coastal-sage-montessori

Pickleball Tournament

Fri, 20 Mar 2026 18:19:13 GMT

Paddles for a Purpose

Join us for our first annual Pickleball Tournament Fundraiser on May 30th!

This multi-level tournament invites players of all abilities to participate. We have spots open for eight teams in each bracket, with a grand total of 24 teams! Grab your partner, paddle and meet us on the courts at Saint Michael's by the Sea. Join us to play in your game-level bracket, then stay for as long as you'd like to enjoy food, drinks and community!

Beginner 12:00-1:30
Intermediate 1:30-3:00
Advanced 3:00-4:30

Games will be a sprint to 11 points or played in 15-minute intervals; the game will end with whichever comes first. We have a two-game guarantee for every team, but in accordance with single elimination style tournaments, teams must win in order to advance to the semi-finals and finals. Our wining team in each bracket will receive a $500 cash prize!

Teams must be made of two people, and may only participate in one bracket. Each team member should register individually, and list their team's name. Entry costs $50 per person. Every entry fee is a tax-deductible donation and supports Coastal Sage's mission to provide access to high-quality Montessori education for all. Please stay tuned for more ways to get involved and other ways to champion our cause.

To sign up, please click the button below. If you have any questions, comments or concerns, please email Grace - grace@coastalsage.org

Players, please write "Pickleball Registration" in the note option on the PayPal website.

Sponsorship

Thank you for your interest in sponsoring our event. Sponsorship helps cover the overhead costs of running the tournament, which allows more proceeds and donations from community members to directly benefit Coastal Sage. Please see below for the various levels at which to support our cause through tax-deductible donations.

Ace - $1500

Loudspeaker Shout Out during Tournament
4x6 Banner on display at the court
Company logo and link on the Coastal Sage Website and in our communications regarding the tournament
One team entry into the level of play of your choosing

Drop Shot - $1000

1/4 page ad
Company logo and link on the Coastal Sage Website and in our communications regarding the tournament
4x6 Banner on display at the court
One team entry into the level of play of your choosing

Dink - $500

Company logo and link on the Coastal Sage Website and in our communications regarding the tournament
4x6 Banner on display at the court
One team entry into the level of play of your choosing

In the Kitchen - In-kind donation of food or drink for participants

1/4 page ad
Company logo and link on the Coastal Sage Website and in our communications regarding the tournament
4x6 Banner on display at the court
One team entry into the level of play of your choosing

To register as a sponsor, please click the button below. You will receive an email confirmation upon completion for your records.

*For more information regarding other forms of in-kind donations please contact Grace - grace@coastalsage.org .

Thank you to our event sponsors!

Spring Day of Service

Tue, 10 Mar 2026 18:27:59 GMT

At Coastal Sage Montessori, students are encouraged to be servant leaders - both in the classroom and in the community. This month, our students will be participating in service throughout San Diego County! On March 24th, our lower and upper elementary will be participating in a beach clean-up in Oceanside and our adolescents will be supporting the San Diego Food Bank at their new Vista Location.

If you would like to join us as a chaperone or support with transportation, please email Grace - grace@coastalsage.org .

More than a Method: Montessori's Vision for Humanity

Tue, 13 Jan 2026 19:28:32 GMT

At the heart of Montessori education is a deep respect for human potential.

Honoring the Human Potential at Coastal Sage Montessori

At Coastal Sage Montessori, we believe education is not something done to a child, but something that unfolds within them. This belief is rooted in Dr. Maria Montessori’s profound discovery: when children are given an environment that truly respects their developmental needs, they reveal remarkable potential, clarity of focus, independence, joy, and deep intelligence.

Dr. Montessori began her work not as a traditional educator, but as a physician and scientist. While working with children who had developmental delays, she observed that they did not need correction they needed opportunities. She crafted precise materials, offered meaningful work, and removed obstacles. The result was extraordinary growth. From that moment forward, Montessori education became a study of human potential.

A Scientific Approach to Childhood

Dr. Montessori approached childhood with curiosity and respect. Through years of observation, she identified universal patterns of growth, now known as the Planes of Development, and the Human Tendencies that drive all humans to learn, adapt, and connect. These tendencies are not taught; they belong to us. The drive to explore, to create order, to communicate, to perfect one’s work...these are the quiet, internal engines of human development.

At Coastal Sage Montessori, these principles live within every classroom. We do not ask children to conform to a system; we prepare a system that meets the child where they are at.

Education Aligned With Nature

Rather than directing children, our role is to prepare an environment where natural development can flourish. Each shelf, material, and routine in our classrooms is intentional. From Practical Life to Mathematics, the Montessori environment supports intellectual growth while nurturing character—patience, care, responsibility, and joy.

Our guides observe more than they instruct. They study the child, prepare the path, and step back—trusting the child’s inner guide.

A Cosmic Perspective

Dr. Montessori reminded us that education goes beyond academic achievement. It is about understanding our place in a larger story, one of interdependence, responsibility, and gratitude. She referred to this as a cosmic vision: the understanding that each person has a unique role to play in contributing to the harmony of the world.

At CSM, we nurture these seeds of stewardship. We invite children to care for their environment, each other, and the wider community because education is preparation for a life of purpose.

Adaptation: The Work of the Child

Human beings are deeply adaptive, and this capacity begins in early childhood. Through their senses, hands, movement, imagination, and relationships, children actively construct themselves. They are not passive recipients, they are creators.

Montessori identified innate human tendencies that support this development:

To orient and explore
To create order and seek patterns
To imagine, calculate, and reason
To repeat and refine through effort
To communicate and collaborate
To strive toward self-mastery

When these tendencies are supported, children thrive. When obstructed, children still seek to meet their needs—often through frustration or disruption. This is why observation is central to our work.

The Role of the Adult

True Montessori education begins with humility. We ask not, “How do I teach this child?” but rather, “What does this child need to grow?” We observe - not to correct behavior, but to understand it. We prepare so as not to impose lessons, but to offer meaningful work. In this way, the adult becomes an “aid to life,” serving a process far greater than instruction.

Education as a Path of Becoming

At Coastal Sage Montessori, we believe education should nurture the whole human being. It should protect wonder, invite exploration, and honor each child’s unique path. When we align learning with the natural science of human development, children reveal their deepest capacities...concentration, compassion, creativity, and courage.

Montessori is not only a method. It is a way of seeing children with reverence.

We invite you to visit our classrooms, observe the work, and witness what becomes possible when education honors the human spirit. Schedule a tour now!

Little Hands, Big Purpose: The Power of Practical Life

Mon, 20 Oct 2025 19:43:33 GMT

Practical Life activities in Montessori foster independence, confidence, and a sense of belonging as children learn real-life skills through meaningful, hands-on work.

In our daily lives, we undertake numerous tasks to care for our homes, loved ones, and ourselves. As adults, we often move through these routines without much thought: washing the dishes, setting the table, tidying up a room. But for young children, these moments hold incredible fascination. They yearn to participate in practical matters and delight in doing meaningful work alongside the adults they admire.

In the Montessori approach, we refer to these tasks as Practical Life activities. Whether it’s dressing themselves, wiping a spill, or watering a plant, these activities help children connect to the world around them. They offer a gentle introduction to cultural norms and everyday responsibilities while also supporting the development of internal motivation, intellect, and body coordination.

Two Purposes: One External, One Internal

Every Practical Life activity serves two important purposes. The first is external and easily visible: when children wash a table, the table becomes clean. The second purpose is internal and perhaps even more meaningful: children grow in confidence, independence, and a sense of belonging.

When children are invited to participate in purposeful work, they feel like important contributors to their family or classroom community. Learning to meet their own needs — such as dressing, feeding themselves, or cleaning up — helps them develop a sense of competence and pride. Over time, these small but significant experiences lay the foundation for future independence and responsibility. By the time children become young adults, they are well-prepared to care for themselves, plan for their future, and contribute meaningfully to the world around them.

Preparing the Environment for Success

In Montessori classrooms, Practical Life activities are intentionally prepared and beautifully presented to support children’s independence. The sink is at children’s height. The soap dispenser holds just enough soap for a single wash. Every tool has a place, and children learn how to use and return each one with care.

This thoughtful preparation allows children to take on tasks that might previously have been done for them. Now, they can do it for themselves, and in doing so, they begin to see themselves as capable and responsible individuals.

Even our youngest children can begin participating in daily routines through collaboration. For infants, we might say, “I’m going to put on your shirt. Let’s slide your arm through the sleeve,” giving them the opportunity to feel involved in the process. As they grow, children begin to imitate the adults around them and eventually take on tasks in their own unique way. This process isn’t always linear — some days, more support is needed. On those days, we can offer gentle encouragement, saying, “Let’s do this together,” while still honoring our children’s role in the task.

