori schools have infant/toddler programs for children as young as 18 months. These schools usually keep a couple of spaces available in their

Montessori's Youngest Students:

INFANTS & TODDLERS

early childhood classrooms to enable toddlers (who are ready) to “move-up” if their internal biological/developmental clocks are not synced to the school year schedule. Nobody wants a bored toddler! More and more schools (probably driven by begging parents with older siblings) now have infant classes for babies as young as six weeks, which makes a lot of sense in today’s economy, where two working-parent families have pretty much become the norm. Becoming a Montessori infant/toddler guide requires specialized Montessori training, just as it does at every other level. More and more teacher training courses, designed just for this special age group, are becoming

by TERRI SHERRILL magine that you have just woken up from a dream to find yourself in completely strange surroundings. You don’t recognize a thing. Giant creatures walk up to you making strange, garbled sounds (sometimes acting as if you should be able to understand them). They also seem to have magic powers: they wave their hands… and suddenly the coverings on your body have been changed. Sadly, even though you would like to learn from them, they move with lightning speed and never seem to do anything the same way twice. But that’s not all. The body you inhabit changes a little in size each day. You feel rushes of powerful emotions and sometimes you hurt—or feel strange. Yet conveying this information to others is virtually impossible.

available. If an infant/toddler Montessori program is not available in your school community, just hang on… it may be coming soon.

While this might sound like an episode from the Twilight Zone, it is something that babies experience on a regular basis. The truth is that they must constantly navigate in a world unknown to them.

PS: You don’t have to wait for an infant/toddler class at your school to bring Montessori infant/toddler strategies home. Pick up a copy of How to Raise an Amazing Child the Montessori Way by Tim Seldin, available through the Montessori Foundation at montessori.org

So … what would YOU do if you found yourself in unfamiliar surroundings without any information or physical strength? Would you start exploring? Try to figure out what was edible… and what was not? Test your limits, the limits of your environment, and the limits of those around you?

While the prevailing view for centuries had been that babies were egocentric and irrational, and that their thinking was concrete and limited, modern advances in technology have shown this assumption to be untrue. Alison Gopnik writes in The Philosophical Baby (2009), “Psychologists and neuroscientists have discovered that babies not only learn more, but imagine more, care more, and experience more than we would have thought possible. In some ways, young children are actually smarter, more imaginative, more caring, and even more conscious than adults .” Of course, this would not come as news to Dr. Maria Montessori.

Applied Science

Honoring the Process of Development

Instead of thwarting a child’s drives, Dr. Montessori provided appropriate means for their healthy expression. She noted that industrialization had radically altered the childhood experiences that had naturally occurred for millennia; therefore, she worked to synthesize and restore vital experiences replete with physiological benefits and implicit information. Indeed, speaking similarly, Sally Goddard Blythe, Director of the Institute for Neuro-Physiological Psychology, warned in 2011: “One of the greatest threats to modern society comes not from diseases of the past (which medicine and hygiene have largely controlled), but illnesses, learning disorders, and social problems, which are a direct consequence of modern living conditions, lifestyle, and ignorance of children’s biological needs.”

Dr. Montessori wrote: “If the human personality is one at all stages of its development, we must conceive of a principle of education that has regard for all stages.” Rather than relying on preconceived notions about the early years of life, she brought her medical knowledge of anatomy and neurology to her observations of childhood. She realized that many of the previous assumptions and responses to children were actually in direct conflict with human biology, and when provided environments that were in harmony with the process of development, much of what adults had perceived to be ‘misbehavior’ in children … simply fell away. Montessori was one of the first to understand that the brain (as well as the body) was still in the process of formation for the first few years after we are born—and that lasting outcomes are highly dependent on our physical encounters and experiences during this period. Through a profound respect for the biological laws of nature and for the unique genetic blueprints, drives, and gifts of each individual, Dr. Montessori sought to understand and provide children with their daily requirements for health and well-being.

A parent’s ears will often perk up when children get a little too quiet. They know this means, more often than not, that “the kids must really be getting into something!” Making a study of what children universally “get into,” Dr. Montessori discovered many sensitive periods of brain development (the time when millions of neurons are being ‘programmed’ to perceive the stimuli found in their immediate surroundings, and the cognitive architecture for thought and action is being created). She wrote, “None of these sensitivities occupies the whole period of development… While it lasts, there is an outpouring of energy.”

In her article “Assessing Neuromotor Readiness for Learning,” Blythe laments that too many infants, toddlers, and young children find themselves in “containers” (swings, infant seats, high chairs, etc.) that limit their ability to move and explore; they find themselves exposed to increasing hours of sedentary screen time; and they fluctuate between being bombarded by noise and a lack of appropriate sensory experiences. Her research suggests these cultural practices

Montessori was one of the first to understand that the brain (as well as the body) was still in the process of formation for the first few years after we are born—and that lasting outcomes are highly dependent on our physical encounters and experiences during this period.

fail to support the maturation of the vestibular, limbic, or nervous systems and leave primitive reflexes uninhibited past optimal developmental timetables.

Inside the Infant/Toddler Classroom Aids to Independence

learning even beyond the

this in mind, dialog is con-

obvious goal of motor coor-

sidered the most important

The activities in this area

dination. She stressed that,

teaching aid in the environ-

assist young children in

“the hand is the instrument

ment. The teachers name

being able to do more

of intelligence.” Current re-

and discuss everything,

for themselves, laying a

search supports her theo-

giving children the oppor-

foundation for a strong self-

ries that use of the hand, as

tunity to hear spoken lan-

concept. The entire toddler

well as other motor activi-

guage and study how our

environment supports this

ties, stimulate brain devel-

mouth forms words. The

goal by providing children

opment and are critical for

teachers are careful to speak

freedom to explore.

development.

quietly, gently, and exactly. In addition to the use of

Sensorial Awareness

clear, rich dialog, the teach-

to assist children in learning simple procedures for taking

The toddler classroom in-

speciﬁc activities designed

care of personal needs, and

cludes lessons for sensory

to learn new vocabulary and

there are speciﬁc lessons

exploration. These activities

encourage expression.

for teaching care of self and

provide the child with oppor-

care of the environment.

tunities to develop an aware-

Demonstrations are given

ers engage the children in

Montessori advocated passionately for children on these very topics, using the language of her day. She connected freedom of movement to learning and overall health. She saw that children loved to challenge themselves and provided opportunities for them to struggle and develop their strength and emotional stamina. She saw that order and proximity helped the child to categorize objects and concepts in ways that supported memory and retrieval. Order also helped the child to successfully predict cause and effect—and to pay attention to details for long periods of time. Predictable order (of events and objects) provides a structure that allows the child to make choices, to be able to follow procedures and directions—and to relax into the joys of childhood. Yet, she did not stop at observation; rather, she created an entire applied science in response to the needs of human development. Children find that materials and activities in a Montessori environment follow a sequence that proceeds in order of use and complexity (much as craftsmen might order their tools), while giving them the freedom to respond to individual talents and interests.

Aids to Movement

of objects in the environ-

Aids to the Development of Expression

Activities for reﬁning both

ment. These activities appeal

The art activities in this area

gross- and ﬁne-motor coor-

to the child’s natural interest

help children develop self-ex-

dination are essential for the

and need to explore, through

pression and communication.

children at this time when

touching, smelling, tasting,

These fun activities respond

they work hard to master

etc. There are also stereog-

to the child’s need to create.

control of their body move-

nostic activities that encour-

Children are generally more

ments. The toddler class ac-

age identiﬁcation of objects

interested in the process of

tivities that support this area

through touch alone. Through

the activity than they are in

include both indoor and out-

touching and feeling ob-

the ﬁnished product.

door activities that strength-

jects without the use of sight,

en muscles and help the child

the child develops a muscu-

Outdoor Activities

develop balance and coordi-

lar memory. The child is then

Our open outdoor classroom

Modern Research

nation. Activities for ﬁne-mo-

able to visually remember the

provides the young child

tor control are designed to

object by touching and feel-

with many opportunities to

aid the greater reﬁnement

ing it. These sensory activities

experience the richness of

of the hand. As children gain

help the child begin to or-

nature while also provid-

mastery over their hands,

ganize the impressions of the

ing freedom of movement.

they increase independence,

world and develop height-

The outdoor activities fur-

use of tools, and prepare for

ened awareness, perceptual

ther support the goals of the

writing. This work encourages

clarity, and concentration.

above areas. While the chil-

At a symposium at Notre Dame in 2012, researcher Darcia Narvaez asked if today’s societies are “violating evolved expectations of care,” comparing cultures of the past to modern practices. One element of early ancestral caregiving that has received increased attention lately, is alloparenting. [Editor’s Note: Alloparenting is a system of parenting in which individuals other than the actual parents act in a parental role.] Unlike many other species, human beings raise their children in a community. Many of us ask to “hold the baby” at the first opportunity, and

ness of the different qualities

the development of concen-

dren explore and play out-

Language

doors, they develop motor

Language development is

coordination, language, sen-

Dr. Montessori recognized

one of the primary tasks of

sory awareness, independ-

the value of movement in

the child at this age. With

ence, and self-expression.

tration and coordination.

we pass infants around to extended friends and family members, reinforcing a sense of belonging and social embeddedness. While the parent-child bond is undoubtedly essential, the “it-takes-a-village” axiom also seems to hold true. Some researchers believe

see, mimic, and internalize the rhythms of healthy and successful daily life; to observe adult work; to overhear productive problemsolving and collaborative negotiations; and to acquire nuanced ‘inner-speech’ through mentoring and example.

 Little children learn to care for themselves.

that the willingness of others (in past generations) to help care for the child and made it possible for mothers to eat and keep up her own strength (benefiting her children and the survival of the species by extension). This is not to say that all children should attend group situations; rather, it speaks to the need for us to provide care and support for mothers and families. It is the isolated nuclear family that is new. In the large family systems of the past, the responsibilities of child care were often shared, and adults and children often worked and played alongside one another. Maria Montessori said in 1940: “The greatest mistake ever made is to isolate the child from the society of the adult, as has happened in modern times.” The first part of every plane of development, according to Montessori, consists of the child taking in the environment holistically; while in the second part of the plane, it is the child’s task to isolate and refine particular observed skills. Children need to

While we cannot turn back the hands of time completely, quality Montessori infant/ toddler programs are based on the concepts of “home and family” in the very best sense of the terms. Montessori elevated the “natural mother” who, rather than scold children for getting into a basket of laundry, gives them a few washcloths of their own to work with instead. In this spirit, instead of creating ‘watered down’ early childhood/ primary classrooms, Montessorians at the infant/toddler level (whether at-home, or in group care) engage in cooking, cleaning, gardening, knitting (or other handcrafts), reading, exercising, and the general art of daily living—giving the utmost care to their actions and their effect on the children in their care. Child-sized tools are provided so that youngsters may work alongside adults or continue the activity to satisfy the child’s need for repetition and practice of basic skills.

She saw that order and proximity helped the child to categorize objects and concepts in ways that supported memory and retrieval.

No Cribs or Playpens*

 Infants sleep, play, and rest

comfortably in little wooden beds, while toddlers have a mat, pillow, and blanket for their naps. There is no risk of injury from falls, and the children love the freedom of movement. You can do this at home in your child’s room; replace the crib with a futon; make sure the room is safe for little hands and small objects that might end up in your child’s mouth; and install a walk-through baby gate that allows the child to be part of his home environment instead of being shut behind a closed door. *unless required by local law.

Toys or activities within children's reach are carefully chosen to support their developmental needs, and they are placed logically within the child’s environment, so that the child can gradually experience independence. Teachers speak slowly and articulate carefully, describing shared activities and informing children about what they can expect to happen next.

