Are you looking for some fun, interesting ways to keep reading a part of your child’s days this summer? In addition to regular book time together, these tips from Baan Dek Montessori in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, will help incorporate reading into your everyday activities to keep skills fresh.
One important aspect of the Practical Life environment is that all the materials used are real life objects. Maria Montessori was a great believer in the “reality” principle – objects and tasks should reflect real life, with instruments adapted to a child’s size and potentiality. The Practical Life activities are naturally interesting exercises for the child since they are activities he/she seen grown-ups do. The sequencing for Practical Life begins with scooping and spooning, rolling and folding, twisting, squeezing, grasping and controlling, stringing and lacing, pounding and pushing, care of the self, care of the environment, grace and courtesy, and ending with food preparation. Materials are sequenced according to the following progressions: using hands to using tools, large to small, left to right, top to bottom, gross motor to fine motor, no transfer to transfer, two handed to one handed to two handed in opposition, size and shape of medium used, dry materials to liquid, simple activities to complex, few materials to many, short activities to long, skills in isolation to skills in combinations.
Children benefit from all aspects of the Practical Life environment. They learn the direct aims of independence, concentration, coordination, and order, as well as the indirect aims of the actual skills being practiced. Practical Life is the foundation of the Montessori classroom and enables the child to become a well-adjusted individual.
Earlier posts in this series:
Parent Education: Practical Life – Part 1 (Introduction and Exercises)
Today, we continue our series entitled How Do We Meet Current Research Data?, exploring how the latest brain and education research impacts curriculum and learning, with Part 3 of the series: How Children Can Participate in Their Own Curriculum Planning.
The more input we have from the children in curriculum planning, the closer we come to achieving deeper meaning for students since it connects them to real-world experiences. Children become actively engaged in their learning when they are allowed the luxury of defining curriculum content, when they are able to move in academic directions that interest them, and when they actually do something. The elementary model of Montessori curriculum clearly allows for the child to make decisions in his own learning by making content choices. When a child is interested in a specific topic, he is free to research the topic. Through research, students acquire language skills such as reading, writing, and composing, and are able to manipulate and problem solve through self-directed exploration. Children also have opportunities to use technology to make their content more meaningful. Computers offer virtually unlimited opportunities for accessing information, and should be used to enhance, not replace, discovery and learning.
Next Monday: The Value of the Child’s Process vs. the Product
Previous posts in this series:
How Do We Meet Current Research Data? – Part 1
Summer is a great season to slow down and enjoy spending unstructured time with your child. One great shared activity for a relaxed summer day is reading together. This fantastic post on mariamontessori.com reviews the benefits specifically of reading aloud to your child, even after he has mastered reading himself.
Today, we continue our series exploring the Practical Life area of the Montessori classroom, focusing in this post on the ways in which Practical Life skills benefit other curriculum areas.
Many of the exercises in the Practical Life area are preparation exercises for Sensorial works. The exercises help to fine tune the development of the child’s senses. Many uses of the five senses occur in the Practical Life area: sound, sight, and touch are used in equipment-based activities, such as bean scooping; smelling and tasting are involved in the preparation of food.
Practical Life not only develops the child’s senses and teaches real life skills, but also sets the basic foundation for other areas to come. For example, understanding size, weight, and equal distribution are skills which are vital when the child is introduced to the Math are of the classroom. Perhaps most significant is the development of the pincer grip, which allows the child to correctly grip a pencil and begin working in the Language area.
Next Wednesday: The Conclusion of Our Exploration of the Practical Life Area
Other posts in this series:
Parent Education: Practical Life – Part 1 (Introduction and Exercises)
Today, we continue our series entitled How Do We Meet Current Research Data?, exploring how the latest brain and education research impacts curriculum and learning, with Part 2 of the series: Ways to Create an Optimal Learning Environment.
Facts may eventually become outdated, but the skills of thinking, making meaning, developing understanding, and problem solving never will. More important than the solution is learning how to solve a problem.
While workbooks are routinely used in many educational settings, many workbook tasks are not interesting, do not provide rich instructional possibilities, lack clear objectives, allow false-positive feedback, consume teachers’ time in scoring, and – most importantly – occupy time that can be otherwise spent teaching students things they do not already know. Worksheets tend to make reading a chore and create a feeling of drudgery and boredom for many children.