Caring for the Environment

In addition to self-care, children in Montessori environments are given many opportunities to care for their surroundings. From watering plants to sweeping floors, these real and purposeful activities help children feel connected to their community.

Success in this area depends on a well-prepared environment. Child-sized tools and meaningful work allow the child to make a visible impact. If the plants are dry, the children water them. If a table is dirty, children scrub it. These aren’t pretend tasks — they are real contributions, and children know it.

Supporting Practical Life at Home

Parents often ask how they can support Practical Life work at home. The good news is that it doesn’t require elaborate preparation. A few intentional routines and accessible materials go a long way.

A basket in the room for laundry, a drawer with placemats and utensils for setting the table, or shelves with toys that are easy to return to their place — these simple choices allow children to take ownership of their environment.

When creating Practical Life opportunities at home, consider these guiding questions:

● Will this activity help develop independence and coordination?

● Can it be done independently?

● What skills are needed?

● Does it allow for repetition?

● Is it culturally appropriate and necessary?

● Is it beautiful?

● Is the material child-sized?

● Is it logical and safe?

The Joy of Purposeful Work

As children learn to care for themselves and their environment, they come to understand what is essential. They begin to internalize procedures, take pride in doing things “all by myself,” and discover just how capable they are.

Children naturally pour their attention into meaningful work. They experience deep satisfaction not only in the outcome but in the process itself. Through Practical Life, they develop a strong sense of belonging and the confidence to grow into their fullest, most independent selves. Come visit our school to see this for yourself!

A New Role: Adults in Montessori Adolescent Programs

Fri, 23 May 2025 21:36:31 GMT

Adolescents are in a new stage of development. So, how can the adults in their lives adapt? In Montessori adolescent programs, we open our hearts and minds to what is really happening for adolescents in their growth toward adulthood.

We have enormous respect for adolescents and the growth that happens during this stage of life. In many ways, the early adolescent years are parallel to the first years of life. Adolescents are newly emerging adults. They are newborns, and just like newborns, they are gaining a great deal of learning, brain integration, and social/emotional equilibrium.

Because what happens during adolescence impacts how our future adults will adapt and contribute to the broader society in adulthood, we are careful to model what it means to be an adult. We work to provide guidance and structure while respecting adolescents’ journey of self-construction. This stage of development is a period of reorganization, and we have the unique opportunity to positively influence and support this transformation.

The Montessori Adolescent Environment

Montessori adolescent programs vary in structure but typically include:

● Plans of study and work

● Different forms of social organization

● Micro-economy programs

● Work with nature and the land

Within these activities, adults serve multiple roles in different settings, such as in the kitchen, through work on the land, in business operations, and more. However, it is essential to remember that the Montessori learning environment belongs to our adolescents. As such, we must ensure students develop concentration and independence through meaningful activities in an attractive and stimulating environment.

Creating this prepared environment is a vital piece of the adult’s work! So we work to uphold the following characteristics.

● Designed for self-construction : Adolescents need an environment where their personal development takes priority over just producing a finished product. Whether running a microeconomy business or working on the land, we remember that the product isn’t the primary concern; rather, it’s the adolescent’s development and their self-construction.

● Developmentally appropriate : Activities and experiences should align with where adolescents are in their growth so as to ensure engagement and relevance.

● Supportive of human tendencies : We want the environment to support human tendencies, like orientation, order, association, and exploration, in a way that evolves with students’ age and maturity. This means the space and the work will look different based on what our students experienced during their elementary years!

● Includes materials/activities that provide appropriate challenges and opportunities for independence : Adolescents need access to tools, technology, creative outlets, and real-world applications of their learning, from garden tools to spreadsheets, from theatrical production materials to forms of publication.

● Provides Beauty and Order : While adolescents may not always maintain order, a well-organized and aesthetically pleasing environment still impacts their development and identity formation. Although adolescents experience organization as a convenience, order is necessary to operate in a microcosm of society and when you need to get things done, like cooking a meal for a group.

● Ensures Isolation of difficulty : We need to observe to know if our adolescents can use the tools at their disposal and also to plan for what lessons they need to be successful. Adolescents don’t want to be incompetent. They also don’t want to be ordered about by an adult. They need our side-by-side support.

● Is Scaled in Size : We want workspaces should be adaptable to accommodate the diverse physical and developmental needs of adolescents. Scaling still matters at this level because adolescents can be very different from each other in their development.

● Offers Limited materials : Too much choice can be overwhelming, yet the material needs to be obtainable when the task requires it. We intentionally ensure there isn’t one of everything for everyone because research shows adolescents are more productive when working with a partner.

● Encourages Care (of self, others, and the environment) : This is a beautiful thread in all of Montessori. As our young people approach adulthood, we support them in learning how to take of themselves so that they then have the capacity to take care of people around them and then their community and their planet. Encouraging adolescents to care for themselves, their community, and the world around them fosters responsibility and empathy.

The Essential Role of the Adult

Adults are an essential part of the prepared environment, acting as facilitators of human development. Our primary responsibilities include:

● Creating Conditions for Growth : Providing experiences that develop social responsibility, justice, and dignity.

● Modeling Respect and Civility : Demonstrating respect for people, living things, community spaces, and social norms.

● Fostering Engagement : Encouraging participation through invitations to work, short presentations, and meaningful activities.

● Encouraging Self-Construction : Allowing adolescents to take ownership of their learning while the adult remains in the background, blending into the work alongside them.

The Power of Observation and Patience

A fundamental role of the adult is to create conditions that naturally engage adolescents. This requires stepping back from unnecessary praise and criticism and allowing students to recognize their own successes and errors. Learning comes from experience, and we see mistakes as valuable opportunities for growth.

Adults must also develop strong observation skills, practicing patience as adolescents navigate their developmental process. Our role is to guide, not dictate, allowing adolescents to take ownership of their education.

Ultimately, we must be aware of and sensitive to adolescents' developmental needs and characteristics. We respect their potential and understand adolescents’ need to function in a social context and their drive to become independent young adults.

Side-by-Side Work

One of the most effective tools for fostering independence is working alongside adolescents. This allows them to:

● Observe real work in action

● Understand their role within a community

● Feel valued for their contributions

The process begins with adults modeling tasks, ensuring students understand the necessary skills, tools, safety rules, and quality expectations. Gradually, responsibility shifts to the adolescent, allowing them to take ownership while we observe from a distance. Older students can take on leadership roles, further developing their skills and sense of responsibility.

Preparation of the Adult

The role of adults in a Montessori adolescent program is built on teamwork, respect, and humility. Adults must collaborate effectively, ensuring that the program serves the community of adolescents rather than personal agendas. By fostering a respectful and engaging learning environment, adults empower adolescents to become independent, confident, and socially responsible individuals.

Facilitating adolescent development is a significant challenge requiring deep preparation. Montessori adults must be willing to evolve, accept change, and continually refine their approach based on observation and feedback. Montessori education is powerful for this age group because the adults are constantly exploring how to creatively meet adolescents’ needs, from designing the learning environment to preparing themselves to support these emerging young adults.

Curious to learn more about how Montessori supports stages of development in our young people? Schedule a tour!

Stages of Development Series: Infancy

Mon, 03 Mar 2025 19:10:55 GMT

Discover how Montessori education nurtures children's growth from birth to six years old, fostering independence, exploration, and language development.

Imagine education from a fresh perspective—one that sees children not as empty vessels waiting to be filled but as whole individuals embarking on a lifelong journey of self-formation. From the moment of birth, children are driven by powerful internal forces that guide their growth and help them adapt to their unique time, place, and culture. This remarkable ability to evolve and adapt is a defining trait of our human species.

The Montessori approach to education is built upon this profound understanding of human development. Dr. Maria Montessori dedicated her life's work to observing how children grow and change over time, identifying key developmental stages that shape their path to maturity. Through her scientific observations, she identified four distinct planes of development, each with its own unique characteristics and needs.

In this four-part blog series, we’ll explore each of these four stages—birth to age six, six to twelve, twelve to eighteen, and eighteen to twenty-four—unpacking how Montessori education adapts to support children’s evolving needs at every phase of growth. By understanding these developmental stages, we can better support young people on their journey to becoming capable, independent, and fulfilled individuals.

Infancy (Birth to Age Six)

The first plane of development is an extraordinary period of psychological and physical growth. Newborns enter the world entirely dependent, unable to move or communicate. Yet, within just six years, they are walking, talking, and asserting their independence with intellect and will.