Special Insight Some years ago, the neuroscientist Jill Bolte Taylor endured a life-changing event, as she observed herself experiencing (and later recovering from) a stroke. In what seemed like only moments, Taylor was returned to the world of infancy. She would have to learn everything for a second time. Yet, unlike babies, she was able to give a voice to her experience. Taylor wrote a list of things that benefitted her recovery. Among her requests were for “activities to be broken down into smaller steps of action” and to be told what would be next, so she could prepare herself. She wanted caregivers to “protect her energy”; “to be aware of what their body language and facial expressions were communicating to her”; and not to bombard her world with TV or talk radio. She asked that concepts be presented to her kinesthetically, and for others to be mindful that she would have to be “proficient at one level” before she could move on to the next. But, most of all, she wanted to be treated like a person, despite her diminished capacity (for others to be as patient the 20th time as they were the first and to know that, if it were possible for her to learn faster, she certainly would). It seems that all human beings, no matter how old or young, have a sense of dignity and personhood that suffers when disrespected or ignored. What if, instead of helping a person to ‘recover,’ we were dedicated to helping those at the beginning of life to develop in ways that are optimal (responsive to each child’s unique genetic blueprint and a precise match for their neurological and physiological requirements) in the first place? This concept is at the heart of Montessori philosophy, and our prepared environments at each level do just that! ¢

PART ONE

A Guided Tour of the Early Childhood & Elementary Montessori Classrooms Practical Life ¾ Sensorial ¾ Grace & Courtesy by TIM SELDIN, PRESIDENT, THE MONTESSORI FOUNDATION & JOYCE ST. GIERMAINE, EDITOR, TOMORROW’S CHILD

efore children enter a Montessori classroom on the first day of school each year, Montessori teachers have spent many hours preparing the environment. Materials that were carefully stored in boxes during vacation time are brought out and unwrapped. Wooden shelves that were stacked in the far corner of the room to allow for a thorough cleaning of the carpet are pulled into position. Plants and classroom pets that spent their vacation at the teacher’s home are brought in from the car. A similar scene is repeated in Montessori schools around the world. Slowly, the transformation occurs, and when it is complete, each classroom will have its own unique vibration, reflecting the energy and interests of the teachers. There is, however, an underlying secret: all Montessori classrooms are prepared according to a very specific master plan. The placement of materials is not random; the use of light and arrangement of seating areas

The prepared environment of a 3-6 Early Childhood classroom.

this page The prepared environment of the elementary Montessori classroom.

is deliberate. It is a master plan that is over one hundred years old, seen through new eyes at the beginning of each school year. In Part One of “The Guided Tour,” we will focus primarily on the prepared Practical Life and Sensorial environments of the early childhood classroom, because this is where it all begins, and because the materials and activities are so plentiful and exciting to young children ... and a source of mystery to most parents. In Part Two, we will see how Montessori students move from the concrete (the early childhood classroom) to the abstract (the elementary classroom) in the areas of language, math, and science. ¢

A Philosophy

OF THE MONTESSORI CURRICULUM

Montessori schools are designed to prepare children both for university and for life. There are three key ideas that are central to the mission as a Montessori school: ¾ It is not the adult who shapes the child; it is the child who, through his experiences, creates an adult human being. ¾ Teaching is not something that one can do to another, we can only facilitate the natural process of learning. ¾ There is a clear connection between one’s sense of self, of being fully alive and open to new ideas and experience, and ability to learn.

ecognizing this, we are engaged in a process of facilitating the development of self-actualized renaissance men and women. Such people are ‘teacher-proof.’ They have learned how to learn and see school as a center of an enjoyable, lifelong experience. Children with values such as these will normally go on to college, perhaps after first taking a year off for work or travel, as the natural extension of their previous education.

There is a great debate over the appropriate balance between Montessori’s objective of cultivating the child’s spontaneous interest in learning, and the expectations of parents and society. Normally, a school is perceived as the transmitter of culture from one generation to the next, through a formal curriculum. This is certainly an important part of the mission. However, as a Montessori school, we are equally committed to the development of

responsible members of the human family and the protection of the child’s fragile spark of curiosity and creativity. Most children know far more about the world before they start school than they will show a few years later, when they have learned to be passive learners, who don’t trust their senses, intellect, and imagination. Therefore, our greatest task is to help our students rediscover their brain’s ability to think, intuit, and discover; and to

develop a sense of independence, sequence, and order—to learn how to learn. At the same time, as an independent school, parents come to us and pay a great deal of money in tuition for services available from the public schools, for which they have already paid through their taxes. They come to us seeking quality programs and services! Their highest priorities are: 1. 2.

Academic excellence Character development

experience that is intellectually exciting and that will develop a wide range of talents and interests. The delivery of these services is difficult to document from the school’s end, and, from the parent’s end, even more difficult to evaluate. Thus, parents expect to be kept abreast of the programs. that address these goals and their children’s progress in each program. As a result, we work carefully to maintain this delicate balance. THE CURRICULUM CAN BE THOUGHT OF

Clearly, they expect their children to be well prepared for college, but, beyond this, they are looking for a school experience that will offer something special. They want a school

AS HAVING TWO ASPECTS: 1.

The school’s basic expectations for what will be first introduced, worked

on, or reviewed and targeted for mastery by 85 percent to 90 percent of all students at each age/grade level. 2.

The lessons that arise out of the children’s natural curiosity. While we follow a planned syllabus, to give us cohesion and structure, we should never be satisfied with a year spent giving students set lessons from a prescribed syllabus. By providing children with all sorts of books, pictures, specimens, and artifacts, we can almost guarantee that we will encourage their curiosity and expand their scope of learning. By this, we mean to suggest that, instead of moving through the set curriculum more quickly, we allow children to explore additional related topics that capture their interest.

Montessori curriculum is designed to intrigue children and develop a lifelong love of learning. No topic is presented just once and forgotten; lessons are introduced quite concretely in the early years and are reintroduced later at increasing degrees of complexity and abstraction. Students gain experience and develop skills at one level of understanding, which prepares them for more complex lessons at the next level. The spiral of the Montessori curriculum has no end, and the depth to which any topic can be pursued is limited only by a student’s interests and ability. At the same time, our expectations are quite high; challenging each student to his/her fullest individual potential, establishing a clear standard of achievement and quality of thought and work. We encourage accelerated students to expand their studies horizontally, researching topics at greater depth and a more sophisticated level of thought and analysis. Our course of study is consciously multi-disciplinary. It is an examination of the natural world and the human experience that interconnects the traditionally separate subject

disciplines. Units of study cut across the curriculum, weaving together, as one example, the land, flora and fauna, folk tales, art, dance, poetry, architecture, history, everyday life, and cooking of a country under study. The curriculum has no outer limits except for humanity’s knowledge and imagination. At the same time, our core curriculum has been carefully structured to establish benchmarks for achievement by most students by the end of each level. At its finest, Montessori is an incredibly elaborate model of education. We don’t advocate using all these tricks and devices simply to make the school day pass more pleasantly or to prepare students for their standardized tests at the end of the year. The real aim of education, as we see it, is to prepare children to live lives filled with personal satisfaction, as responsible, concerned citizens of Earth. An important element in achieving that goal is the development of knowledge and understanding about the world: civilization. However, along with this must come self-knowledge, self-respect, compassion, and a mind and heart open to new ideas and information. Our goal is to help children learn how to learn. ¢

The Materials ARE NOT THE METHOD

Editor’s Note: This introductory section has been written by me: a Montessori mom and longtime editor of Tomorrow’s Child ... but not a trained Montessorian. These are my observations, based on how I have come to understand the role of the Montessori materials over the years. —JOYCE ST. GIERMAINE

ost newcomers to Montessori are awestruck at the array of colorful materials, purposefully arranged throughout the classroom. It is an amazing sight for adults and children. The materials almost call out to be picked up, handled, and treated with respect. The materials, however, are not the ‘Method.’ The ‘M’ in Method is capitalized, at least in my mind, for a reason. Think of Montessori as a

five-star restaurant, recognized for the best cuisine for miles around. You make a reservation, and the day arrives when you are finally seated at a beautiful table: linen tablecloth and napkins, fresh-cut flowers, exquisite water goblets, and silverware that is just the right weight to rest comfortably in your hand. There is soft music playing in the background, the lighting is just right. The restaurant is warm and inviting, the wait-staff is calm, respectful, and happy to attend to your

MONTESSORI MATERIALS ARE DECEPTIVELY ‘SIMPLE’ IN APPEARANCE, BUT THEY ARE SURPRISINGLY COMPLEX IN DESIGN AND PURPOSE. throughout the world; it is also found in migrant-worker camps and impoverished countries, where parents and teachers make their own materials from whatever is available to them in their region.

every need. In the food-service industry, we would call this ‘ambience.’ In Montessori, we would call it a ‘prepared environment.’ When the food is served, it is everything you expected and more. You leave the restaurant feeling satisfied and happy; you made a good choice. For a minute, let’s consider how you would feel if the food were not particularly good. No amount of ambience will make up for a mediocre meal, especially if you are paying top dollar for it. Now, let’s consider how you would feel about receiving the same great meal at a small restaurant, with plastic cutlery, rock music blaring in the background, and a predominantly take-out clientele. It would certainly be a different experience, and you might actually be in the mood for something loud and fun, but maybe not every day or for a special occasion. You might be willing to overlook the lack of ambience if the food is good. If the food isn’t good, you probably won’t return.

Montessori materials are ‘tools’ that Dr. Montessori developed to complement and expand the principles of her Method. Although there is something called a ‘control of error’ incorporated into the design of each material, the materials, themselves, are not a substitute for the lessons they represent. Going back to our restaurant analogy: ambiance, excellent food, and great service need to go together to produce a quality product. Montessori materials are deceptively ‘simple’ in appearance, but they are surprisingly complex in design and purpose. Think of the puzzle boxes you may have had as a child. There were star-shaped holes, round holes, and square holes, along with correspondingly shaped pegs. Most of us quickly concluded that the square pegs just didn’t work in the round holes. Some of us took

a bit longer, and even if we continued to disagree on a philosophical level that round and square should be interchangeable, we eventually realized that it was a waste of time to continue to try to force something to fit, where it clearly didn’t belong. That’s control of error. But what else did it teach us? Did we learn that the shapes were geometric figures? Did we learn the names of each shape? Did we discover on our own that one shape weighed more or less than the other? Could we close our eyes and recognize each shape by touch alone? Could we use our finger to draw the shape in sand? Could we sound out the letter ‘s’ in star? What else is round? A plate, the earth, a goldfish bowl? And so on. The possibilities are endless. That is the Method. Take a look at the Knobbless Cylinders on page 47. Notice the concentration and excitement on the little girl's faces. To the casual observer, she is having fun with a puzzle. To a Montessori teacher, she is learning to understand the concepts of

Not all Montessori schools can be compared to an expensive five-star restaurant, nor should they. Montessori education takes place in the most prestigious locales

length, circumference, weight, and depth. And, she’s enjoying the satisfaction of his ‘work.’ At The Montessori Foundation, we get many phone calls from well-intentioned parents and ‘traditional’ educators, who want to incorporate Montessori into their school or home environment. Often, they just want to know where they can obtain Montessori materials. This comes from the erroneous belief that it is the materials that define the methodology. Despite the elegant simplicity of the materials, there is more than one hundred years of pedagogy and implementation behind their design, and Montessori teachers are specifically trained to incorporate each material into the bigger picture of what we call the Montessori Method. At this point, our phone callers usually ask to buy the Montessori ‘manual’ to explain how to use the materials. They become frustrated and disappointed that such a book is not available, probably thinking that it’s a big secret that we are keeping to ourselves to the exclusion of the rest of the world. Not so. A good Montessori teacher, we explain, spends years of classroom study, along with classroom internship, working with children under the guidance of master Montessori teachers, to become qualified to provide lessons incorporating the Montessori materials. As you read through the descriptions of the materials that follow, please remember that every exercise and material has a specific purpose, usually involving many steps, along with a built-in control of error. It is the coming together of methodology and materials that is behind the genius of the Montessori Method. Although the teachers are never intended to be the focal point in a Montessori classroom, it is the teachers, with their knowledge of the intended learning objectives of each lesson, the proper use of the corresponding materials, and their ability to “follow the child,” who are committed to providing the environment and guidance to implement the methodology that allows children to learn new skills, incorporate new information, and maximize their years in Montessori. ¢

Practical Life “The essence of independence is to be able to do something for one's self. “ —MARIA MONTESSORI

eveloping new skills that will enable us to live full and productive lives is something that all of us encounter throughout the years. It’s not just a process for the very young. Think about the last time you started a new job, took up a new hobby, moved to a new city, upgraded your computer’s software, or faced the need to re-learn old skills, as you recovered from an injury or illness. Life is familiar in the sense that you see others around you functioning, but you are not quite up to speed. You are not yet competent with the new set of circumstances, but you very much want to be! Competence, independence, willingness to embrace the challenges of change are, quite possibly, the most important building blocks of the Montessori Method. These skills will enable children to thrive—and not just survive—in their lives. We can help our children learn to read, do math, and understand science, but how can we prepare them for the changes, life experiences, and new technology they will face throughout their lifetime, when we can’t even begin to imagine what the future will hold? And so, in Montessori, we provide opportunities to help our children learn these skills at the most basic level: Practical Life.

The Montessori curriculum and prepared environment encourages success and self-confidence. Independence does not come automatically as we grow older; it is learned. Sweeping and cleaning help children develop eye-hand coordination and motor skills. Special child-sized tools are important factors to make success possible. Imagine trying to learn to bowl with a bowling ball that is too heavy.

Knots Happen Shoelaces learn to be tied; however, knots do happen. Liquids get spilled during pouring. Spooning exercises might run amok at the beginning, with beans or marbles strewn on the floor. But that’s OK in a Montessori classroom. It’s not failure; it’s an opportunity to practice and refine skills, while taking responsibility for restoring order and caring for the classroom environment.

It’s the same for children. The Montessori curriculum and prepared environment encourages success and the self-conﬁdence that follows. With the development of skills, children increasingly become responsible for their environment, which is why Dr. Montessori called it a children’s ‘house’ or ‘community.’ It is this combination of skills and responsibility that characterizes Montessori children throughout their time in Montessori and throughout life.