World-renowned developmental psychologist Howard Gardner advocates:
“The brain learns best and retains most when the organism is actively involved in exploring physical sites and materials and asking questions to which it actually craves answers. Passive experiences tend to attenuate and have little lasting impact.”
Therefore, an optimal learning environment includes many hands-on experiences, creating a process of active involvement with rich, meaningful content that is not simply focused on an end result.
Next Monday: Part 3 – How Children Can Participate in Their Own Curriculum Planning
Previous posts in this series:
How Do We Meet Current Research Data? – Part 1
Today, we begin a new series exploring the Practical Life area of the Montessori classroom.
In a Montessori classroom, the Practical Life area is one of the first areas that a child explores. This section of the classroom provides the child with real-life materials that help to develop coordination, concentration, independence, and order.
Through the exercises of Practical Life, the child learns the skills that enable him to become an independent being. From birth, the child is striving for independence and concerned adults, parents and teachers, should help him on his path by showing him the skills he needs to achieve this end. Having been shown a skill, the child then needs freedom to practice and perfect. In a Montessori classroom, preschool children learn basic motor skills in the Practical Life area by teaching themselves and learning from other children rather than by specific adult instruction. As the child becomes absorbed in an interesting activity, he develops concentration. If the activity is appropriate and meets a need, it will be interesting for the child. The longer the child is absorbed by an activity the better for the development of concentration. Through activity, the child learns to control his movements. The idea that the path to intellectual development occurs through the hands is a major theme in the Montessori Method. The exercises of Practical Life provide opportunities for the development of both gross motor and fine motor movements. In addition, the child learns to keep the environment in a clean and ordered way, putting everything away in its right place. He is taught to approach each new task in an ordered way, to carry it out carefully, to complete the activity, and finally, how to clean up and put the materials away. Engaging in this complete process encourages logical thinking.
Next Wednesday: How the Skills Developed in Practical Life Benefit Other Curriculum Areas
Other posts in this series:
Today, we begin a new series entitled How Do We Meet Current Research Data?, exploring how the latest brain and education research impacts curriculum and learning.
In order to promote positive outcomes for all young children, early childhood educators should implement curriculum that is thoughtfully planned, challenging, engaging, developmentally appropriate, culturally and linguistically responsive, and comprehensive. We need to create meaningful curriculum by replacing the three Rs (reading, ‘riting, and ‘rithmetic) for the four Es: experience, extension, expression, and evaluation. The current trend is to emphasize the need for flexibility. The National Association for the Education of Young Children program standards recommend that curriculum planning should focus on promoting learning and development in the areas of social, emotional, physical, language, and cognitive growth. Units should be based on themes that are interesting and developmentally beneficial for all children. The interests and passions of the individual child need to be taken into account when developing projects.
Next Monday: Part 2 – Ways to Create an Optimal Learning Environment
Other posts in this series:
Part 3 – How Children Can Participate in Their Own Curriculum Planning
Have you ever struggled with how to reply to your child’s curious questions when you don’t know the answer? The Value of Not Knowing, a recent insightful post at mariamontessori.com, explains why not providing an immediate answer creates a great opportunity for the child.
• Montessori teachers are trained to have a clear understanding of attachment, exploration, self-help skills, empowerment, pro-social skills, problem solving skills, self-esteem, and resiliency.
• The Montessori method individualizes learning through children’s interactions with the materials as they proceed at their own rates of mastery.
• Individualized instruction provides opportunities for development of many skills, such as physical coordination, perception, attention, memory, language, logical thinking, and imagination.
• The multi-aged Montessori classroom (children are with their classmates and teacher for a three year span) provides a continuity of care, fostering attachments and promoting trust.
• Children learn virtue, empathy and kindness through social and emotional guidance during group meetings and through grace and courtesy lessons.
• Montessori materials are designed to foster concentration, coordination, independence, order, and a respect for all living things.
• Children in a Montessori environment are active learners and are productively engaged throughout their work time.
• Montessori lessons are designed to make the most of the critical early years for learning linguistically, cognitively, socially, emotionally, and physically.