Characteristics of the First Six Years

During this transformative stage, children require ample sleep to support their rapid development. However, when they are awake, their curiosity knows no bounds. They explore their surroundings with boundless energy, using their senses to touch, smell, taste, hear, and examine everything in their environment.

Conquest of Independence

One of the primary goals during this stage is achieving functional independence. Children are eager to take care of their own needs and are naturally inclined to observe and imitate the actions of adults. The mantra of children at this stage is: “Help me do it myself!”

Sensitive Periods

Children in the first plane experience sensitive periods—windows of opportunity when they are uniquely receptive to acquiring essential skills.

Movement: Young children need movement to develop brain-body integration.

Order: They crave order to make sense of their surroundings, learning what happens and how objects are used.

Language Acquisition: This is a critical period for language development, during which children absorb words and speech patterns effortlessly.

These sensitivities drive children’s development, shaping their understanding of the world.

Observable Milestones

One of the most profound achievements in this phase is the acquisition of spoken language. Talking to newborns, for example, stimulates vocal cord development, and astonishingly, their vocal cords vibrate when adults speak to them. From being essentially mute at birth, toddlers can have a vocabulary of around 200 words by age two and an impressive 10,000 words by the end of this phase. This makes it essential to provide a language-rich environment during these formative years.

Physically, this period is one of monumental growth. Children progress from being immobile to sitting, crawling, walking, speaking, and independently eating. As adults, we must be mindful about supporting rather than hindering this development. We want to offer rather than limit growth opportunities for our children!

The Sub-Planes: Ages 0 to 3 and Ages 3 to 6

The first plane of development can be divided into two distinct sub-phases:

Ages 0 to 3: Children’s development is largely unconscious, driven by innate forces. During this phase, children absorb the world around them and do so without any filters. It’s important during this time that adults respect children’s natural developmental path without imposing external motivations.

Ages 3 to 6: During these years, children become more consciously aware of their actions and motivations. This is when we see the emergence of children’s willpower and the powerful drive to classify and understand their environment. Children become more conscious learners.

As they grow, children naturally identify patterns, similarities, and differences based on their experiences. They construct their understanding of the world from scratch, and active experiences in their environment play a crucial role in shaping their cognitive development.

Social Development in the First Plane

During their first three years, children form strong bonds with their primary caregivers and family, finding comfort in a small social circle. They prefer solitary exploration and engage in parallel play.

By age three, children seek a broader social experience beyond the family. They require opportunities to interact with peers and engage in community life, which fosters independence and social development.

Creating a Supportive Environment

Providing the right environment is crucial to supporting children during their early years. Key elements of an optimal environment include:

A Secure Home: A safe and loving home helps children build trust and confidence in the world around them.

Freedom to Explore: Children need space and opportunities to move and explore safely, both indoors and outdoors.

Language Exposure: A rich linguistic environment helps children build vocabulary and develop confidence in self-expression.

Participation in Daily Life: Involvement in practical life activities helps children develop independence and a sense of belonging.

Cultural Experiences: Exposure to family traditions, rituals, and cultural practices helps children adapt to their culture and understand their place within it.

As children develop over the course of this stage of life, they also benefit from being part of a social community and, in the process, learn valuable lessons about cooperation, sharing, and responsibility.

By understanding the characteristics and needs of the first plane of development, we can create environments that nurture children’s natural growth, independence, and exploration. We invite you to visit our school to see for yourself how a prepared environment can meet the needs of our youngest children! Schedule a tour today!

Taking a Look at Homework

Tue, 22 Oct 2024 19:05:34 GMT

Montessori fosters lifelong learning through hands-on exploration, responsibility, and intrinsic motivation—without the need for homework.

Many of us grew up with some form of homework, so it can feel a little strange when our Montessori kids come home without it. In fact, we may start to wonder what our children are missing by not having homework.

Perhaps some worries have crossed your mind: Don’t my children need additional practice to help improve their retention? Doesn’t homework help reinforce concepts learned in school? Doesn’t homework serve as a tool for teaching responsibility, self-discipline, and time management?

Let’s lean into these questions to explore what happens in Montessori classrooms and whether homework meets children’s developmental needs.

Do our children need additional practice to help improve their retention?

Unlike our youngest ones, who love endless repetition (it can be hard to read that favorite book one more time!), once our children reach the elementary years, they crave variety. Thus, the key is to provide lots of different kinds of opportunities for practice. For example, in Montessori classrooms, we have SO MANY ways for students to practice their multiplication facts: the large bead frame, bead bars, bead chains, multiplication board, checkerboard, and bank game, just to name a few.

We find that children love to practice and challenge themselves. So should we assign practice for them to take home? Author and researcher Alfie Kohn spent years reviewing the available research (as well as interviewing parents, teachers, and students), and he sums up his findings with the following statement: “Homework is all pain and no gain.” In fact, in studying the research, Kohn found that having and doing homework during the elementary years does not improve learning. That being said, in high school there is a small correlation between homework and test scores, although no clarity about whether doing the homework leads to higher test scores.

We’ve also found that when children are engaged and loving their varied practice at school, requiring that they continue the practice at home can actually backfire. For example, when children are made to do academic work at home, we see that they are less likely to engage with similar learning activities at school. That being said, when children are excited about their learning and initiate continuing at home, we encourage and celebrate this extension of their work!

Does homework help reinforce concepts learned in school?

We want children to see themselves as life-long learners. One way we support this is to avoid the dichotomy of home versus school. Learning doesn’t stop or start at the classroom door! Perhaps at school, a child is suddenly passionate about sea turtles. We explore how this learning can extend into the community: visiting a local aquarium for a real-life encounter, finding sea turtle books from the local library, watching a sea turtle documentary, etc. Some of this could happen through going-out trips from school and just as easily could also be something the child’s family embraces to support the learning experience.

Home learning (rather than preassigned homework each night) is meaningful and relevant. Just as an adult might be motivated or excited about a project at work and want to continue some of the process at home at night or over the weekend, we want our students to realize that their learning has no bounds of time or space! This could work in the other direction, too. Maybe a child asks a question at home one night about how stars are formed, which leads to a deep dive at school into types of stars, galaxies, and even chemistry.

This understanding that learning happens throughout all the aspects of our lives is a hallmark of Montessori education. We emphasize deep, hands-on engagement with varied kinds of learning materials. Our curriculum is designed to support an explosion of imagination and curiosity. Children can ask questions, explore, and work through big concepts at their own pace.

Does homework serve as a tool for teaching responsibility, self-discipline, and time management?

Montessori education is grounded in a deep respect for young people. Our unique approach is designed to cultivate responsibility, self-discipline, and time management skills. Montessori classrooms provide children with the freedom to choose their work, but within a structured environment and framework. This freedom is tied together with responsibility and teaches students to make well-informed choices about how they spend their time and what tasks they prioritize. Through one-on-one conferencing and daily adjustments, classroom teachers provide guidance and reflection that empowers students to think about their own learning process, including what parts could use more attention.

Instead of relying on external rewards or punishments, Montessori emphasizes intrinsic motivation. Students engage in activities because they are interested and find satisfaction in completing them, which nurtures self-discipline. Plus, children work at their own pace without direct competition. This allows them to focus deeply on their tasks, developing concentration and persistence, which are core aspects of self-discipline.

Ultimately, there is work to be done and sometimes even deadlines to meet. As we experience in the adult world, if we have procrastinated, lost focus, or just had to tend to other things, the work doesn’t go away, and sometimes we have to bring it home to make sure we get it done. The same applies to Montessori students. Sometimes they will need to bring some work home to meet a deadline or work through a challenge that needs more attention.

Guides may also work with older students to create individual learning plans so that they can more consciously plan their day or week to meet their goals. We scaffold this skill so our young people can learn how to incorporate goal setting, planning, and time management into their lives.

In a supportive way, we integrate choice, autonomy, and responsibility into students’ daily routines. The result? Montessori students feel empowered, take ownership of their learning, and have the gift of devoting afternoons and evenings for rest, family bonding, and exploring personal interests.

Interested in seeing for yourself how all of this works? Schedule a tour today!

Materials Spotlight: The Montessori Bells

Wed, 16 Oct 2024 20:56:27 GMT

Montessori Bells teach children musical expression, pitch awareness, and note reading through hands-on learning.

Music is a form of language. Because our young children effortlessly absorb language, we, of course, provide them with opportunities to express themselves musically! One key material we use for this is the Montessori Bells.