Montessori provides a safe environment to experiment and learn without fear of embarrassment or reprimand. The ‘oops factor’ is an expected, and necessary, part of the process. As adults, we know how tempting it is to play it safe and only do what we know how to do well. It takes courage and self-confidence to risk the awkwardness of trying something new: whether it’s pouring water from a child-sized pitcher or learning to play tennis as an adult. One outcome of Montessori education for children, who are now adults, is their ongoing willingness to adapt to change, while pursuing new ideas and new ventures. They understand that it is not always possible to be the best at everything when they first begin, but, when they are able to measure their efforts against their own sense of self, instead of looking for validation from others, there is a greater internal satisfaction and joy in their progress and accomplishment. ¢

PRACTICAL LIFE

Spooning Exercises The spooning exercises require not only motor skills but concentration on the part of young children. A variety of spooning materials are used. Children love the challenge of using a spoon to transfer materials from one container to another. Take a closer look at the containers in the photos and the manner in which the exercises are presented. There is an elegance to even the simplest Montessori exercises. Containers are selected for form as well as function.

PRACTICAL LIFE

Liquids The water exercises might very well become your child’s favorite ‘work.’ Using childsized pitchers and containers, children master precision as they transfer liquids from one container to another. Notice the little trays that deﬁne (and conﬁne) the critical components of the exercise, including a little sponge for clean-up. This is clearly an exercise that your children will love to demonstrate at home. Add sieves and turkey basters to expand the exercise. A little food coloring added to the water enhances the experience.

PRACTICAL LIFE

Caring for the Environment Montessori children learn to treat their classrooms as their ‘home away from home.’ They take

The Three Rules of Work

pride in caring for the cleaning and beautifying of their environment. It is not happenstance that Dr. Montessori referred to the Montessori classroom as a casa—Italian for ‘home.’

1. Out of clutter, ﬁnd simplicity. 2. From discord, ﬁnd harmony.

In Montessori, children learn to listen to their bodies. When they are hungry, they prepare a

3. In the middle of difﬁculty lies opportunity.

snack, cleaning up after themselves when they are ﬁnished. You will often see young students cutting fresh fruit for themselves and their friends.

—attributed

to ALBERT EINSTEIN

Independence comes from learning to control their bodies and to care for themselves & others.

 above Walking the line, heel to toe, helps children develop balance and control of their bodies, allowing them to move carefully and gracefully around the room. Once they have developed basic line-walking skills, children are then challenged to carry items that should not be dropped, such as Montessori materials, small ﬂags, or a tray of cups.

  above & left Using an oldfashioned washboard and the classroom sink, children wash the cotton napkins they have used at lunch, place them on a drying rack, and then iron them with a small, child-sized, low-temperature iron. The napkins are then folded and ready for the next day.

 left It is not unusual to ﬁnd small animals in Montessori classrooms. Young children learn to care for the guinea pig that shares their classroom environment.

PRACTICAL LIFE

Working to Develop Greater Hand Control  left column Children work with several different Dressing Frames, each of which teaches a speciﬁc skill: buttoning, tying, snapping, zipping. Why then, do Montessori teachers ask parents to send their young children to school in comfortable, easy-to-manage clothing, such as pull-on pants and T-shirts? Before they have mastered the skills to button, zip, and tie, they need to be independent—successful in caring for themselves, especially when it comes to visiting the bathroom. It won’t take long before they can do everything the big kids can do. Soon, they will stop you when it comes time to put on their coats, eager to show you how they do it in class. It’s a sight to behold! ¢

Safety first Children learn how to use child-sized household tools.

GRACE & COURTESY

Lessons in

The Silence Game

GRACE & COURTESY

earning how to work and play together with others, in a peaceful and caring community, is perhaps the most critical life skill that Montessori teaches. Learning how to greet someone graciously is one of the first acts of courtesy learned in the Montessori classroom.

 The Silence Game helps children develop a much higher level of self-discipline, along with a greater awareness of the sounds around us that most people take for granted.

Everyday kindness and courtesy are vital Practical Life skills. Lessons in Grace and Courtesy teach everyday social customs, such as how to enter a room, not to disturb another’s work, how to ask if you may join in an activity, how to decline an invitation graciously, table manners, and how to offer an apology.

In this group activity, the teacher will get the children’s attention, either by ringing a small bell or by hanging up a sign with the command Silence. The children stop where they are or gather on the line, close their

Even the youngest child is treated by her teachers and classmates with dignity and respect, and the everyday example of the older children behaving graciously reinforces the lessons in kindness.

eyes, and try to remain perfectly still. The children sit still, with their eyes shut, and wait to hear the teacher whisper their name. When they hear it ever so softly spoken, they

Montessori students come to understand and accept that we all have responsibilities to other people. They learn how to handle new situations that they will face as they become increasingly independent. They develop a clear sense of values and social conscience and absorb everyday ethics and interpersonal skills from the earliest years.

silently rise and join the teacher. Sometimes the teachers will vary the Silence Game by challenging the children to carry bells across the room without allowing them to ring, or they may use the calm atmosphere to introduce the children

Community Service

to guided visualization. At ﬁrst, the

 Community service is

relax, listen, and appreciate the perfectly

an important element in

calm environment increases. In many

elementary and secondary

classes, the Silence Game is an important

Montessori programs. Even

daily ritual.

younger children may not be able to hold the silence for more than twenty or thirty seconds, but gradually their ability to

very young children can learn to share with friends and help their classroom community.

Teaching PEACE & COMPASSION

GRACE & COURTESY

The Peace Table  right The Peace Table plays an important

from the table and from her heart and gives

role in Montessori classrooms. Two children

Lisa a chance to respond.

having a disagreement will normally decide to retreat to the Peace Table to solve their prob-

Lisa proceeds that same way. She places a hand

lem. Sometimes, children may not remem-

on the table and one on her heart, looks Eleanor

ber, and the suggestion might come from the

in the eye, and responds: “Eleanor, I feel unhap-

teacher. When classmates observe an ongo-

py that you are angry. I did not mean to hurt your

ing disagreement, somebody might bring

feelings. However, Lily is a good friend of mine

However, if the problem or conﬂict is too

them a peace rose with the reminder to solve

also, and the game we played can be played by

involved, then one of them may ask for a pow-

their problem at the Peace Table.

only two children. If I had been playing it with

wow. During a pow-wow, the entire class, or

you, nobody else could have joined us either.

a large part of the class, sits in a circle, listens

Once arrived at the table, the child who feels

So, you see, it’s just one of those things. I want to

to ﬁrst one, then the other person’s side of the

wronged places her hand on the table, indi-

remain your friend.”

story. The class members contribute what they

cating that she wants to have her say with-

can, either as facts of what they have seen

out interruption. The other hand she places

With that, Lisa is ﬁnished and withdraws her

or heard, as ethics (right and wrong), or in

on her heart, indicating that she speaks the

hands. Now it is Eleanor’s turn to agree or dis-

perspective to class rules, upon which all have

truth, from the heart. She then looks the

agree. In any case, they continue the dialogue

agreed previously. It is wise for the teacher to

other in the eye, speaks her name, “Lisa,”

until they reach some kind of agreement, even if

observe and monitor the entire process from

and proceeds to state how she feels, “Lisa,

that means that they disagree. At least they are

the sidelines.

I feel very angry ...” and continues to state

talking, without yelling, screaming, and blaming.

why she feels that way, “... because you

They want to solve the problem. When they have

The core experience the students gain from

didn’t let me play with you and Lily!” She

reached an agreement, they ring the bell to let

these procedures is that it is necessary to

states how she wants to resolve the conﬂict:

the others know. In case they cannot come to a

solve disturbances honestly and with good

“And I don’t want you to do that ever again,

positive conclusion, they may ask for a mediator.

will to maintain a harmonious and cooperative

if you want to be my friend!” Now that she

This may be one of the older children, who has

atmosphere in the community. ¢

has stated her case and opened the door for

been trained to be impartial and to listen well.

further discussion, she withdraws her hand

THE

Sensorial EXERCISES

child interacts with the physical world through her senses. From birth, she will look, listen, touch, taste, pick up, manipulate, and smell almost anything that comes into her grasp. At first, everything goes into the mouth. Gradually, she begins to explore each object’s weight, texture, and temperature. She may watch something that catches her attention, such as a butterfly, with infinite patience. The Sensorial curriculum is designed to help children focus their attention more carefully on the physical world, exploring with each of their senses the subtle variations in the properties of objects. At first, children may simply be asked to sort among a prepared series of objects that vary by only one aspect, such as height, length, or width. Other exercises challenge them to find identical pairs or focus on very different physical properties, such as aroma, taste, weight, shades of color, temperature, or sound. These exercises are essentially puzzles, and they tend to fascinate children, because they are just difficult enough to represent a meaningful challenge. Each has a built-in control of error that allows observant children to check their own work.

The Sensorial exercises include lessons in vocabulary, as the children master the names of everything from sophisticated plane and solid geometric figures to the parts of familiar plants and animals. As the Inuit people of the Arctic demonstrate to us with their many different words for snow, we observe that as the children learn the correct names for things, the objects themselves take on meaning and reality as the children learn to recognize and name them. Why is it so important to educate the young child’s senses? We certainly don’t believe that we can improve a child’s hearing or sight through training. However, we can help children to pay attention, to focus their awareness, and to learn how to observe and consider what comes into their experience. In a way, the Sensorial curriculum accomplishes something like a course in wine tasting or music appreciation; one learns to taste, smell, or hear what is experienced with a much deeper awareness and appreciation. These exercises can help children understand and appreciate their world more fully.

SENSORIAL

The Pink Tower The Pink Tower is one of the Sensorial materials that children enjoy working with early in their Montessori experience. The Pink Tower, or Tower of Cubes, is composed of a graduated series of ten wooden cubes. The largest cube has a square section of 10 centimeters per side and is 10 centimeters high. Thus, it measures 10 x 10 x 10 centimeters. The square section and height of each of the succeeding cubes decreases by 1 centimeter, down to the smallest cube, which measures 1 x 1 x 1 centimeter. Children carefully carry the Tower, cube by cube, to the little rug that deﬁnes their work area. They carry each cube comfortably at waist height, as they take the cubes and place them in random order upon the carpet. As they manipulate the cubes and carry them across the room, children get a very strong impression of size and weight. When all the cubes have been carried to the rug, a child looks for the largest one and begins to build the Tower, one cube at a time. At each step, he looks through the cubes that have not yet been added to the Tower to ﬁnd the largest. As each is placed on the Tower, the child controls her movements to place the cube gently down right in the center of the larger cube on which it is rested. Once the Tower has been constructed, the child carefully takes it down and either begins again or returns the cubes, one by one, to their proper place on the shelf. Some people have heard that in Montessori, children are taught that there is only one way to work with each material. In truth, the children explore and discover all sorts of creative ways to work with them. For example, students will construct the Tower horizontally, or line up two edges to create a vertical stairway. The children will also build the Pink Tower in various combinations with the Brown Stair along with some of the other Sensorial materials.

SENSORIAL

The Montessori Bells The Montessori Bells extend the child’s ability to distinguish sounds into the area of musical pitch. They are a lovely set of bells fixed to little wooden bases. Each bell is tuned to either a whole or a half note on the standard musical scale. The entire set comprises one entire octave, including sharps and flats. The set includes one set of bells with tan bases for both half and whole notes, and a second set in which the bases of the bells that sound the whole notes are painted white, and those for the sharps and flats are painted black.

Mystery Box

At ﬁrst the children learn how to strike the bells with a small mallet to produce a clear note and dampen them with a little felt covered rod. Then the teacher will set out two

One of the children’s favorite activities is the Mystery Bag

or three pairs of bells from the two sets. The children match the pairs that produce

or Box. Normally, it is simply a cloth bag or box with a hole

identical notes. When they can do this easily, additional pairs are added until they can

for their hands in which they touch and manipulate objects

match entire sets.

that they cannot see. One activity is to place things that are familiar to the children inside and challenge them to identify

A more difﬁcult exercise challenges the children to grade the bells of just one set by

them by touch alone.

pitch, from the lowest to highest notes. As they become more familiar with the bells, children will commonly learn how to play and compose little melodies.

SENSORIAL

Brown Stair  left The Brown Stair, which is sometimes called the Broad Stair, is made up of ten rectangular prisms, with bases that have exactly the same graduated measurements as the cubes of the Pink Tower, but which are uniformly 20 centimeters long. The child is challenged to scatter them around her rug and then sort them by size to place all ten prisms in proper order from thickest to thinnest. This results in a graduated series of rectangular prisms that resembles a little stairway. Because the squared sides of each prism correspond to the dimensions of the cubes of the Pink Tower, the two materials are often used together for all sorts of exploration and designs.

SENSORIAL

Knobbed Cylinder Blocks  right The Knobbed Cylinder Blocks are a set of four naturally finished (unpainted) rectangular blocks of wood, into which have been cut ten cylindrical holes. Each hole is filled with a matching wooden cylindrical inset, fitted with a little knob on the top to make it easy for a child’s small hand to grasp and lift it out of its perfectly fitted hole. Each set of cylinders is constructed to vary in a regular sequence by either diameter, length, or both. The children remove each cylinder in turn, carefully tracing its length and circumference and the depth and circumference of each hole with one finger.

