Montessori education
Montessori education is the child centered learning approach developed by Dr. Maria Montessori. It aims to offer an environment and adult guidance in which children can thrive and bloom into their full potential, with independence and a life long love of learning.
Montessori classrooms are easily recognizable - as soon as you walk in you will see children working independently and in groups, often with specially designed learning materials; deeply engaged in their work; and respectful of themselves and their surroundings.
The Montessori Method fosters rigorous, self-motivated growth for children and adolescents in all areas of their development—cognitive, emotional, social, and physical.
Montessori at Veranda
Here at Veranda we aim to provide a high fidelity authentic Montessori experience. Our lead teacher is trained and certified by the American Montessori Society (AMS).
Our classroom is set up to be what us Montessorians describe as a prepared environment, which is a child centered environment that will support the optimal development of a mixed aged group of children.
The prepared environment
The Prepared Environment is a concept that Dr. Montessori developed based on her observations. She developed a framework of six principles to guide her in creating these child centered environments.
Six principles of a Montessori Prepared Environment:
Freedom, within limits: The freedom to move, choose and interact with the environment and the other people (children and adults) within the environment. Freedom allows for independence and inner discipline.
Structure and Order: An environment in which a child feels safe and supported encourages learning. If the child can understand and depend on the environment they will be more confident and calm. The consistency of structure and order is what allows more freedom.
Beauty: Humans are sensory beings and our spiritual and emotional states are affected positively by beauty. It also motivates the children to take great care for the physical materials. Soft lighting, music and colors, and plants add to the beauty and harmony of the environment.
Nature and Reality: The Montessori environment strives to provide hands on materials from nature, materials made of natural materials and materials that are real, instead of pretend. Being immersed in real and natural things helps the child have a sense of purpose and feel connected. Preparing food, arranging flowers and practicing with zippers and buttons are some examples.
Social Environment: Multi-aged classrooms allow children of different ages and abilities to interact with each other. This provides opportunities for empathy, problem solving, and to become socially aware. Having the freedom to move, choose and interact creates acceptance and harmony in each child and ultimately the world.
Intellectual Environment: Montessori provides a comprehensive curriculum of knowledge, experiences and skills depending on the age level of the environment. The materials and activities are available to all children in the multi-age classroom to progress at their individual interest and speed and offered in a way that the child finds connection, purpose and a joy in learning.
Materials
You will notice that Montessori people use specific words to describe the activities and objects that populate the ever present shelves. This is because these are often self contained activties - often the very ones that Dr. Montessori defined - that have been designed and selected to obtain very specific educational goals.
These materials will allow for the child to move with exactness, especially as they involve hand movements which gradually become more delicate and precise.
They build up the child’s ability to focus and concentrate, and allow for repetition if the child so desires. Children will build up the length of time they use materials, eventually even up to an hour! Without being asked to, without being encouraged to - simply because they are intrinsically motivated and focused on their task.
The teacher presents these materials in a way so that the child can work independently anytime after the presentation.
Curriculum areas
Montessori materials are often divided into five main areas:
Practical Life activities help the child develop coordination, concentration, independence, and a sense of order. Through the exercises of Practical Life, the child develops the self-confidence and attention essential for mastery of the other more advanced areas of the Montessori classroom.
The exercises of Practical Life fall into four major categories: Care of the Self, Care of the Environment, Grace and Courtesy, and Control of Movement. Many are fundamental exercises that the child needs to master to be able to live comfortably in the real world.
Sensorial work provides a basis for learning in an orderly manner, which prepares children’s minds for mathematics. The materials refine the senses and develop cognitive skills such as thinking, judging, associating, and comparing.
Activities include visual discrimination by size, color, shape, etc.; discrimination by audibility, smell, texture and heat conducting properties; pattern recognition and sequencing.
Language acquisition and literacy are big things during the 3 - 6 age range. We aim to first develop richness and expressiveness through oral language; as well as starting activities to prepare the hand for future writing and letter recognition, and get started with phonics and sound games.
Phonics is defined as a method of teaching children to read, write and pronounce words by learning the sounds of ourlanguage, letter formation, the relationship between these sounds and letters, and finally how letter groups and syllables help blend the sounds and bring it all together.
Children will learn to read and write by being immersed into world of spoken and written words.
Mathematics
The Practical Life and Sensorial Montessori material in the classroom prepare a child’s mind for Mathematics. They lay the foundation for math by preparing the mind for the study of sequence and progression.
The Montessori math materials are exquisitely designed to offer concrete sensorial experiences to children to introduce new concepts and gradually guide them through the path to abstraction.
Culture and Sciences
It is important for young children to learn about history, their environment, nature and science to help them understood their place in the world. Culture and Science materials and concepts are presented in the most natural, life-like or realistic way possible.
This area includes Geography, studies about the Earth, animals, plants, geology, and history / time.
These are five big areas, but in addition we also include Art, Movement, Music, and mindfulness activities.