The bells are perfectly tuned, each designed to deliver a distinct, pure tone when gently played with a mallet. Also aesthetically pleasing, the bells invite children into the world of music. This helps children develop a keen ear for pitch and tone, while encouraging an appreciation of musical instruments and expression.

The Montessori Bells

In our primary classrooms, the Montessori Bells are easily accessible on a specially designed wooden stand or table, each bell arranged in order according to its pitch.

There are two sets of 13 bells. One set has black and white stands and is set up in the back to serve as a control and is arranged like a piano keyboard (the white bells represent whole notes, while the black bells serve as the sharps and flats). The other set of bells has stands of natural, varnished wood, so we call them the brown bells. Each brown bell is paired with a white or black bell, and these 13 pairs of bells comprise the chromatic scale beginning at middle C.

The bells sit on boards that also serve as guides. The brown bells rest on a pattern of black and white rectangles corresponding to the keys of a piano.

Playing One or Two Bells

After our youngest children have learned how to care for materials and have had plenty of experience discriminating sounds with our sound cylinders, we show them how to play a single bell. This is a multi-part process: how to carry the bell, use a mallet to gently strike the bell to make a tone, appreciate the sound the bell makes, use a damper to stop the tone, and return the bell to its proper place in the set.

Returning the bell to its proper place prepares children for future work of pairing and grading the bells. So, we take time to model how to check that the tone of the brown bell matches the corresponding white (or black) bell behind it.

Once children learn these steps, they can select any of the brown bells to play. Eventually, we also show children how to choose and play two different brown bells. This experience helps children focus on the fact that the two bells look the same but sound different. Then, upon returning the bells to the set, children also get to work on finding where each brown bells goes (because there are two empty spaces) by matching the tone of the brown bells to the white or black bells in the back.

This may seem like quite an elaborate process for just “playing a bell or two.” However, we carefully break down each step so that even our youngest children can learn how to use this delicate instrument with precision while also beginning to hone in on the slight variations in each bell’s pitch.

Pairing

When we observe children’s success with this initial process, we introduce the challenge of pairing. This experience begins with the adult letting the child know in the lesson that the bells are on their boards in a particular order. We play up the brown bells and down the white bells so the child can hear the gradation and experience the impression of the C scale. Next we model how to remove four brown bells from their boards, mix them, and place them in an open space off to the side.

While showing this process, we reflect aloud how we could match the brown bells to their pairs when we had just two bells. We point out that we can use the same technique to find the matching pairs of the bells we just mixed up and moved to the side.

We start by moving one of the brown bells to a space in front of the first empty white space (always working from left to right). We play the white (control) bell and then the brown bell. If they sound the same, we move the bell up onto the white space on the board. If they sound different, we slide the bell to the right to be in front of the next empty white space and we repeat the process until finding the brown bell’s match and location. When all the brown bells are paired, we again play up the brown bells and down the white bells to check they are in the correct order.

Once we finish modeling, we select the same four bells, mix them to the side of the workspace, and invite the child to pair the bells. We stay long enough to see successful matching of the first bell, then we fade into the background and observe. If the child is successful, we remove the same four and invite the child to do it again. If the first round was successful, we invite the child to remove all the brown bells and pair them!

Grading the Diatonic and Chromatic Scale

After children can pair all eight bells successfully, we introduce grading. This time, children learn how to put all the brown bells in order by paying attention to the degree of difference between each tone. This time, rather than using the white control bells to determine the order of the scale, children mix up and play the brown bells, using their awareness of the change in pitch to compare and reorder the bells. This requires children to have an acute awareness of each tone and how they differ. We start with just the white bells which represent the whole notes, and later introduce mixing in the black bells to make the chromatic scale (with sharps and flats).

Language Material

After children have successfully paired and graded the diatonic scale, we also introduce the “writing and reading” component of the bells. Children learn the symbols and names for the pitches and match the pitches with their notes.

When writing in language, we have thoughts we want to express and we can write them down. Composers have melodies in their heads and they write those melodies by using the notes of the staff.

We use beautiful staff boards with small wooden circles so that children can learn how to place the notes on the staff and eventually even write their own music, similarly to how they write with the moveable alphabet. Like with spoken language, children first explore through writing and then reading melodies.

Musical expression is woven into our primary classrooms. Schedule a tour to hear for yourself!

A Healthy Relationship with Feedback

Mon, 29 Jul 2024 11:00:01 GMT

In Montessori, we want children to embrace mistakes as opportunities to understand how to improve. Our goal is for children to understand that feedback is important for knowing what still needs to be done and what still can be learned.

What does feedback look like in Montessori classrooms?

We take care to cultivate a culture of feedback. Even at the early childhood level, we start this approach with a gentle noticing that allows children to begin to develop some self-assessment.

For example, when we see that someone has left their chair out, rather than reminding and instructing by saying something like, “Push in your chair,” we offer an observation, “I see that your chair is out.” By making a neutral observation, we provide children with the chance to notice and make a choice. They can make their own realization: “Oh, I forgot to push my chair in!” As a result, children can have agency in the process.

In social situations, we can use similar reflections. When someone is unkind to a peer, we might say, “It looks like your friend/sibling/classmate is feeling hurt.” We can also wonder aloud: “I wonder what would help them feel better. Should we check?” Or “Would you like some help checking in with them?”

Ultimately, children want to do the right thing. But when we overinstruct or always dictate what should happen, we deprive children of the opportunity to develop their own inner drive to make the right choice and follow through with action.

How does Montessori support self-assessment?

Many of the Montessori learning materials are “self-correcting” or have a built-in “control of error,” which means children can tell if they have done an activity inaccurately and try again without an adult needing to intervene. In our primary classrooms, the sensorial materials offer an excellent example of how the materials help children assess their own mistakes. If the largest cube isn’t used at the base of the pink tower, and then the next largest is placed progressively after, the tower won’t be stable. If the last knobbed cylinder doesn’t fit in the last space in the cylinder block, it’s clear that the pieces need to be rearranged.

Because the materials are designed to give feedback, children begin to learn early on that they can recognize, understand, correct, and learn from mistakes. As the materials get more advanced, children are able to use answer keys to check and correct their work. They can use control cards to see if they have used labels or identification markers accurately. Children are able to take control of their own learning and not rely on adult correction or judgment. The result? Children are motivated to try new things and take risks in their learning.

How does this approach work with more advanced academics?

As children get older and need feedback on essays or other work, we are careful about how we frame our responses. We recognize that our responses can significantly impact motivation, self-esteem, and a love of learning. Therefore, rather than emphasizing failure with red marks and X’s, we emphasize areas for growth.

A focus on growth can start with noticing what is right. For example, perhaps an elementary-aged child is working through a series of geometry lessons and has tried to abstractly determine the area of different shapes. By noticing what has been mastered, we are providing feedback about areas of strength: “Wow! You really aced a number of questions about area. You must feel really confident with calculating the area of squares and rectangles!”

Recognizing what is going well sends a message that students’ efforts are valuable and that their hard work toward mastery has an impact. It’s important to note that this is slightly different than praise. Rather, we are highlighting success instead of focusing on failures. It’s a subtle shift but one that makes a huge difference.

In addition, we ensure that any feedback offers room for students to revise and improve their work. Whether children are working on honing an essay or mastering long division, we ensure that they have the chance to incorporate the information, repeat or revise their attempts, and move toward mastery.

In reality, children love checking and discussing their own answers! Their conversations about mistakes, corrections, and revisions are the place where really fruitful learning often happens. Older children typically enjoy debating and discussing wrong answers with each other. In the process, Montessori students begin to understand mistakes as a place to explore and grow, which ultimately strengthens their critical thinking skills.

Why is a healthy approach to feedback beneficial?

The authors of Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well researched feedback and found that learning how to receive feedback effectively is key to healthy relationships and our professional lives. We want our students to develop a healthy and positive relationship with feedback so they understand that feedback is a gift that allows us to become better as people and at what we do.

Montessori children develop confidence and self-sufficiency through work with self-correcting materials, thoughtful space for revision and mastery, and intentional messaging from adults. They learn to appreciate opportunities for critical thinking and problem-solving.

We invite you to come see how children embrace opportunities for growth and mastery. Schedule a tour today! We’d love to hear your feedback!

Cultivating Mindfulness Part 2: Resources

Mon, 22 Jul 2024 11:00:01 GMT

Elizabeth Heller’s mission is to empower children and teens to self-manage emotional and physical wellness with the evidence-based tools of breathwork, body movement, and journaling. Elizabeth recently shared resources for using mindfulness in our families and with our children.

You have shared a lot about mindfulness, movement, and journaling. What resources can you recommend?