Smelling Cannisters

Once all ten cylinders have been removed and placed on the rug,

 left Children enjoy

the children take each in turn and ﬁnd the hole into which it ﬁts

using the Smelling

perfectly, with the top of the cylinder ﬂush with the top of the cylinder

Cannisters to learn to

block. If they’ve made a mistake, the children can normally see it for

identify different non-toxic

themselves because all ten cylinders will not ﬁt correctly.

smells using their olfactory senses. Typically, aromatic

The children quickly begin to challenge themselves by attempting

oils or extracts (such as

to ‘see’ which hole is likely to ﬁt the cylinder in their hand rather than

lemon or peppermint) are

trying to ﬁt each into one hole after the other. After a while, they will

placed inside the canister

begin to do the same exercise with their eyes blindfolded, relying on

(using a cotton ball and

touch alone. When they are ready for a greater challenge, the children

a few drops of oil). Other

will mix the cylinders from two, three, or all four blocks together and

cannisters might contain

try to ﬁt them all into the corresponding holes.

spices, such as cinnamon.

SENSORIAL

Red Rods  right The Red Rods are a series of ten rods (thin rectangular prisms) of which the height and width are uniform; however, they range in length from 1 decimeter (10 centimeters) to a full meter (10 decimeters or 100 centimeters). The child scatters the rods around her rug and looks for the longest. As each is arranged next to the others in a series, the child discovers the regular progression of length. The teachers introduce vocabulary: short, shorter, shortest; long, longer, longest. The Red Rods are exactly the same dimensions as the Red and Blue Rods in the Math area, which help children learn to count by showing the growth of quantity as length, distinguished by alternating patterns of red and blue to represent each number.

Knobless Cylinders  right The Knobless Cylinders correspond to the four Knobbed Cylinder Blocks. With this material, each of these sets is painted red, yellow, blue, or green. With no cylindrical holes, the children depend upon sight or touch alone to arrange the cylinders. Children will sometimes work with both the Knobless Cylinders and the more familiar Knobbed Cylinders, ﬁnding the match between each brightly painted and unpainted cylinder in turn. By working with all four sets of Knobless Cylinders together, children discover all sorts of geometric patterns and progressions within the material.

Sandpaper Tablets  right The Sandpaper Tablets are a set of wooden tablets covered with several different grades of sandpaper. The challenge is to identify pairs that have the same degree of roughness, working by touch alone. An extension of these activities is commonly created by assembling a collection of pairs of cloth swatches cut from many different materials, each with its own texture. Again, working with eyes blindfolded, the children attempt to ﬁnd the pairs by touch. Like all Montessori exercises, there is a built-in control of error. In this case, the children learn to check their work by removing the blindfold and seeing if they have identiﬁed the correct pair.

SENSORIAL

Color Tablets  left The Color Tablets help the child learn to distinguish among primary and secondary colors and tones, while mastering the words used to describe each color and shade. There are three separate boxes of Color Tablets. All of the tablets have the same shape and differ only in color. The ﬁrst box of Color Tablets contains six tablets, two each of yellow, red, and blue. The children simply match the pairs and learn the spoken names of the colors. The second box of Color Tablets contains eleven pairs of secondary colors and tones, which the children match and name. The third box of Color Tablets contains seven different shades of nine different colors, which the children learn to sort in order from lightest to darkest shade. When all of the tablets are laid out in an array it creates a lovely display of color. There are many ways in which the children and teachers can make the color tablets more challenging. For example, the children will try to ﬁnd the tablet that is closest in color to something in the environment. Another challenge is to give the child a color tablet from the third box and ask him to go to the box and, by memory alone, bring back the tablet that is just one shade lighter or darker.

Rough & Smooth Boards  right Another exercise begins with the Rough and Smooth Boards, which have a surface that alternates between the roughness of sandpaper and a smooth ﬁnished surface. The children wash their hands in warm water before beginning to make them more sensitive.

SENSORIAL

The Sound Cylinders  left The Sound Cylinders are six pairs of sealed container ﬁlled with substances that make distinct sounds when shaken, such as beach sand or dried peas of different sizes. The children carefully listen to the sounds and match the containers that have the same sound.

SENSORIAL

The Geometry Cabinet

The Geometry Cabinet is essentially a set of

sequence some shapes by size and classify

the third set, the figures are simply traced

puzzles made in the shapes of the essential plane

other shapes by type. They also learn how to

with thin lines. As children gradually

geometric ﬁgures. It consists of six drawers, each

match them against three sets of printed cards

begin to recognize the more abstract

of which is ﬁtted with several wooden frames,

that represent the same ﬁgures in increasing

representations of the three-dimensional

inset with a geometric form. In addition to the

degrees of abstraction. The ﬁrst set represents

objects, they are preparing themselves

familiar circle, square, and rectangle, the child is

each shape completely colored in on the card

to recognize the little lines and squiggles

introduced to a much broader array of complex

in the same size as the piece from the cabinet.

of the written word. Gradually, children

ﬁgures, from the right scalene triangle to the

The children simply cover each card with the

learn the names of each of the geometric

decagon; and from ellipse to the curvilinear

matching puzzle piece.

shapes. Once children begin to read and

triangle through the quatrefoil.

can verbally identify the shapes, they begin In the second set, the geometric shapes

to label them with pre-printed name cards.

In addition to removing the pieces and

are printed as outlines drawn with broad

Eventually, the children will be able to

replacing them in their frames, children

lines that leave the inner area white. In

prepare their own cards from scratch.

SENSORIAL

The Geometric Solids The logical basis for the Geometry Cabinet is the set of Geometric Solids. The children learn the names of these beautiful wooden forms, identifying them at ﬁrst by sight and eventually when blindfolded. The set includes a sphere, cube, rectangular prism, a square-based and broad pyramid, triangular pyramid, ovoid, ellipsoid, and a cone. The children quickly begin to look for each geometric form in their environment. They also begin to discover the relationship between the two dimensional ﬁgures and the solid forms: a circle is related to a sphere, a square to a cube, etc. Editorial Note: Some of the materials described on these pages may not seem to the layperson to be Sensorial in nature, as much as algebraic or geometric. They are, however, included in the Sensorial curriculum, because this is where they are introduced to Montessori students in the early years.

As they begin to read, children will learn to match Geometric Solids to a set of prepared label cards. Eventually, they will be able to prepare their own. This early introduction to geometry continues in the elementary Montessori program. After years of hands-on experience with geometric figures and other mathematical exercises, children normally find it very easy to grasp more advanced concepts, from the definitions of geometric terms to the calculation of area, volume, and circumference.

SENSORIAL

The Binomial & Trinomial Cubes

The Importance of Puzzles in the Montessori Approach Every one who has worked with young children, whether as parent or teacher, knows how much they enjoy wooden puzzles; however, most of us take puzzles more or less for granted and fail to appreciate their hidden potential as an educational tool. The puzzles that we commonly give to young children depict little animals or cute scenes. Dr. Montessori came to recognize that the attraction of fitting the pieces of a puzzle into the insets on their frames lies in the process of manipulating an object in all directions, and finally discovering the one and only correct way that it will fit. There is more to all this than simply the satisfaction of solving a puzzle. Somehow, we find that young children experience things that they can touch and manipulate quite differently from a picture of something printed on a piece of paper. In short, the positive and negative insets of a puzzle are much more real and interesting to a child than a simple two-dimensional picture. In the Montessori classroom, puzzles are not only used to help children learn to manipulate objects and assemble a complex whole from several parts, they are used to introduce children to a tremendous range of concepts and vocabulary, from geometric shapes to the countries of the world and the parts of a flower.

 These cubes are two of the most fascinating materials in the Montessori curriculum. At one level, they are simply a complex puzzle in which the child is challenged to rebuild the cubes and rectangular prisms contained in the box back into the form of a larger cube. Color coding on the outside of the box and the sides of certain pieces helps the child detect the pattern. The material is also an exercise in algebra and geometry, representing in concrete form the cube of a binomial (a+b)3 and a trinomial (a+b+c)3 where a=3 cm., b=4 cm., and c=5 cm.

The Constructive Triangles  The Constructive Triangles allow children to explore the geometric possibilities inherent within several different types of triangles. The material consists of six boxes, each of which contains a set of brightly colored, ﬂat wooden triangles, which can be manipulated like a puzzle to explore congruency and equivalence. For example, two right triangles joined together along the hypotenuse form a rectangle. To help the young child recognize the essential relationships, most of the triangles have a line drawn along those edges that join together to form new ﬁgures, such as rectangles, squares, trapezoids, and polygons. Working with the Constructive Triangles, children explore how various triangles can form regular polygons in geometry.

PART TWO

A Guided Tour of the Early Childhood & Elementary Montessori Classrooms Reading, Composition & Literature Math ¾ Science ¾ Geography History ¾ Cultural Studies The Arts ¾ Health & Wellness

n Part Two of our Guided Tour, we will see how Montessori students move from the concrete (the early childhood classroom) to the abstract (the elementary classroom) in the areas of language, math, history, geography, cultural studies, and science. Not all Montessori schools offer elementary programs, but in the following pages, you will see how the Montessori curriculum in the older classrooms builds on the foundation of the primary level.

The Montessori Approach TO READING, COMPOSITION & LITERATURE

he process of learning how to read should be as painless and simple as learning how to speak. Montessori begins by placing the youngest students in classes where the older students are already reading. All children want is to “do what the big kids can do,” and as the intriguing work that absorbs the older students involves reading, there is a natural lure for the young child. Beginning at age two or three, Montessori children are introduced to a few letters at a time until they have mastered the entire alphabet. They trace each letter as it would be written, using two fingers of their dominant hand. As they trace the letter’s shape, they receive three distinct impressions: they see the shape of the letter, they feel its shape and how it is written, and they hear the teacher pronounce its sound.

READING, COMPOSITION & LITERATURE

The Metal Insets  left To help children develop the eye-hand

traced, using careful horizontal strokes. Grad-

coordination needed to correctly grasp and

ually, children become more skilled at keeping

write with a pencil, Montessori introduced

the strokes even and staying within the lines.

them to a set of metal frames and insets made in the form of geometric shapes.

As they get older, children begin to superimpose several insets over each other, creating

When the geometric inset is removed, the

complex designs which, when colored in, re-

children trace the ﬁgure left within the frame

semble stained glass. Montessori children will

onto a sheet of paper. Then they use colored

often prepare beautiful little books of their

pencils to shade in the outlines that they’ve

Metal Inset work.

Sandpaper Letters

READING, COMPOSITION & LITERATURE

The Sandpaper Letters & The Moveable Alphabet The Sandpaper Letters are a set of prepared

Many Montessori classrooms use Sandpa-

children will often be able to write (encoding

wooden tablets in which each letter is printed

per Letters that don’t follow the traditional

language by spelling phonetic words out one

in white sandpaper and glued down against

circle-and-line approach of teaching a young

sound at a time), weeks or months before they

a smooth colored background. Montessori’s

child the alphabet. Both cursive alphabets

will be able to read comfortably (decoding

research conﬁrmed what observant parents

and D’Nelian letters (a modiﬁed form of italic

printed words).

have always known: Children learn best by

printing that facilitates the jump to cursive)

touch and manipulation, not by repeating

are available and used with excellent results.

Once children have begun to recognize sever-

what they are told. Montessori’s manipulative

Montessori found that children in her schools

al letters and their sounds with the Sandpaper

approach to teaching children to read pho-

were capable of encoding words months

Letters, they are introduced to the Moveable

netically is nothing short of simple brilliance

before they developed the eye-hand coordi-

Alphabet, a large box with compartments

and should have long ago become a basic

nation needed to control a pencil. By using

containing plastic letters, organized much like

element in every early childhood classroom

specially prepared Moveable Alphabets, Mon-

an old-fashioned printer’s box of metal type.

around the world.

tessori separated the process of beginning to

The children compose words by selecting a

write from its dependency on the child’s ability

small object or picture and then laying out

to write with paper and pencil.

the word one letter at a time. As with the

Children move from the Sandpaper Letters to tracing them in ﬁne sand. The teacher and

Sandpaper Letters, they sound out words one

child will begin to identify words that begin

Montessori teaches basic skills phonetical-

letter at a time, selecting the letter that makes

with the kuh sound: cat, candle, can, and cap.

ly, encouraging children to compose their

that sound.

Seeing the tablets for the letters c, a, and t

own stories using the Moveable Alphabet.

laid out before her, a child will pronounce

Reading skills normally develop so smoothly

The phonetic approach, which has myste-

each in turn—kuh, aah, tuh: cat! To help chil-

in Montessori classrooms that students tend

riously fallen out of favor in many schools,

dren distinguish between them, consonants

to exhibit a sudden “explosion into reading,”

has long been recognized by educators as

are printed against pink or red backgrounds

which leaves the children and their families

the single most effective way to teach most

and vowels against blue.

beaming with pride. Another unusual result

children how to read and write. However, we

of the Montessori approach is that young

have to remember that, unlike Italian and

Many parents ﬁnd it curious that Montessori children are not taught the names of letters; instead, they learn the sounds that we pronounce as we phonetically sound out words one letter at a time. For a long time, children may not know the names of letters at all, but will call them by the sounds they make: buh, cuh, aah, etc. This eliminates one of the most unnecessary and confusing steps in learning to read: “The letter A stands for apple. The sound it makes is aah.”

