Montessori is a method of education that was created by Dr. Maria Montessori,
the first woman to receive her medical degree in Italy.
She believed that children given a prepared environment, appropriate materials, and the
freedom to choose are able to develop to their fullest potential at a rate set by the child
but guided by a teacher.
The Montessori environment encourages the child to become independent, self disciplined,
and confident. The child has access to hands on materials that develop his/her five
senses and is able to move in a logical sequence from large motor coordination
to small and from concrete manipulatives to abstract concepts.
The classroom environment has different areas of learning. These consist of practical life, sensorial,
mathematics, language, history, science, geography, and music.
Through the different materials offered, the child gains a "love for learning".
Practical Life
The child has a natural interest in developing physical coordination, care of
self, and care of the environment. Practical Life materials allow the child the
opportunity to perform tasks familiar to home life.
Examples of practical life work are pouring, scooping, sorting, and practice with buttoning, bow tying
and lacing. Activities also include watering plants, polishing, and food preparation.
Sensorial
The sensorial materials provide opportunities for the child to experience the natural
order of the physical environment using sensory elements such as color, texture, sound, smell,
shape, size, and weight.
The child is given concrete experiences with abstract concepts such as
thick and thin and big and little. Examples of sensorial work are the pink tower,
the brown stair, smelling bottles, cylinder blocks, and color tablets.
Mathematics
Mathematic materials allow the child the opportunity to gain a concrete
understanding of the basic concepts of mathematics. The concept of numeration begins
with a variety of materials including sandpaper numbers, segmented number rods and
the spindle box in which the child can group objects from 1-10.
The child works towards an understanding of addition, subtraction, multiplication, division,
and place value with work such as the golden beads and the stamp game.
Language
The development of reading, writing and speaking are strongly encouraged.
For reading the child develops the association of letters and sounds with materials
such as sandpaper letters and sound jars, eventually moving toward blending sounds with the moveable
alphabet.
For writing the child learns fine motor skills and outlining with work such
as tracing insets and the sandpaper letters. Each child has his/her own name card that
they can use to help guide their writing until they can do it on their own.
The child eventually works toward parts of speech and building sentences.
Geography
In the classroom we place a strong emphasis on cultural awareness.
The child is given the opportunity to explore people and places around the world with
cultural "suitcases" which contain pictures, objects and stories of different cultures.
The child also has access to globes, country flags and puzzle maps of the world
and each of the continents.
Science work is also available which can include work such as naming, organizing and classifying
plants and animals.
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