First, you are your greatest resource. You know more than you think you do! Using tools to connect with your inner knowledge is the most important resource. You can do this with a simple practice of pausing to notice any body sensation or feeling, without judgment and taking three to five breaths. Even one breath makes a difference.

Noticing is really about listening and paying attention. Researchers (and anyone who uses it) know that social media is a practice of distraction and disconnection. I believe children need to find their inner creativity and imagination long before they are bombarded with images of other people’s ideas and truths. We can learn to count, know colors, and learn the seasons and the alphabet without screen time.

I suggest trying different family activities like:

exploring the library by making a ‘treasure hunt’ for information on whales, or basketball, or the moon
teaching kids to read paper maps and then drive places without the GPS (the destination could be a place for a picnic, mini-golf, or a museum)
walking outside often and inside when the weather is uncooperative
breathing together before a meal or on the way to school
doing a one-word check-in before transitions or after to notice and share what you are feeling in the moment,
and, of course, reading with your kids or as a family.

It’s really about mindful attention, connection, and limiting distractions in order to enhance the connection to the self, others, and the world.

Having a journaling practice also helps, so using the Kids Super Journal or Teen Super Journal is an effective and fun way for kids and caregivers to practice mindfulness in minutes a day in their own creative way. Any guide that encourages self-exploration with pen and paper is a great way to explore who we are day-to-day because we are always changing.

Tell us more about the Super Journals.

The Kids Super Journal and Teen Super Journal are 70-day activity books that empower kids and teens to self-manage their emotional and physical wellness with the evidence-based tools of breathing, moving, and journaling. Each of the seven chapters has a “Mindfulness Menu” with fun and simple breath practices and body shapes for that chapter. Each chapter has 10 journal days based on a theme like Building Strength, Feelings Are Like the Weather, Love, and Gratitude.

Each journal day includes a breath and movement option, a feelings report and body sensation check-in, a fun journal prompt, and a positive activity. The journals are designed to help kids and teens create a mindfulness habit in just a few minutes a day. And with tools kids can use immediately and for a lifetime.

Breathing, moving, and journaling require no special training or equipment and are effective right out of the box. Kids and teens can use the books on their own with no special training or adult help necessary. That makes them a wonderful tool for home use and use in schools and mental health organizations and they are being used more and more in all those settings.

I have heard from dozens of adults who have used the Kids Super Journal for themselves and love it. Men and women. And the most common thing they say when they read about the tools in the Super Journals is ‘Oh, is this mindfulness? I can do this.’ The format works for anyone! Simplicity and consistency are key to creating a wellness habit. The Super Journals help kids and teens (and adults) do that.

Also, it’s important to remember that the key to mindful journaling is to simply write down whatever you notice at that moment. Spelling, grammar, punctuation, and pretty prose do not matter. You don’t even have to answer the prompt if you want to write or draw about something else. There is no right or wrong way to journal and there should also be no pressure to share. Journaling can only be effective if we feel free to express ourselves without anyone else reading or seeing what we journaled.

Are there ways families can have this kind of experience together?

In addition to breathing together and physical activity together, creating a journal jar as a family is also a great practice and as an option for kids to choose on their own.

To create a journal jar, find a big glass jar or jug. As a family, everyone writes down journal questions on slips of paper. It helps to choose a theme and include questions about feelings. Then put the papers in the jar.

Every day at a designated time (like before or after dinner) have kids take turns choosing a question from the jar. Put a timer on for five minutes and everyone (including adults) can journal their response. Drawing counts as journaling so small children can also participate.

Keep the Journal Jar in an accessible place along with markers and paper so kids and teens can use it whenever they want to. You can also read a question aloud and share your thoughts together as a family.

Can you give some examples of how people have implemented these practices?

Older students have shared that they wished they could have learned about mindfulness when they were younger because they thought that would have really helped them have a better high school experience.

I’ve also had some teachers decide to use the Super Journals for themselves. One music teacher said, “It was luxurious to spend those five minutes or so every morning with myself on those pages.”

It’s important to remember that curiosity is everything. If we start with curiosity we can say to our child, “I notice you are running in circles. I’m curious.” Start there. Then the next step is to teach our child to be curious. With this, there is a place to find a response versus a reaction and most importantly learn something in the moment by staying in connection.

We will always be in connection with other humans, so modeling is so important. We are teaching kids how to be connected and participate in the world and how to help other people do the same. This way we are setting up children to have cohesive relationships, which is the foundation of a healthy, joyful life. With breathing, moving, and journaling we are giving kids tools to self-manage their lives – their emotional lives, their physical lives, their social lives – and explore them.

What is so beautiful about humans is who we are inside. That is our uniqueness. The more we understand who that is and how to express it, the more we grow. That is what is beautiful, fun, and interesting as we move through the journey of living!

Cultivating Mindfulness Part 1: A Conversation with Elizabeth Heller

Mon, 15 Jul 2024 11:00:02 GMT

In our busy lives, how do we stay grounded and present for our children? Why is it important that we do so?

We recently explored these questions with Elizabeth Heller, a mindfulness expert, best-selling children's book author, certified yoga and meditation instructor, journalist, podcast host, and mom. She is the author and co-author of eight books for and about children, as well as a contributing author to four parenting books. Her most recent books are Kids Super Journal and Teen Super Journal.

Elizabeth shared her thoughts about how mindfulness can support our parenting, our own lives, and our children’s futures.

Thank you for connecting with us! As we all know, parenting is hard work! How do you see mindfulness helping in our families and with our children?

We do like to say parenting is ‘hard work’ don’t we? And I find it useful to flesh out what we mean when we say ‘hard work.’ What I believe we often mean is that parenting is a daily practice of staying present with children as they grow, make mistakes, ask questions, choose, and explore their world. I am speaking about the difference between responding to children rather than reacting. And doing so with curiosity and connection and non-judgment. It takes attention and purposeful effort (which is the ‘hard work’) to act as a guide and teacher over a disciplinarian. And teaching is what parenting really is all about.

This is where mindfulness comes in. Mindfulness has become a bit of a buzzword, but it just means paying attention to the present moment without judgment. The non-judgment is key. Once we start judging ourselves, our children, or anyone, we are no longer in a mindful state and are more likely to find ourselves reacting impulsively instead of staying present with what is happening, settling our emotions and making a thoughtful choice.

There is so much wonderful science out there about the benefits of breathing, moving, and journaling—like improved emotional regulation and behavior, increased self-esteem and self-confidence, stress and anxiety reduction, boosting immunity and brain function, and increased engagement and meaning in the classroom. And these benefits begin from the first mindful breath, journal entry, or mindful body movement.

What I really love about all of this is how kids and teens light up when they realize there is something they can do to create their own wellness by simply breathing, moving, or journaling. Once they know there are tools they can use to support themselves, they use them.

Where do you suggest families begin?

It’s like that cliché about ‘putting on your oxygen mask before assisting others with theirs.’ Parents and caregivers can first take care of themselves by establishing their own mindfulness practice. I love breathwork, body movement, and journaling as a place to begin. These tools don’t cost money and are universally accessible to adults and kids. If you can breathe (which, of course, we all can), you can reap the benefits of mindfulness.

For example, before you get out of bed in the morning, pause and notice any body sensations you might have. Keep noticing the sensation and breathe slowly in and out of your nose three to five times. That’s the golden ticket: putting on your oxygen mask first. It doesn’t require an hour of time. It can happen in a few breaths. The key is a daily, consistent practice. Consistency matters more than the length of time.

You can help kids–at any age–use this practice too. I have taught mindfulness, breathing, and yoga to kids as young as 14 months old with tremendous success. Introduce this when things are going smoothly. You can say: “I learned this amazing thing and I want us to experiment with it. It’s a way to pause and notice things before we make choices.”

Find something (like the weather or a body sensation you are noticing) and say, “I notice I feel a warmth in my heart. I am happy to have breakfast together. I am going to breathe three times and notice my happy warmth.” Then model the breathing and ask if your child would like to try it.

Don’t force the breathing. Just guide kids to try it out and share what they notice.

Once we establish the practice for ourselves and with our kids, everyone can learn to pause, notice, breathe, and then make a choice. We can use our breath anywhere and anytime during the day as a tool to self-manage emotions. You can try this practice on the way to school, before a meal, or before and after brushing your teeth!

Mindfulness is about more than making the day run smoothly. Caregivers and children are learning to notice who they are and what they need at any moment. We are learning to ask for help, practice healthy and open communication, and establish a process for staying connected to each other and to ourselves no matter what body sensations or feelings are present. Plus, teens are more likely to communicate with caregivers later if they have been practicing these tools early on in their development.