Spanish, English is not a completely phonetic

come more conﬁdent in their ability to sound

might contain little plastic objects represent-

language. Just consider the several different

words out rather than risk that they will shut

ing a cat, cap, can, bug, bag, bat, ﬁsh, ﬁg,

sounds made by the letters ough.

down from frequent correction. The process of

and fan (no consonant blends). In another

composing words with the Moveable Alphabet

exercise, we will substitute little cards with

There is the sound off as in cough, or ufff as in

continues for many years, gradually moving

pictures instead of the small objects.

rough or enough, or the sound oooh as in the

from three-letter words to four- and ﬁve-letter

word through, or the sound ah as in thought.

words with consonant blends (ﬂ, tr, st), double

Cards with the names of familiar objects are

Altogether, there are some ninety-six different

vowels (oo, ee), silent e’s, and so on.

commonly found in most kindergartens. How-

phonograms (combinations of letters that

ever, in Montessori, children take this much

form distinct sounds) in the English language

As children begin to work with the Sandpa-

further, learning the names of and placing

(such as, ph, ee, ai, oo, etc.).

per Letters, teachers will lead them through

the appropriate labels on a bewildering array

a wide range of pre-reading exercises

of geometric shapes, leaf forms, the parts of

It is not surprising that in the early years, as

designed to help them recognize the be-

ﬂowers, countries of the world, land and water

young children are beginning to compose

ginning, and later the ending and middle

forms, and much, much more. Montessori

words, phrases, sentences, and stories, their

sounds in short phonetic words. One com-

children are known for their incredible vocab-

spelling can sometimes get a bit creative. For

mon example would be a basket containing

ularies. Where else would you ﬁnd four-year-

example, the word phone is frequently spelled

three Sandpaper Letters, such as c, b, and

olds who can identify an isosceles triangle,

fon. Montessori teachers deliberately avoid

f. In addition, the basket will contain small

rectangular prism, the stamen of a ﬂower, or

correcting children’s spelling during these early

inexpensive objects that are models of things

the continent of Asia on a map?

years, preferring to encourage them to be-

beginning with these letters. The basket

When will children start to read? There is typically a quick jump from reading and writing single words to sentences and stories. For some children, this “explosion into reading” will happen when they’re four, for others when they’re ﬁve, and some will start to read at six. A few will read even earlier, and some others will taken even longer. Most will be reading very comfortably when they enter ﬁrst grade, but children are different and, as with every other developmental milestone, it’s useless to fret. Again, the children are surrounded by older children who can read, and the most intriguing things to do in the classroom depend on one’s ability to read. This creates a natural interest and desire to catch up to the ‘big kids’ and join the ranks of readers. As soon as children, no matter how young they are, show the slightest interest, we begin to teach them how to read. And when they are ready, the children pull it all together and are able to read and write on their own.

Teaching Children the Consonant Blends and Phonograms of the English Language

The Study of Grammar & Sentence Analysis We begin to teach the functions of grammar and sentence structure to children as young as age

Montessori uses two sets of small Moveable

ﬁve and six, just as they are ﬁrst learning how to

Alphabets, each made of a different color, to

put words together to express themselves. This

help the children master consonant blends,

leads them to master these vital skills. Before

such as ﬂ, st, ch, cl, cr, or tr. A consonant blend

long, they learn to write naturally and well.

requires the child to blend two distinct letter sounds together into one, as we do when we

 This eight-year-old is analyzing the grammatical structure of a complex sentence using the grammar symbols and the grammar boxes.

say ﬂag or train.

fl fl fl fl fl fl

ag at eet ee ing ower

The child lays out several copies of the consonant blend with one color of the Moveable Alphabet. Then she completes the words by adding the remaining letters in the Moveable Alphabet printed in the second color. An example might be tr...ip, tr...ade, tr...ain, and tr...iangle. Phonograms are the combinations of letters in the English language that form new sounds on their own, such as ee, ai, oa, oo, and ou. Some phonograms, such as ow, can make more than one sound. For example, ow has one sound in tow and still another in down. The children construct words containing phonograms using two Moveable Alphabets just as they do the Consonant Blends. Montessori teachers will normally prepare little booklets, each of which contains many examples of one particular Consonant Blend or Phonogram.

Puzzle Words: Some words, most of which have come to English from other languages, just don’t follow the familiar rules. Examples of Puzzle Words are: the, was, you, they, and their. They have to be learned by memory.

The Verb Command Cards One of the early reading exercises introduced to Montessori children, once they have begun to read, are the Verb Command Cards. This is a set of red cards on which a single one-word command (a verb) is printed. Typically, two or  This young lady is diagramming a simple sentence with the ﬁrst sentence analysis materials.

three children will do this work together as a little game. They pick a card, read it, and

Montessori Grammar Materials

perform the command: hop, smile, yawn, sleep, clap, sit, stand, wave, eat, drink, and

Montessori children use geometric symbols to

so on. Once they can read these one-word

represent the parts of speech, as in the simple

command cards, later sets will use complete

article, adjective, noun, verb, and adverb sen-

sentences to command them to, “Bring

tence pictured above. Montessori created a set

me the smallest cube from the Pink Tower,”

of symbols to represent each part of speech,

or, “Waddle across the room like a duck.”

which helps children learn them easily during

Command Cards are used with older children

a time in their lives when it is a delight rather

to suggest speciﬁc challenges in every area of

than a chore. For example, the symbol for a

the curriculum. For example, in Geography,

noun is a large black triangle. Because they are

a Command Card might challenge the child

related to the “noun family,” the symbols for an

to look in the atlas to ﬁnd the location of the

article and an adjective are also triangles.

largest inland lake on Earth.

To distinguish them from the noun, which they modify, the symbol for an adjective is a dark blue triangle about one-third smaller than the larger symbol for the noun, and the symbol for an article is a much smaller light blue triangle. The children will often call the noun a “naming word,” an adjective a “describing word,” a verb a “doing word,” and so on. The symbol for a verb is a large red circle (implying a ball, or movement, since verbs describe action), and the symbol for an adverb is a smaller orange

 The Verb Command Cards have a simple oneword command (verb) printed on them. This little boy has just read the word wave and is acting out the command.

circle, showing that it is related to the verb.

 above Montessori students make use of traditional research methods as well as new technology. Some schools are providing tablets in the classroom to literally put information at their ﬁngertips.  top right Montessori students match nouns to adjectives and verbs to adverbs as they work with the Grammar Boxes.  below right Settling down in a cozy spot for a good read!

READING, COMPOSITION & LITERATURE

Composition & Library Research During the elementary years, Montessori focuses on the development of strong writing skills and library research. The curriculum does not depend on textbooks, as much as on primary and secondary resource materials found in classroom library collections, media centers, public libraries, and on the Internet. Elementary Montessori students commonly use reference materials and public records to seek out additional information when they are doing research. Students write every day, learning to organize increasingly complex ideas and information into well written stories, poems, reports, plays, and student publications. They begin a systematic study of the English language: vocabulary, spelling rules, and linguistics. Montessori schools commonly teach elementary and middle school students how to use the computer to write, illustrate, and lay out their work. ¢

Montessori Math FROM THE CONCRETE TO THE ABSTRACT

Students who learn math by rote often have no real understanding or ability to put their skills to use in everyday life. Learning comes much more easily when they work with concrete educational materials that graphically show what is taking place in a given mathematical process. ontessori students use handson learning materials that make abstract concepts clear and concrete. They can literally see and explore what is going on. This approach to teaching mathematics, based on the research of Drs. Maria and Mario Montessori, offers a clear and logical strategy for helping students understand and develop a sound foundation in mathematics and geometry.

to be incorporated into the American math curriculum.

The Montessori math curriculum is based on the European tradition of unified math, which has only recently begun

The concrete Montessori math materials are perhaps the best known and most imitated elements of Dr. Montessori’s work.

Unified Math introduces elementary students to the study of the fundamentals of algebra, geometry, logic, and statistics along with the principles of arithmetic. This study continues over the years, weaving together subjects that traditional schools normally ignore until the secondary grades.

These elegant and simply lovely materials hold a fascination for most children and adults alike. They proceed through several levels of abstraction, beginning with concepts and skills that are the most basic foundations of mathematics, presented in the most concrete representation, up through the advanced concepts of secondary mathematics, which are represented in increasing levels of abstraction, until the student grasps them conceptually.

MONTESSORI MATH

The Red & Blue Rods  left The Red and Blue Rods are the

with all of the numbers 1 to 10. For

child’s introduction to mathematics.

example, they discover that the “four”

These rods have the same dimensions

and the “six” together are the same

as the Red Rods found in the Sensorial

length as the “ten.”

area. Here, however, the rods are painted in alternating patterns of red

Montessori found that young children

and blue to distinguish their length

ﬁnd it difﬁcult in the beginning to grasp

in segments of one tenth of a meter

the concept of numbers by counting

(a decimeter). The ﬁrst rod is one

separate objects. While they can learn to

decimeter long and is just painted red.

“count” by rote, reciting the sequence of

The second is two decimeters long, and

numbers from one to ten, most cannot

is divided into two segments, one red

easily grasp the difference between

and one blue. This continues through all

one quantity and another when looking

ten rods.

at more than three or four objects. It’s almost as if they are thinking: “One, two,

As with the Red Rods, the children

three... Many!” This is easily avoided by

arrange the Red and Blue Number Rods

allowing children to visualize the concept

into a stair from largest to smallest. Then

of numbers and quantity by using this

they count each alternating colored

series of segmented rods of increasing

segment. One of the insights that

length in the beginning, rather than

children begin to get from working with

trying to teach them to count sets of

the rods is the nature of addition. For

separate objects. The children also use

example, when the children place the

the sandpaper numeral cards to label

“one” number rod at the end of the

each number rod. These tablets are

“two” rod, they create a new rod that is

designed and used in the same way as

the same length as the “three” rod just

the Sandpaper Letters described in the

above. They explore similar relationships

section on Language Arts.

The Spindle Boxes  above Provide a nicely structured way

The exercise calls for the child to count the

One lovely variation of this activity challenges

for young children to make the next step

correct number of spindles to go in each

the young child to create a distinct set for each

in understanding the concepts of numbers

compartment: one, two, three ... all the way

number, while practicing bow-tying skills by

and quantity. The material is made up of two

to nine. Naturally, the compartment labeled

tying a green ribbon (green symbolizes the

wooden boxes, which together are divided

“zero” is left empty, teaching the child at a very

concept of units - whole numbers less than ten)

into ten compartments. The compartments are

early age the concept of zero as an empty set.

around the clustered spindles. Then this bundle

labeled with the numerals from zero through

If the child has counted correctly, there will not

is placed in the correct compartment.

nine. In a separate box or basket are forty-ﬁve

be any spindles left over when he ﬁlls up the

wooden spindles used for counting.

compartment labeled “nine.”

MONTESSORI MATH

The Numeral Cards & Counters  above After considerable experience with the more structured introductions to number and quantity created by the Red and Blue Number Rods and the Spindle Boxes, children are ﬁnally ready to tackle the task of associating cards on which the numerals have been printed with objects to count. They begin by arranging the numeral cards in order from one to ten. Then they begin to count out the appropriate number of counters, placing them in parallel rows of two after the number one. Even numbers end with an even number of counters in the bottom row; odd numbers only have one. This begins to focus their attention on the concept of odd and even numbers.

The Numeral Cards & Golden Beads

The Golden Beads:

 above The Numeral Cards and

An Introduction to the Decimal System

Golden Beads This special set of numeral cards is used to help the

 right Dr. Montessori developed a wonderful educational

children learn to read numerals up to

material called the Golden Beads to illustrate concretely the

9,999. Used to label the units, tens,

nature of place value in the decimal system and its basic

hundreds, and thousands in which

operations. The name comes from the beautiful color used

the Golden Beads are laid out, they

for the enamel ﬁnish on this set of small glass beads.

help children begin to understand the concept of the hierarchy of

A single bead by itself represents a unit of one. Thus, the

the decimal quantities and how

number 5 would be represented by a collection of ﬁve “unit”

we borrow and carry from the next

beads. Ten “unit” beads strung together on a length of wire represents a unit of ten. Three “10” bars

column in mathematical operations.

collected together actually consists of thirty “unit” beads, or three “10s.” The children quickly discover

The large size of the cards and the

that ten “unit” beads are exactly the same as one “10” bar. They also begin to count not only the

color coding used to represent

individual “unit” beads but by units of ten: 10, 20, 30 ... 100.

units, tens, hundreds, and thousands makes it easy for children to

Ten “10” bead bars naturally equal the quantity of one hundred. Units of one hundred are made up of

understand how large quantities are

ten “10” bead bars laid side by side and wired together to form a square. Ten “100” squares stacked

constructed from right to left, read

one on top of the other form a cube containing one thousand “unit” beads. They are permanently wired

from left to right, and worked within

together to form the thousand cube. Using these concrete materials, even very young children can

vertical columns. The children shown

build and work with great numbers. In a typical early lesson with the Golden Beads, the teacher might

above are using the Golden Beads

challenge the child to, “Bring me three ‘1,000s,’ ﬁve ‘100s,’ six ‘10s,’ and one ‘unit.’” While they will also

and Numeral Cards to add two

work with prepared problem cards, children often enjoy thinking up numbers for themselves.

quantities: 3,542 + 4,145 = 7,687.