What are some priorities or practices that you uphold for yourself or in your work with children?

Mindfulness is a way of life for me. When I was eight years old, I instinctively picked up a pen and journaled a few sentences about some big feelings that came up for me in a ballet class. It was so empowering to express my feelings and be connected to myself in this way, that I have never stopped journaling. I was also an athlete so I was moving my body all the time and reaping those benefits. And the final piece of my mindfulness puzzle came when I left my martial arts practice due to an ACL tear and started yoga.

The combination of all three—purposeful breathing, body movement, and continued journaling–is for me, a powerful, beautiful way to experience life inside and outside myself. These tools have made me a better communicator because I have the practice of managing my body sensations during challenging conversations. I also absorb the beauty of the moment and share what I notice about others’ beauty. It’s why I am so dedicated to sharing these practices with families, schools, adults, and kids.

Based on what you know about Montessori principles and practice, how do you see your work with mindfulness and journaling connecting with or supporting what happens in Montessori schools and in Montessori families?

I think about the four “c’s” – curiosity, connection, creativity, and confidence.

We start with curiosity, so our first reaction is curiosity, not anger or yelling. We can notice our feelings: “Oh I feel anger right now. That’s interesting.” We can notice that and be curious. Or we can ask our child, “I’m curious. You were supposed to set the table. What happened?” Our assumption might be they don’t care or they weren’t paying attention, but there might be something else that is important. So it starts with learning to be curious, about the world, about others, and about the self.

Then if you are curious, the next practice is connection. Curiosity can sometimes be unsettling. So kids can learn to connect to themselves first in order to be present and connected to a person, nature, classmates, or to the learning that is happening. If you have a practice of taking a breath, moving your body, and journaling you can stay connected and explore what you need. This can happen with one or two breaths, 5 minutes of journaling, or a quick walk outside. Over time, it becomes almost automatic. Maybe you need to get help, try again, or take a break. In Montessori, children have this gift of being able to meet their needs as they explore learning.

If you have curiosity and stay connected, then you are making space to be creative and try new things. When these three “c’s” are firing, it’s just confidence all over the place.

Children have so much wisdom. Montessori really values learning how to explore the world and yourself in it to learn how to grow and contribute. With mindfulness tools, children can develop the confidence to try new things, make mistakes, learn, and grow. This becomes a powerful, beautiful cycle for being a lifelong explorer in this world. And it all begins with a mindfulness practice for exploring the self.

Our Montessori Bookshelf: For Summer Adventure

Mon, 08 Jul 2024 11:00:07 GMT

Summer should be a time of adventure! Remember back to your own childhood, when summer days seemed to stretch on endlessly? Now, our children are so scheduled that they rarely get to navigate the neighborhood, traverse through the forest, or splash along a stream bank. Yet more and more research shows the importance of unstructured time in nature.

To encourage some summer outdoor adventure, we suggest settling in with your child to explore The Lost Book of Adventure from the notebooks of the Unknown Adventurer. Although this book is ideal for elementary ages and up, younger children can enjoy the illustrations and may even appreciate having adults read some of the snippets and sections scattered throughout the book.

To begin, it’s worth noting that by design this book has a sense of mystery to it. While it’s chock full of practical advice and stories from the field, The Lost Book of Adventure’s origin story is an invitation all on its own.

The compiler and editor of the book, Teddy Keen, was on his own adventure in a remote part of the Amazon when he came upon an abandoned shelter. Upon some investigation, he and his friends uncovered a rusty metal container. Inside the container was a slew of notebooks, journals, and sketchbooks – a compilation of some unknown person’s adventures, wonder, and knowledge from all around the world. According to the story, there was also a letter addressed to two young family members with a reminder: “Be good, be adventurous, and look after your parents.”

After years of restoration, compiling, and editing, The Lost Book of Adventure not only shares this unknown explorer’s beautiful (digitally remastered) artwork but also offers practical tips and invitations to begin your own adventures in your backyard.

Although organized into thematic sections—camping, rafts and rafting, creating shelters, exploration, and general useful knowledge—the book is a kind of journey from cover to cover. It invites exploration of its pages. You want to discover the next illustration, caption, short narrative, or snippet of advice.

However, the book also serves as a kind of reference guide. How do you go to the bathroom in the woods? How can you make a bedsheet hammock? How do you climb a mountain? You can flip to just the content you need.

Woven throughout are little stories – from a sandstorm in the desert to a failed attempt to create a raft – that make the whole book accessible in a sweet and personal way.

The effect is that adventure feels accessible. Yes, some of the anecdotes involve emperor penguins in Antarctica or a bike adventure through Africa. Yet somehow the book balances an allure with just enough concrete tips, tools, and tricks to make it all seem doable.

If you are interested in learning more, visit The Unknown Adventurer website . Above all, though, use this summer to create some little family adventures. If you need some ideas to get you started, we offer the list below (and this printable version ).

See how many of these activities you can do with your child(ren) before the summer months slide by!

Climb a hill or a mountain.
Explore a new hiking trail.
Walk, bike, or skate along a bike path.
Canoe or raft on a local river.
Explore a nature area near your house.
Climb a tree.
Learn how to use a compass and map to find your way.
Learn how to pitch a tent.
Learn how to make a fire.
Cook breakfast outdoors.
Make sandcastles on the beach.
Make mud pies.
Search for invertebrates in seaside rock pools or woodland streams.
Build a fort or lean-to in the woods.
Spend some hours making dams and bridges on little streams.
Try catching frogs.
Try catching fireflies in a jar.
Learn how to identify some constellations.
Find the North Star.
Learn where north, south, east, and west are in relation to your home.
Watch the Perseid meteor shower (which peaks August 11-12).
Build a birdhouse.
Ask someone to teach you how to whittle a piece of wood.
Name local birds in your neighborhood (use binoculars, bird songs, etc).
Learn the names of the trees on your property or in your area.
Collect something and make a little museum (e.g. shells, rocks, feathers, etc).
Keep a nature journal.
Dig for worms.
Go fishing.
Go for a night hike with a flashlight.
Pick fresh berries and bake a pie.

Imagination, Creativity and Fantasy

Mon, 01 Jul 2024 11:00:07 GMT

So what’s the deal with Montessori and fantasy? Does Montessori encourage creativity? What about imagination? Don’t children love make-believe?

A lot of the questions we hear like this often emerge due to some misconceptions about the relationship between Montessori philosophy and concepts of fantasy, imagination, and creativity.

What is imagination?

Imagination allows us to visualize things that aren’t present or haven’t been experienced directly. We use our imagination to be creative, solve problems, generate ideas, and explore possibilities. Our imagination allows us to take in information and organize it in new and creative ways. Imagination is a central aspect of childhood. As children shift from early childhood into their elementary years, they are able to use their imagination almost like a superpower to explore ideas and concepts throughout time and space.

What is creativity?

Creativity is how we generate new ideas, sometimes in artistic ways. It allows us to come up with original concepts or solutions, often because we are thinking about something in a new or different way. Creativity also helps us transform ideas and approach problems from a unique perspective. It is cultivated over time through exposure to different kinds of sensory input and appropriate freedom and support for creative expression.

What is fantasy?

Fantasy is a diversion from reality. It is the realm of make-believe. We use our imagination to create fantasy because it involves things that are impossible or improbable. But unlike imagination, which can encompass a wide range of ideas, fantasy is focused on the extraordinary and the fantastical. When thinking about or immersed in fantasy, we do not worry much about reality.

One misconception is that Montessori doesn’t allow fantasy. To explore this, we should also recognize that there is self-generated fantasy and imposed fantasy.

Pretend Play vs. Adult-Generated Fantasy

Children love to engage in pretend play, a self-generated form of fantasy. Often, in pretend play, children explore roles they see in real life by pretending to be in those roles. It’s pretend for them, but they are working out what different roles mean. Whether pretending to play school or house or creating a construction scene with excavators, this is young children’s way of processing the world around them.

Where pretend play can become confusing for young children is when they have seen different kinds of fantastical things that seem real, such as Superman jumping off a building or a normal boy turning into Spiderman by being bitten by a spider.

Young children are still distinguishing the line between fantasy and reality. It’s worth noting that even if our young children can repeat back that they know something is real or pretend, a true cognitive understanding of the difference doesn’t fully form until children developmentally shift into their elementary years. This is why we sometimes see children trying to get bitten by a spider so they can become Spiderman, or trying to jump off the top of the stairs so they can fly like Superman.

As adults, we have a tremendous responsibility to allow children to create their own fantasy rather than imposing fantasy on them. For example, superheroes, fairy tales, and fictitious animated characters are adult-created fantasy. When we impose fantasy on our children, even if they like it, we are inadvertently depriving them of the opportunity to develop their own imagination. If children are in awe of adult-created fantasy, their creative expression often becomes more limited because they are trying to recreate something others have imagined.

The Real World is Amazing

From birth to about age six, children effortlessly absorb everything about the world. They are like sponges! This is the time when we want to introduce children to all sorts of exciting information. The options are almost limitless: species of mammals, names of flowers, land and water forms, countries in all the continents, types of clouds, pollinators, geometric solids, types of triangles, and the list goes on.

Children are fascinated by the natural world. They gain so much inspiration from their sensory explorations and interactions in their environment. Neurologically, young children are developing mental order and categorization for all their future understanding. We want to give them real information so that they have a solid foundation for their imagination and creativity to truly soar.

If we introduce children to fantastical, unreal things during the early years of their development, we divert their learning from what is amazing and wondrous about the world. In the process, we also create unnecessary confusion. For children who are still learning to discern the difference, the world of fantasy can be disorienting and even, at times, frightening.

As adults, we understand the difference between reality and fantasy, and there are times when we enjoy the diversion into the world of fantasy. For our youngest children, let’s give them the gift of building their understanding of the truly remarkable world around them. By doing so, we help them lay the foundation for a rich imaginative, and creative life.

Curious to see more about how Montessori inspires creativity and imagination? Schedule a visit to our school . We’d love to connect with you!

What does assessment look like in Montessori?

Mon, 24 Jun 2024 11:00:01 GMT

So often we get asked how Montessori guides assess children’s work and progress without relying on quizzes, tests, or grades. If we remember that Montessori is about learning for life, we can flip this question and ask, how does assessment work when we move outside school walls and step into the world of work? In our work environments, do we have tests and grades? If so, how do they help us grow and improve in what we do?

Interestingly, a 1999 document “An Employer's Guide to Good Practices” from the U.S. Department of Labor Employment and Training Administration, has a whole chapter on issues and concerns with assessment, including the “limitations of tests in providing a consistently accurate and complete picture of an individual's related qualifications and potential.”

Before we dive into how we can get an accurate and complete picture of skills and potential, let’s first think about traditional forms of assessment and how they are designed to monitor students’ learning.

What do tests, quizzes, and grades really measure?

Rather than a measure of how much students have learned, grades tend to measure how good students are at getting good grades. If we want students to have curiosity and intrinsic motivation to understand, it’s important to first recognize that grades inhibit that process. Rather than concentrating on learning, students’ focus becomes on doing what it takes to get a good grade.

When students are preparing to take a test or quiz, they are trying to anticipate what will be asked. In the process, they are trying to fulfill external expectations. Often after the exam is over, students lose interest in the content because their relationship with the material is about learning certain information to achieve a grade or pass the exam.

It’s important to thus recognize that grades don’t measure students' effort, creativity, grit, compassion, sense of place in society, character, capability, or even intelligence.

Grades do measure students’ ability to memorize and anticipate what will be asked. With that in mind, students do need to show some knowledge and skill when taking an assessment. While we hope that grades measure how well students have mastered central concepts, the very act of administering a test and assigning a grade means that the outcome is based more on how well students take the test rather than how much they actually learn.

What if we designed assessments that provide a more accurate reflection thinking and problem-solving?

So it’s worth thinking about what we actually want to assess. Do we want students to just acquire new content knowledge or be able to apply this knowledge to new or existing situations? Do we want to see if students can produce something that demonstrates their understanding of the content or skill? Do we want to assess their writing ability, speaking skills, creativity, collaborative process, or organization?

If we focus on authentic assessments, we are asking that students apply what they have learned to a new situation, or perhaps we are requiring them to use some judgment to think about what information and skills are relevant and how they can be used. Similar to how adults are “tested” in work or personal life, often authentic assessments are tied to a real-world or complex situation.

In addition, authentic assessments offer students the opportunity to rehearse, practice, consult resources, and get feedback so as to refine what they are doing. Students can be innovative in this process and as a result, are often extremely self-motivated.

In Montessori classrooms, authentic assessments may take the form of:

Role-playing or performing a historical event and exploring what might have happened if things during that time period had changed.
Drawing a diagram of how a process works and showing what happens if a variable changes.
Creating an advertisement or brochure to highlight qualities or review something learned.
Writing a diary entry for a real or fictional character.
Composing a poem, play, newspaper article, or persuasive letter to share important concepts.
Writing a letter to a friend explaining a problem or technique.

Montessori students love demonstrating what they have learned in creative, authentic ways. They present to their peers. They grapple with concepts. They even sometimes teach younger classmates.

But how do teachers keep track of this learning?

In addition to authentic assessment, Montessori guides are also using their extensive training in observation techniques to understand students’ learning process, steps toward mastery, and needs for support. This is called formative assessment.

Formative assessment is a continuous, low-stakes, responsive process. This means that students are getting feedback and information while their learning is taking place. Through observation, the teacher is gauging students’ progress, determining what has been effective, and identifying what could be improved in the learning process. There are no grades involved, however the goal is mastery of the skill or content.

In a Montessori classroom, formative assessment can look like:

The guide observing students during a lesson presentation and during the students’ independent follow-up work.
Student reflection in work journals.
One-on-one conferencing with the guide and the student.
Discussion and review of content or skills.
Students informally or formally presenting their work.
Student self-evaluations.
Students correcting their mistakes and reflecting on what they learned from those mistakes.

Formative assessment doesn’t have to be teacher-driven. In fact, in Montessori classrooms, students are often getting feedback and information about their learning from the classroom materials, many of which are designed to help children learn from their mistakes as they check their own work.

Formative assessment is a collaborative process that happens “with” students rather than “to” students. Montessori students and guides partner to get to know their strengths, interests, and needs. Because this is an ongoing, collaborative process, the guide and students can make small, immediate, impactful decisions to support well-being, learning-goal achievement, and self-efficacy.

What are the results?

When students experience authentic and formative assessment as integral aspects of their education, they become self-directed learners because they are active agents in their learning process. This translates to agency in other environments and throughout life.

In Montessori classrooms, we focus on getting an accurate and complete picture of children’s skills and potential. Schedule a tour to learn more about what this looks like in action!

Developing Body Awareness

Mon, 17 Jun 2024 11:00:03 GMT

We know that our youngest children are sensory-motor learners. They are learning constantly through their movement and sensory input. Think about babies and how fascinated they are with their own hands and feet – moving, touching, looking at them with wonder and delight. This experience gives them feedback about their body, so they can identify what makes up themselves and what is external in the world.

What is Body Schema?

Body schema is the internal awareness we have of our body and the relationship of our body parts with one another. It’s essentially a perception of where our body ends and the external environment begins.

Our senses and movements are key to this awareness. When newborns feel the sensations of clothes on their bodies or when something touches their skin, these experiences give an awareness of body boundaries.

Why is the Development of Body Schema Important?

The development of body schema helps build the idea of the essence of ourselves. To have a positive idea of who we are and what our essence is, we need to have positive experiences both physically and psychologically. When children get feedback from their environment, they develop their ideas of their body scheme and ultimately their self-image.

A healthy development of body schema and self-image leads to the unity of mind and body. When our children start any kind of movement, they need the coordination of their mind and body. And to achieve more deliberate and precise movements, they need clear awareness of all of their body parts.

How Does Body Schema Develop?

Body schema is developed through sensory experiences and movement and this begins in utero! By 12 weeks unborn babies can feel the amniotic fluid, umbilical cord, and their hands in their mouth. After birth, newborns’ body schema develops more intensely through ways that we feed, handle, hold, bathe, change, and massage them.

In their first year of life, children experience dramatic changes to their body schema as they move from lying down, slithering, crawling, standing, and then walking. We thus want to offer our infants lots of opportunities to freely explore so their body schema can adjust through new accomplishments.

As children move into toddlerhood, early childhood, and middle childhood, their body schema continues to develop, but much less rapidly. However, once our children reach adolescence, they experience dramatic body changes which lead to the development of a new body scheme. For this reason, adolescents benefit from various forms of exercise and physical expression so they can develop better awareness and control of their bodies.

How Can We Help?

We want to give children activities that encourage them to use their maximum effort. This begins with the motivation to slither and crawl, then progresses to carrying items while walking upright, pushing wagons, jumping, and so much more! When our little ones use their whole body in effortful ways, they are fully present and aware of their bodies and their movements.