Addition with the Golden Beads and Stamp Game by ROBIN HOWE

ontessori children work with hands-on learning materials that make abstract concepts clear and concrete. The materials allow young students to develop a clear inner image of concepts in mathematics, such as value and the ability to conceptualize how big a thousand is, what we mean when we refer to the ‘hundreds’ column, and what is actually happening when we divide one number by another. This approach makes sense to children. Developed by Dr. Montessori over one hundred years ago, today’s research consistently shows that this 'innovative’ approach works exceptionally well with most children. As an example, let us consider the decimal system, which forms the basis of mathematics: units, tens, hundreds, and thousands.

Normally, young children find it difficult to understand or operate with quantities larger than twenty. They cannot grasp the value of a hundred, thousand, or million ... much less the idea that one thousand is equal to ten hundreds or one hundred tens.

each is equal to one of the values of the next place value: 10 units are equal to 1 ten; 10 tens are equal to 1 hundred; etc. Because the corresponding values are constructed from smaller values, they are to scale in weight and size.

Montessori overcame this obstacle by developing concrete, tangible materials that not only represent values but are equal in scale, representing each value of the decimal system. Units are represented by single 1-centimeter beads; a unit of 10 is made up of a bar of 10 unit beads strung together; hundreds are squares made up of 10 tenbars; and thousands are cubes made up of 10 hundred-squares. Each one of these corresponding materials is presented to the child in a manner that shows how ten of

Together, they form a visually and intellectually impressive tool for learning. Great numbers can be formed by very young children. Able to identify each value and its corresponding bead material, the preschool age child can actually build numbers by playing the Bring-Me Game. “Please bring me 3 thousands, 5 hundreds, 6 tens, and 1 unit.”

From this foundation, all of the operations in mathematics, such as the addi-

tion of quantities into the thousands, become clear and concrete, allowing the child to internalize a clear picture of how the process works. Often, two children will work together to construct and solve a mathematical problem. Using sets of numeral cards, each will collect a quantity for addition by deciding how many units, tens, hundreds, and thou-

 above Working with his teacher, this young man has chosen to construct and add two quantities of Golden Beads. The ﬁrst is made up of 2 ‘thousand’ cubes, 4 ‘hundred’ squares, 6 ‘ten bars,’ and 8 ‘unit’ beads, equalling 2,468. The second is made up of 3 ‘thousand’ cubes, 7 ‘hundred’ squares, 9 ‘ten’ bars, and 5 ‘unit’ beads, totalling 3,795. The two addends are placed on a rug with their corresponding numeral cards. Both number and material are named and created with the thousands (or highest place value) on the left. Right from the start of their education, Montessori children learn the concept of the units (ones), tens, hundreds, and thousands columns, and the way to read such large numbers.

sands will be in his or her addend. The corresponding cards themselves follow a color code in which the cards, showing the units 1 to 9 are printed in green; the cards showing the numbers from 10 to 90 are printed in blue; the hundreds from 100 to 900 are printed with red ink; and the cards showing the numbers 1,000 to 9,000 are printed in green again because they represent units of thousands. As the child progresses in arithmetic, this color scheme continues into the millions, each hierarchy (or family) is represented by the green of units, blue of tens, and red of hundreds. As the children construct their number, they will decide how many units they want in their number, find the corresponding cards that represent that quantity, placing the created number at the upper right-hand corner of their work space. Next, they go to the ‘bank,’ or central collection of Golden Bead material and gather that number of unit beads that corresponds with the numeral cards selected. This process is repeated with the tens, hundreds, and thousands. By doing this, they are not only becoming familiar with place value and developing the skills of naming numerals, but they are developing the deeper understanding of the value of thousand, hundreds, tens, and units. Next, the two addends are combined, which we call the operation of addition. Beginning with the units, the children count the combined quantities to determine the result of adding the two together. If the result is nine or lower, they simply find the large numeral card that represents the answer. As the children count, if the quantity in the column is ten or greater, they stop at the count of ten and exchange them for the next highest quantity. For example, in this case, when the units from both addends were combined, we had 13 units. The child gathers 10 units and carries them back to the bank to exchange them for MONTESSORI 101 © 2019 // MONTESSORI.ORG

a ten-bead bar: 10 unit beads is equal to 1 unit of ten. He has also used the large number cards to show the remaining number of units, which is 3. This process is repeated with the ten’s column. Here, for example, we added 6 tens and 9 tens, plus the additional 10 that we carried forward. This gives us 16 tens. Our young friend gathers 10 ten-bead bars and takes them to the bank to exchange for another hundred square, which he places in the hundreds column. Finally, the child selects the correct numeral card

to represent the total of the remaining ten bars, which is 6 tens. The process is continued with the hundreds and thousands. Helping the children to understand that 10 tens is the equivalent of a hundred leads Montessori students to more easily grasp complex concepts in the addition of large quantities, subtraction, multiplication, and division. When everything is done, the children have their answer: 2,468 + 3,795 = 6,263.

Notice how the cards increase in length as we grow from units to tens, then hundreds, and thousands. When the cards are laid down with the thousands on the bottom, each of the columns is shown in the answer: 6 thousands, 2 hundreds, 6 tens, and 3 units.)

The Stamp Game Once the children have mastered the Golden Beads, they progress into more abstract materials that represent value. A favorite of Montessori students and parents alike is the Stamp Game that has small 2cm wooden stamps that represent each value. Like the cards used with the Golden Beads, the stamps follow the same color scheme: green for units; blue for tens; red for hundreds; and again green for thousands. This same color scheme is used with Montessori materials that the children will use later to find square roots and in the study of algebraic concepts. The students will perform the same operation as they did with the Golden Beads; however, because the stamps are the same size, this requires more abstract comprehension of the material. They can use the Stamp Game on a smaller work space, creating both addends and then adding them, exchanging when the number of each place value is greater than nine.

Like the Golden Beads, the children create the first addend with the stamps, starting with the units and proceeding with the tens, hundreds, and thousands. After they have created their first addend, they build a second addend, leaving a space to clearly separate the two addends. Once the two numbers are created in two columns for each place value of each addend, they are pushed together to make one value, representing the sum of the two addends. Starting with the units, the student counts the stamps, recording the number. In the example shown, there were 10 units of tens, which need to be exchanged for 1 unit of a hundred. This yields a total of 9 hundred tiles in the hundreds column. By this stage, in addition to constructing the answer with the number cards, most children will also record their work on large square graph paper. The final sum of 2,468 + 3,795 = 6,263.

Many parents and teachers think that, while the Montessori math materials are appropriate for children during the preschool and kindergarten years, when they go on to the elementary grades, children shouldn’t need them. In fact, as the children progress into ‘more difficult or advanced math,’ continuing to provide concrete opportunities for learning becomes even more important.

MONTESSORI MATH

The Short Bead Stair  right Using the Golden Bead material, the child sees the numbers one through nine represented as individual units. But, as we mentioned earlier, although the child can count the beads one at a time, it takes many years before most children can recognize and really understand the idea of number except by one-to-one correspondence. To help the child truly begin to grasp the idea of quantities from one through nine, Dr. Montessori prepared a set of colored glass beads, in which each quantity is represented by the appropriate number of individual beads wired together as a bar with a speciﬁc, easily recognizable color. In this material, a “1” is represented by a single red bead; a “2” by two green beads strung together; the “3” by three pink beads, and so on up through the ten Golden Beads that represent a unit of ten.

Elementary students rarely have the ability to think abstractly. Things that are not connected to their own concrete experience tend to be confusing. Mathematics is inherently abstract. Montessori’s objective is to use these concrete mathematical materials to help children develop an inner picture of mathematics that will last a lifetime.

The children work with the Short Bead Stair for many years, using the material to add and subtract, carry, borrow, explore multiples, and for many other arithmetic processes. For example, to multiply 9 x 8, the children would lay out eight “9” bars or nine “8” bars. By counting the result, they can check their work.

The Teens & Tens Board  left This material is made up of two

Montessori often used the analogy of the purpose of preparing a smooth runway for an airplane. Once the plane has gained enough speed to fly, it can travel in any direction at great speed. However, the problem is how to provide a safe, smooth environment in which the airplane can begin the transition from a stationary object on the ground to a soaring thing of flight.

different sets of boards that children use to explore the nature of quantities and numbers greater than nine. Each set consists of two boards, which are laid in a vertical row. The two boards are divided into nine sections, each of which is ﬁtted with a thin frame into which the children can slide wooden cards on which the numbers 1 through 9 have been printed. Numbers have also been printed on the surface of the board, spaced so that when the cards are slid into the frame they

The runway is the prepared environment essential for the aircraft. The Montessori math materials reflect an attempt to prepare an environment in which children can come to understand mathematics and begin to think and operate mathematically. ¢

will cover up one of the two digits. On the Teens Boards, the number 10 is printed in the nine spaces created by the frames. The children arrange the number cards from 1 to 9 in order, and slide them into the frames, creating the numbers 11, 12, 13... and so on through 19. Using the “Ten Bead Bars” and the Short Bead Stair material described earlier, the children lay out the numbers 11 through 19 concretely. For example, the number eighteen would

be formed by placing one ten bar in the tens column and one brown eight bar in the unit column. This gives them a very clear picture of how the teens are formed and written: ten and one is eleven, ten and two is twelve, etc. On the Tens Boards, the numbers 10, 20, 30, 40 through 90 are printed in the nine spaces created by the frames. They use the individual number cards to form numbers in the tens, such as 53, 24, 79, etc. and use the Golden Bead tens and unit beads to build their concrete representations along side.

The Hundred Board

The Square & Cube Chains   above & right Following the same concept, the Square and Cube Chains introduce the child to the concept of skip counting by ones, twos, threes, fours, etc. through tens. Each chain is constructed by connecting multiples of the Short Bead Stair, using the same color scheme that the children learned before: red “units,” green “2” bead bars, pink “3” bead bars, etc. The material also introduces the children to

 above The Hundred Board challenges the

the concept of the squares and cubes of

young child who can count aloud from one

the numbers one through ten.

to one hundred to lay out the numerals in the same sequence. The Board is a square divided

There are two chains for each number:

into ten rows with ten small squares along

one set representing the squares of the

each row. The children work with a set of one

numbers one through ten, and the other

hundred wooden tiles that are labeled from one

representing the cubes. Thus, the square

through one hundred.

of ﬁve is shown as a chain of ﬁve “5” bead bars (5 squared = 25) and the cube

Students spread the tiles out on the rug,

as a chain of twenty-ﬁve “5” bead bars

arrange them in numerical order,and place

(5 cubed=125).

them, one tile at a time, on the Hundred Board, working from the upper left-hand corner along

The material also includes a set of bead

each row to the right, down to the next row,

bars connected to show the squares

and so on until complete.

and cubes of the numbers as actual squares and cubes. The children use the

When they are comfortable with this, they

bead chains to skip count, working with

attempt the same exercise by ﬁlling in the

number arrows similar to those used with

squares on a blank chart drawn to duplicate the

the Hundreds and Thousand Chains.

surface of the Hundred Board.

MONTESSORI MATH

The Bank Game that ten “10s” can be exchanged for a “100”

For example, to divide the quantity 3,333 by

square, ten “100s” for one “1,000,” and that

three, a child would set out three wooden

each can, in turn, be broken down into its

skittles, and, beginning with the largest

equivalent in the smaller quantity.

quantity, in this case the “1,000” cubes, he gives one “1,000” to each skittle. He

Using the Golden Bead material, the children

continues on with the “100s,” “10s,” and

can build two or more large numbers and

“units.”

add them together. By going through the steps of addition in this very concrete manner,

If the child were challenged to divide this

the children have a clear impression about

same quantity by four, he would begin

what addition means. They also come to

by exchanging the three “1,000s” for

 above The “bank” is a name given to a

understand the process of exchanging, as

thirty “100s” squares, add them to the

collection of Golden Bead materials, which

they count the new quantities in each of the

stack of three “100s,” and then he would

includes enough “units,” “10” bars, “100”

columns and trade in groups of ten “units” for

distribute them equally. After placing eight

squares, and “1,000” cubes to allow several

one “10” bar, which they place in the “10s”

“100s” beneath each of the four skittles,

children to create large numbers. In one of

columns; ten “10” bars for one “100”; and ten

he exchanges the remaining one “100” for

the ﬁrst exercises, the children explore the

“100s” for one “1,000.”

ten “10” bars. This process of exchanging

equivalencies of the decimal system. They

continues until the ﬁnal answer is derived:

learn that ten “units” can be exchanged at the

Once they understand how to add with the

eight “100s,” three “10s,” three “units,” with

bank for a “10” bar, and that a “10” bar can

Golden Beads, Montessori children begin to

a remainder of one “unit.”

be exchanged for ten “units.” They also ﬁnd

use them to multiply, subtract, and divide.

Multiplication & Division The Short Multiplication and Division Boards offer other pathways to abstraction with these two operations.  left Using the Multiplication Board children lay out individual unit beads on a board organized into nine rows of nine shallow holes. They lay out the beads in rows. For example, 4 x 8 would be eight columns of four beads per column.  right The Division Board is similar, except

that here each vertical column of shallow

top. Then they count out the number of beads

holes represents one equal share, where a

that they want to divide and begin to distrib-

quantity is divided into two or more groups.

ute them, placing one bead in each hole from

Children place one small skittle at the top of

the top left to right and then down a row, until

each column to mark the number of shares

they ﬁnally have shared their quantity equally

that will be in their divisor; to divide 24 by 6,

among the vertical columns. Any beads left

they begins by placing 6 skittles along the

over are their “remainder.”

MONTESSORI MATH

The Fraction Circles & The Fraction Skittles As the children become more and more comfortable with the Golden Beads, they eventually begin to ask whether there is anything smaller than the unit. The Fraction Skittles, and many experiences in the classroom, gradually introduce them to the concept of a quarter, half, and whole. The Fraction Circles take this concept much further. It is a set of ten metal frames into which are set ten circles: one left intact; one divided into two parts; another into thirds, fourths, ﬁfths through tenths. The children learn the terminology, how to write fractions out as ﬁgures, and begin to explore the concepts of equivalence (2/4 = 1/2) and basic operations with fractions (1/2 + 2/4=1).

The Snake Game The Snake Game helps students to learn how to quickly make exchanges among different quantities that make up the number ten and higher. The game is played by laying out a snake using the colored bead bars (which represent the numbers 1 to 9 as rods of colored bead bars, with each quantity represented by beads of a different color). The children begin counting from the start of the chain, noting when they reach the number 10, and removing the beads that have been counted. At this point, they need to replace the counted beads with a Golden Ten Bead Bar and add in a new bead bar that represents the quantity left over. Let’s imagine that the ﬁrst 3 beads in the “Snake” were a 5 bead bar, a 3 bead bar, followed by a 6 bead bar. When the child has replaced these 3 bead bars with a 10 bar, the original beads added up to 14. To leave the same beads in the Snake as where they were at the start, they add a 4 bead bar after the golden 10 bead bar that they just laid down. They continue replacing all the beads in the Snake with Golden Bead Bars, until the Snake has been turned from many colors to one that is completely golden, except for any quantity that remained.

Geometric Figures   above & left At the elementary level, the children move on beyond learning the names of geometric ﬁgures to mastering the deﬁnitions as well. They also begin to construct geometric forms with a protractor and compass. The Multiplication Checkerboard is another more advanced material that introduces Long Multiplication.

Geometry continues on

The Second Plane of Abstraction

from its early introduction

When the children have begun to show that they are ready for still more abstract exercises, they’re introduced to another series of Math Materials at the Second Plane of Abstraction.

geometric ﬁgures.

For example, the Bead Frames (or abacus) (shown above) challenge the child to solve problems in a slightly more abstract process. The Short Bead Frame allows the child to work with quantities up to 9,999. The Long Bead Frame uses quantities as large as 9,999,999. The Flat Bead Frame represents the final step in the passage to abstraction with multiplication. It contains nine columns of Golden Beads with a zero at the base of each column. Color-coded dots representing the numerical hierarchies are found along the side of the Frame. The white, grey, and black strips along the top indicate the units of numbers: 1, 1,000, 1,000,000.

in the Sensorial curriculum into the elementary level. Students explore angles and the construction of different

Long Division: Racks & Tubes  right The Long Division Material (Racks and Tubes) allows the children to solve complex problems in long division. It’s not unusual for elementary students to work through problems using numbers much larger than a trillion.

MONTESSORI MATH

Cubing Materials Montessori introduces children to pre-algebraic concepts at the early childhood level through concrete materials such as the squares and cubes of the numbers 1 to 10, illustrated by the materials of the Bead Cabinet and the Binomial and

The Passage to Abstraction By this stage the children are recording their work on paper, although many won’t be able to solve the same problems if asked to work with paper and pencil without the visual aid of the Montessori materials. You have to remember that most young children under the age of seven or eight find it difficult, if not impossible, to grasp something as abstract as quantities above three and what’s really happening when we add, subtract, multiply, or divide. The concrete Montessori materials make it possible for the child to see and understand, slowly internalizing each concept until it becomes fixed and clear in her mind. Naturally, children can’t depend on the materials forever. Can you see your child at age sixteen walking in to take the SATs carrying the Golden Beads? Dr. Montessori compared the materials to an airport runway which provides a smooth surface on which the plane can roll faster and faster until its built up enough speed to fly.

children, which also tends to reinforce and clarify the tutor’s grasp on the subject. Montessori uses a wide range of parallel materials and exercises to help children extend their knowledge and gradually memorize the basic math facts that every one of us is expected to know. As parents, you will eventually begin to hear about materials with odd names like the Snake Game, the Addition and Subtraction Strip Boards, and the Negative Snake Game. Space doesn’t allow us to describe every one of the Montessori Math materials, but your child would probably be delighted to introduce them to you. There is also an involved series of Memorization Charts and associated exercises that help the children in their final stages of mastering the addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division charts.

The entire purpose of the Montessori math curriculum is to make the abstract concrete, until a child can close her eyes and visualize mathematical processes at work. Step by step, the materials become less concrete and more symbolic. Step by step, she is challenged to demonstrate her understanding by teaching what she’s learned to younger

Trinomial Cube. At the upper elementary level, students use the Cubing Material (sometimes called the Polynomial Box) to continue a more advanced exploration of the nature of polynomials and the relationships between their component parts. Where, with the Trinomial Cube, which represents the polynomial (A+B+C)3, and in which the three component elements were ﬁxed by the material’s design as 2 cm, 3 cm, and 4 cm [(a + b + c) 3 = 3a3 + 3a2 + b + 3a2 + c + b3 + 3ab2 + 3b2c + c3 + 3ac2 + 3bc2 + 6abc] , the Cubing Materials consist of one cube and twenty seven wooden squares (1 cm high) for each of the quantities from 1 to 9 (shown as squares) from the one cm cube to a square of 2 cm, 3 cm, up through 9 cm, contained in a special box to keep everything organized. Using the Cubing Material, students can build binomials, trinomials, quatrinomials, and larger polynomials, varying the values for the component parts. This is all designed to help students grasp pre-algebraic concepts at an abstract level.

 left The boy shown left is working on mastering his addition facts with the Addition Strip Board, one of the tools used to help children memorize their math facts.

History, Geography & Cultural Studies e are all members of the human family. Our roots lie in the distant past, and history is the story of our common heritage. Without a strong sense of history, we cannot begin to know who we are as individuals today. Our goal is to develop a global perspective, and the study of history and world cultures forms the cornerstone of the Montessori curriculum.

The children also study the emergence of human beings during the old and new stone ages, the development of the first civilizations, and the universal needs common to all humanity. For older elementary students, the focus is respectively on early man, ancient civilizations, and early-American history (or the early history of the many other countries in which Montessori schools are found).

With this goal in mind, Montessori teaches history and world cultures starting as early as age three. The youngest students work with specially designed maps and begin to learn the names of the world’s continents and countries.

Montessori tries to present a sense of living history at every level through direct handson experiences. Students build models of ancient tools and structures, prepare their own manuscripts, make ceremonial masks, and recreate all sorts of artifacts of everyday life of historical eras. Experiences such as these make it much easier for Montessori children to appreciate history as it is taught through books.

Physical geography begins in the first grade with a study of the formation of the Earth, the emergence of the oceans and atmosphere, and the evolution of life. Students learn about the world’s rivers, lakes, deserts, mountain ranges, and natural resources. Montessori’s integrated thematic curriculum allows a broad scope of study in the areas of history, geography, and cultural studies.

understand, and grow into full and active membership in the adult world. Field trips provide opportunities to explore the world outside the classroom. Younger elementary children often use simplified research card material and charts in their studies.

 above The Pin Maps challenge the children to begin to master the names of

While Montessori schools are communities apart from the outside world, in which children can first begin to develop their unique talents, they are also consciously connected to the local, national, and global communities. The goal is to lead each student to explore,

the countries, capital cities, and ﬂags of the countries of several continents. Each label is printed on a card attached to a thin pin, which is placed in the appropriate hole on the map. A set of control charts allows the children to check their own work.

 left A lower-elementary student at work

The Big Bang

with the Time Line of Life on the Earth. The children also study the emergence of the ﬁrst civilizations and the universal needs common to all humanity. For older elementary

The Big Bang History begins with the

students, the focus is respectively on early

“Big Bang” and the formation of the

humans, ancient civilizations, and early-

universe and, within it, of our solar

American history (in the USA).

system. Children start with the story of

 below Birthdays are celebrated by a walk

how the world began, how it began to

around the sun holding a globe of the Earth

cool, the formation of the atmosphere

to mark each year of the child’s life.

and oceans, and the emergence of life. They study the story of life on Earth up through the geological eras to the last ice ages and the emergence of the earliest humans.  right This elementary Montessori guide dramatized the concept of the Big Bang theory of the formation of the universe by ﬁlling this black balloon with glitter, lowering the lights, telling the story, and at the right moment, popping the balloon with the pointed stick. Look at the expression on the children's faces. That was a lesson that they will remember. The Cosmic Curriculum is intended to create a sense of wonder and plant seeds of curiosity and engagement.

Globes and Puzzle Maps   left & above These two special globes are used to introduce physical geography. The ﬁrst is used to teach the idea of how land areas and water are represented on a Globe. Land is shown as rough brown area; water is smooth blue surface areas. The second introduces the seven continents. Each is shown in a distinct color. Children learn the names and location of each continent. The color code used on the Continent Globe is carried on with the Puzzle Map of the World and in early work in continent studies.

The Teaching Clock  right The Teaching Clock (above) Before a child can begin to understand history, she needs to begin to grasp the concept of time. The child pictured above is learning to tell time, along with the other concepts of the passage of time, such as: How long is a minute, an hour, a day, a year? How old are the people that I know?

This young lady is working with a model of the inner core of the Earth.

The Land & Water Forms  above These students are working with the Land

the correctly printed label underneath each form,

and Water Forms, a set of three dimensional models

then prepare their own labels. They also learn the

that represent, in very simple terms, the nature of

deﬁnitions of each land form, continue to learn

basic geographic features. This is also a pouring

about the largest lakes or islands in the world, and

exercise, as the child adds water to the tray to

research facts about speciﬁc places.

create a higher level of sensory impression. Here she explores the idea that an island is a body of land

The ﬁrst set includes such geographic forms as an

surrounded by water, while a lake is a body of water

isthmus, peninsula, cape, bay, and strait. Advanced

surrounded on all sides by land.

exercises introduce more complex geographic features, such as mountains, mountain ranges,

The children learn to name each form, match the

volcanoes, archipelagos, foothills, cliffs, mesas,

model with a photo of a real lake or island, place

prairies, river valleys, and river deltas.

 above This student is working with materials to reinforce the concept of seasons and the rotation of the Earth.

Cultural Studies Cultural studies continue at every age level in Montessori education. The curriculum integrates art, music, dance, cooking, geography, literature, and science. Children learn to prepare and enjoy dishes from all over the world. They learn traditional folk songs and dances in music and explore folk crafts in art. In Language Arts, they read the traditional folk tales and research and prepare reports about the countries they are studying that year. Units of study often culminate in marvelous international holidays and festivals that serve as the high points of the school year.

Hands-On Science THE MONTESSORI WAY

Montessori students take advantage of the science they find in their own home and school communities. From their earliest years in Montessori, students explore the natural world around them and use simple scientific tools to understand and appreciate how their actions can impact this planet that we all call home. As students move into the upper grades, the level of sophistication increases and it is not at all uncommon for Montessori students to participate in local science fairs or conduct their own experiments. For example, a former upper school student at the NewGate School converted an old Mercedes to run on discarded cooking oil to drive across the country to show that there are viable alternatives to fossil fuels.  Simple experiments introduce elementary students to chemistry.

Clock of Eras  immediate left This elementary student is working with the Clock of Eras. This more advanced exercise presents the great geological eras of the Earth’s history as a pie graph or clock face. The child labels each geological era, from the formation of the Earth to the present day. In earlier exercises, they’ve begun to study what was happening on the Earth’s surface during each era.

SCIENCE

The Elements  above These elementary students are exploring the elements. They construct models of the atomic structure of one element, placing protons and neutrons in the nucleus and electrons in the outer shells. Working with Mendelev’s Periodic Table of the Elements, elementary children begin to learn about the more complex elements, their symbols, and how various elements are grouped together according to their properties. At the same time, children are looking for examples of common elements in their daily environment and beginning to research information about the characteristics and uses of the elements.

The Animal Kingdom  left This young man is using threedimensional models to identify members of the animal kingdom.

The Solar System   below & right These young ladies are researching the planets of our Solar System, using reference materials and models of the planetary bodies. Child-sized planets show the location and size of the planets in comparison to the sun.

The Arts rt is not a separate area of the Montessori curriculum; it is an integral component. Throughout the day, even the youngest students are surrounded by the beauty of the materials and activities that Dr. Montessori developed for each developmental level. From the smooth, simple elegance of the Geometric Solids to the ever-increasing complexities of drawing using the Metal Insets,

Montessori uses all of the children’s senses to promote an awareness and appreciation of the beauty in all things—animate and inanimate. In the early years, children are free to spend quiet moments in a special art corner of their classroom: painting, drawing, or working with age-appropriate crafts. Some Montessori schools will employ the talents of an art specialist, and many schools

expand on their art programs through special after-school workshops. Older students will incorporate art into their lessons when studying history, science, math, and international cultures. Art and music appreciation are re-introduced in greater depth throughout the years, and students of all ages enjoy performing in dramatic and musical productions for their families and at special school-wide celebrations. ¢

Health, Wellness, & Physical Education ontessori schools are very interested in helping children develop control of their fine- and gross-motor movements. For young children, programs will typically include dance, balance and coordination exercises, and loosely structured cardiovascular exercise, as well as the vigorous free play that is typical on any playground. With elementary and older students, the ideal Montessori health, physical education, and athletics program is typically very unlike that of the traditional model of “gym.” It challenges each student and adult in the school community to develop a personal program of lifelong exercise, recreation, nutrition, and health management. ¢

Where Do We Go from Here? THE MONTESSORI HIGH SCHOOL by TIM SELDIN

for many bright and supposedly ‘successful’ young people much more often than most of us want to admit. On the other hand, in more and more schools, like the NewGate School in Sarasota, Florida, students have a choice. [Editor’s Note: NewGate is The Montessori Foundation’s Lab School. Students can start in Montessori as toddlers and go all the way to graduation in 12th grade.] Nationally and around the world, students who are able to remain in Montessori seem to never lose their sense of wonder and love for learning, creating, and building. They innovate. They collaborate. They celebrate their lives. If you’ve known any Montessori graduates, you’ve probably seen this for yourself.

hanks to people just like us, our children will have the opportunity to graduate from a Montessori high school.

Montessori students will have to transfer to a conventional public or private middle or high school when they ‘outgrow’ the programs offered in their Montessori schools.

And you ask, but my children are only fouryears-old. Yes, they have been Montessori students since they were toddlers, and yes, they are blossoming.

Will they be successful? Yes, in terms of grades, but for most, before long, the light in their eyes will fade away and school will become what many educational professionals refer to as a ‘race to nowhere.’ Assignments and tests will come, be done, and soon be forgotten in an endless blur.

But they are only four! Why are we thinking about their high school education now? The answer is simple. Today, there are only about 100 Montessori high schools in the US, compared to more than 5,000 Montessori schools in America as a whole. This means that most

Many ‘good’ students get tired of running on a treadmill, burn out, and ask, “Why am I working so hard to get a job that I may not even enjoy?” Burnout may happen in high school; it could come in college; or it may show up in mid-life. Burnout happens

In Montessori middle and high schools, we are working to revolutionize the way we educate teenagers in America and abroad. Secondary education does not need to dehumanize adolescents any more than early childhood and elementary programs need to destroy children’s creativity and joy for learning! That’s why we spend so much time and energy working to ensure that, when your children are ready for high school, there will be a Montessori high school program ready for all our Montessori children, across America and around the world. A growing number of Montessori schools have gone a step further and also offer Montessori high school programs that are integrated with the International Bacca-

laureate (IB) Diploma Programs, giving students the opportunity to receive an IB diploma that is recognized and welcomed around the world.

Today, Montessori secondary programs have developed in hundreds of public, charter, and independent Montessori schools in the United States and Canada.

A Bit of Historical Perspective …

Redefining Adolescent Education

The first Montessori secondary schools were founded in Europe in the 1930s. In the United States, a number of secondary programs organized along Montessori principles developed as early as the 1940s, but they did not openly use Montessori’s name. In the 1970s, a number of early adolescent programs, openly identified as being “Montessori influenced,” were established in the United States, including: The Barrie School in Silver Spring, Maryland; Near North Montessori in Chicago, Illinois; the Ruffing Montessori School and Hershey Montessori School outside Cleveland, Ohio; Lake Country Montessori School in Minneapolis, Minnesota; and the Columbus Montessori School in Columbus, Ohio. Two early Montessori secondary programs are no longer in operation: the Montessori Farm School in Half Moon Bay (California) and the Erdkinder School near Atlanta (Georgia). In 1982, my alma mater, the Barrie School outside Washington, DC, became the first Montessori high school program to be officially recognized by the American Montessori Society. That year, the Institute for Advanced Montessori Studies in Silver Spring (MD) and the Dallas Montessori Teacher Education Program in Dallas (TX) opened the first Montessori Secondary teacher education programs. During the 1980s, a number of other programs for young adolescents opened in the United States and Canada, including: the Franciscan Earth School in Portland (OR); the School of the Woods in Houston (TX); St. Joseph’s Montessori in Columbus (OH); the Toronto Montessori School in Ontario, Canada; and the Athens Montessori School in Athens (GA).

Montessori education is the fastest growing organized system of education in the world. Even though Montessori is best known for its success with younger students, Montessori secondary educators are working to design replicable programs that will spread around the world. We are literally re-writing the playbook on how middle and

of secondary education must not be limited to preparing students to enter college or the workforce; instead, we need to give them an ‘education for life.’ The primary goal of middle and high school education must, therefore, be to help teenagers to discover, accept, and confirm their selfworth as individuals.

Brain Development Contemporary insights into adolescent brain development show that, in teenagers, the prefrontal cortex (the brain region responsible for making complex judgments and considering outcomes) is not yet

One of the most basic principles of Montessori education is the call to design schools that truly meet the developmental needs and personality of children at each stage of human development. We believe that schools should be centered around their students as people, rather than organized around the demands of administrative efﬁciency. high schools may look tomorrow, and we are doing it our way … the Montessori way! One of the most basic principles of Montessori education is the call to design schools that truly meet the developmental needs and personality of children at each stage of human development. We believe that schools should be centered around their students as people, rather than organized around the demands of administrative efficiency. As a physician doing pioneering work on brain development and child psychology, Dr. Montessori recognized that the primary developmental tasks of adolescence are social, emotional, and spiritual. She observed that teenagers often find it difficult to concentrate on their studies; their lives are not centered on school work, but on learning how to be comfortable around one another. If you have any doubt of the truth of that premise, observe the importance of social media in the lives of our teens. She proposed that the ultimate objective

mature, which explains why many teenagers can be so impulsive and illogical. The poor judgment and impulse control of teenagers can be explained by normal processes of adolescent brain development. In addition, compound the situation with adolescent hormonal changes, and it is easy to see why adolescents are profoundly influenced by peer-group pressure. If they fall in with the wrong crowd, young people may find themselves making some very poor choices. This is much more common than most parents of teenagers realize or want to accept; however, in small, close-knit, and supportive settings during this very vulnerable period, adolescents are given a better opportunity to grow into confident, warm, accepting, and supportive adults. Montessori secondary programs can take many forms. In general, most tend to have a few hundred students at most. The defining element is the creation of a protected community of students and adults, a social laboratory in which adolescents can clarify

their values, build strong interpersonal relationships, and learn to communicate their thoughts and feelings articulately and maturely to one another.

Why Large High Schools Are Not Designed to Meet the Needs of Adolescents Most people assume that large high schools are a basic part of growing up. I disagree. Even though most Americans take them for granted, large contemporary middle and high schools are poorly designed to meet the developmental needs of adolescents. Adolescence is a period of life, where the primary challenge is to become much more independent, mature, emotionally balanced, socially skilled, and responsible. The schools in which we place teenagers tend to be large, impersonal, and filled with bored, apathetic, over-worked, and overstressed, students. We ignore teenagers’ developmental needs and focus as if they were already in college—ready for serious academic life. We try to motivate them with the fear of not getting into good schools, while attempting to distract them with athletics.

The Marriage of Two Good Ideas: Montessori and the International Baccalaureate Diploma Program Some Montessori Programs have integrated the International Baccalaureate Diploma Program into their Montessori middle and/or high schools to provide an external level of credibility that is appealing to most colleges when our students apply. The International Baccalaureate (ibo.org) is recognized worldwide for academic excellence. At our Lab School in Sarasota, we offer the International Baccalaureate diploma program as the capstone experience in their secondary Montessori education for grades 11 and 12. For those of you who are famil-

iar with IB programs in other schools, there is a distinct difference between the way we approach preparing students for the IB diploma exams an what you might find in an IB program in more traditional schools. The IB Diploma Program is a global system for validating the achievements of a very wide range of university bound students. Following the Montessori approach, we create a learning community that it is challenging but far less stressful and more student centered. Our students need to meet the same standards as other IB schools around the world, but our way of going about it is more like a journey, then a race. The IB is only one approach that some Montessori schools follow. Montessori secondary programs can be large, but far more are comparatively small. There are Montessori adolescent programs that operate in a rural farm-based setting, and others that are found in large cities or suburban communities. Some run as charter schools, some are public, and many are independent. Some Montessori adolescent programs currently stop at eighth grade, and others are adding on one grade a year until they have the full high school program through 12th grade graduation.

ary level is to work with the whole child to create environments in which they will find their own voice and discover that they can do far more than they imagined. Montessori provides a sound preparation for university and for life. Montessorians understand the need to providing the environment and guidance necessary for adolescents to flourish, giving students the tools that speak to them in human terms at times and in ways when they are developmentally ready to process and make the most of their secondary educational experience. The Montessori community of schools is committed to finding a better way to meet the needs of our adolescents. We know that we need to prepare them for the future, but we are also committed to preserving what their early years in Montessori have given to help them develop into the human beings we so desperately need for our next generation of innovative leaders and peacemakers. At NewGate, and more and more Montessori schools across the United States, Canada, and the world, there is an answer to the question that Montessori parents ask us every day: “Our children’s Montessori school ends at the eighth grade. Where do we go from here?” Montessori High School, of course! ¢

The common ingredient among any true Montessori school working at the second-

The Parenting Puzzle

A Popular Online Parenting Course with Lorna McGrath View a preview video at: http://tinyurl.com/parent-puzzle Lorna McGrath and The Montessori Foundation are excited about the production of an online parenting course designed to answer the question, “How do Montessori teachers keep all those kids focused, out of squabbles, respectful, AND stay cool, calm, and collected all at the same time when I can’t even do it with my own two children?” The Parenting Puzzle will give you the tools to turn your homes from battlefields to peaceful havens. This is the course that parents of toddlers to teens have been waiting for to reduce power struggles and fights, to get children to do their chores, to eliminate rewards and punishments, and much more! Session titles are: Seeing the World from Three-Feet Tall; Why Do They Do What They Do?; What Do I Do When I Want to Trade Them for a Different Model?; If We Can’t Punish or Reward, then What?; and Parenting on the Same Page.

The Parenting Puzzle can be taken at home by yourself or, better yet, with your parenting partner(s) at a convenient time for your family, or it can be offered through your Montessori school with a live facilitator and a group of parents. There are five consecutive, 90-minute sessions that include time for conversations about the ideas and strategies that are being presented and, of course, snacks. The Parenting Puzzle is just the beginning! After it is launched and you’ve had a chance to complete the course, we plan to produce four more courses that are age specific. They will help you create a physical environment that supports your child’s growth and development, while also adjusting communication and interactions as needed for different ages. Here are course titles: Right from the Start: Pregnancy through the Toddler Years; A New Level of Independence: 3-6 Years Old; The Awesome, Imagination Years: 6-12 Years Old; and Here We Go into Adolescence!: 12-18 Years Old.

$15.00 ISBN 978-0-9746387-3-7

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Montessori 101 and a Guided Tour of the Montessori Classroom

Articles inside

Where Do We Go From Here? Montessori High School

The Arts, Health, Wellness, and Physical Education

Hands-On Science: The Montessori Way

Addition with the Golden Beads & Stamp Game

The Passage to Abstraction

History, Geography & Cultural Studies

The Second Plane of Abstraction

Montessori Math: From the Concrete to the Abstract

The Montessori Approach to Composition, Reading & Literature

Lessons in Grace and Courtesy

Teaching Peace & Compassion

Practical Life

A Day in the Life of a Montessori Child

Some Basic Information Every Montessori Parent Should Know

Montessori's Youngest Students: Infants & Toddlers

A Philosophy of the Montessori Curriculum

Montessori: A Historical Perspective

An Appreciation of Dr. Maria Montessori

What Makes Montessori Different?

The Many Faces of Montessori in North America