We can also help by using correct language for body parts. When we are giving our babies and toddlers a bath, or supporting them with getting dressed, we can playfully and positively name each body part: I’m washing behind your knee. Push your heel down into your shoe. I’m pulling the sleeve over your elbow. As children grow older we can play games of imitation where they can mimic others’ body positions. Children love games like Simon Says which provide a playful way to hone in on body awareness. Obstacle courses are great for older children.

What Should We Avoid?

Children need so many opportunities for movement! However, we rely so much on car seats and other containers that we can inadvertently hinder our babies’ development of body schema by limiting their ability to move freely. We can take them out whenever possible and let them be on a blanket on the floor.

It’s also helpful to ensure children have clothing that promotes movement and allows children to use their hands and feet. In our worry about newborns scratching themselves, we cover their hands at a time when they most need to explore this amazing part of their body and develop an awareness of how their hands and fingers move in the space around them.

When babies have prolonged use of pacifiers, they can also begin to feel like the pacifier is part of their body, which leads to great upset when the pacifier isn’t available!

The key is to remember that children need sensory feedback to develop a healthy sense of where their body is in space and how they can move their various body parts in coordinated ways. This leads to a mind-body connection that builds a healthy self-image.

What is the Result?

When children have these formative sensory-motor experiences with their bodies, they develop a strong trust in the world and themselves. The self-confidence that emerges leads to a healthy integration of mind and body and an accurate and positive perception of body scheme and self-image. Ultimately this leads to a positive attitude towards life!

If you’d like to learn more about how we support this development, visit our school . We love sharing what we do!

Looking Deeper: Understanding Needs Behind Behaviors

Mon, 10 Jun 2024 11:00:04 GMT

Now that we are transitioning into the summer months, it’s a good time to take stock of some family dynamics. Usually when thinking about how things are going, we focus on children’s behaviors. Yet reflecting upon ourselves and our actions can also be a helpful first step.

First Look at Needs

Psychiatrist Rudolf Dreikurs has explored how human behavior has a purpose. Sometimes we are aware of the purpose and sometimes it is unconscious. Through his work with children, Dreikurs described how to understand behavior by first acknowledging the needs a person is trying to fulfill.

At the most basic level, we all need food, sleep, love, and protection. Certainly, if children (or adults) are starting to act out in some way, the first question to ask is if they are hungry, tired, or not feeling well. Once those basic needs are met, we can consider what else might be at play.

As humans, our need for belonging, connection, or significance is a strong force. If we don’t feel loved or accepted, we may do something (often unconsciously) to get affection or attention, maybe lash out to get even with whoever doesn't seem to be noticing these needs, or perhaps even retreat into a discouraged mode.

Understand Mistaken Goals

Dreikurs identified how many behaviors stem from four mistaken goals: the desire for attention, the need for power, the hunger for revenge, and the assumption of inadequacy. If our goal is attention, the coded message behind the behavior is "notice me" or "involve me usefully" If we need power, our behavior sends the message that we need meaningful ways to contribute. If we are trying to get revenge, we are communicating that we are hurting or need our feelings validated. And when we assume inadequacy by giving up or wanting to be left alone, the message behind the behavior is that we need people to believe in us and show small steps toward success.

Although Dreikurs focused on children, the principles apply to us all. When we "act out," what are we trying to communicate to those around us? First and foremost, we should check and see if our basic needs are being met. Are we taking time to breathe? Are we eating nourishing food? Are we getting substantial sleep? If we are taking care of our basic needs, we can reflect upon what else might unconsciously be motivating our actions. Do we need someone to notice our efforts? Do we feel powerful in our lives? Are we doing work that matters? Are we holding onto a grudge? Are we discouraged?

Practice Self-Acceptance

Children need the adults in their lives to peer behind their behavior, consider underlying causes, and provide empowering support. As adults, however, we often need to do this for ourselves first. At the heart of the process is self-acceptance. We need to love ourselves unconditionally and give ourselves the time and space to attend to our unconscious motivations.

One of the first acts of loving kindness we can do is take care of ourselves, notice our own needs, and patiently honor our efforts. When we are clear about our own needs, we can then be more effective in interpreting our children’s unmet or unspoken needs.

Examine the Clues

Once we have given ourselves some grace, we can better pause and notice what might be behind our children’s behavior. If we’ve considered our own unmet needs, we can have more empathy for what might be unconsciously motivating our children.

A key to this is to see what emotions we feel when our children act out in some way. The Positive Discipline approach, which is based on Dreikurs’ work, offers a helpful tool called the Mistaken Goal Chart .

When our children display some sort of bothersome or upsetting behavior, we can use this chart to hone in on three significant clues that let us know what our children actually need.

The first clue can be found in recognizing what emotions our children’s behavior brings up for us. Do we feel annoyed and irritated, angry and challenged, hurt and disappointed, or hopeless and inadequate?

The next clue is how we react to the behavior. Do we coax? Give in? Fight back? Retaliate? Give up? Try to over-help?

The third clue is how our children respond to our reactions. Do they stop temporarily but then resume the behavior? Does the behavior intensify? Is there retaliation? Or just passivity?

Peel Back the Layers

By using the Mistaken Goal Chart, we can begin to peel back the layers and start to understand what beliefs may be underlying children’s behaviors. This process helps us also look at how we may be contributing to the behavior and what the coded messages mean. Once we understand all of those pieces we can shift our responses so as to better empower our children in proactive and helpful ways.

Rather than falling into unconscious patterns this summer, let’s first consider and acknowledge our own unspoken needs and proactive ways to take care of ourselves. Then, let’s take the same compassionate approach with our children. Often, we all just need to feel a sense of belonging, connection, and significance. Here’s to creating that together this summer!

As always, please also feel free to schedule a visit . We love connecting about all things children and child-rearing!

Our Montessori Bookshelf: The Parent Corner

Mon, 03 Jun 2024 11:00:00 GMT

This summer is a great time to carve out a little adult time and disappear into some good books! While we certainly advocate for some mindless escape, we also recognize that all the extra time with family might mean you’d like some parenting resources, too!

With that in mind, we’re sharing a few of our recent favorite resources for parents and caregivers. While these aren’t specifically Montessori books, they are so aligned with what we do that we just had to share!

Hunt, Gather, Parent: What Ancient Cultures Can Teach Us About the Lost Art of Raising Happy, Helpful Little Humans

by Michaeleen Doucleff

While in the midst of parenting a feisty toddler, NPR correspondent, Michaeleen Doucleff was covering medical stories in remote areas of the world. An exhausted and slightly strung-out new mom, Doucleff noticed distinct differences in the parenting practices of cultures she visited and those she was trying to uphold in her home in San Francisco. So she shifted gears and immersed herself, with her two-year-old in tow, in three cultures — the Maya, the Hadzabe, and the Inuit, all of which excel in instilling confidence, kindness, and helpfulness in their children.

What Doucleff experienced and learned as she lived with families in these three cultures is quite simply profound. She saw firsthand how her host families interacted differently with her daughter, Rosy, who blossomed as a result. As Doucleff began to internalize different parenting practices, she also found that her relationship with Rosy transformed.

It’s worth noting that none of the cultures Doucleff experienced are frozen in time: the families have smartphones, children have plenty of screen time, junk food exists, and the kids still have to get out the door to get to school on time. However, a significant difference that Doucleff found is that the families’ parenting is grounded in thousands (perhaps tens of thousands) of years of tradition that support the gentle and kind growth of helpful, self-sufficient little humans.

One of the most endearing parts of the book is Doucleff’s vulnerability in sharing her parenting challenges. So often we want to keep those parenting fails tucked away within the confines of our home, and feel mortified when they rear their heads in the drop-off line or at a play date. Doucelff shares the messy details with honesty and in the process inspires a whole new level of compassion for what it means to parent in the Western world where we don’t necessarily have easy access to our extended families, a wide social safety net, and long-standing traditions that support our parenting journey.

With an engaging narrative flow, Hunt, Gather, Parent offers a clear organization of four core elements that comprise a common thread of what Doucleff calls a universal (non-Western) approach to parenting. Plus, in each section, she offers practical steps for trying out these different elements, including ways to “dip your toe” into the approach, as well as ways to “jump in.”

While Doucleff wrote the book to explore how to better connect with and support her toddler, the concepts and advice apply for all-aged children (and even work for teens and pre-teens!). The results are stunning. Even just dipping your toe into a few strategies is transformative.

If there is one book to make sure you read this summer, this is it!

13 Things Mentally Strong Parents Don't Do: Raising Self-Assured Children and Training Their Brains for a Life of Happiness, Meaning, and Success

by Amy Morin

So often we want to rescue our children, clear the path for their success, and ensure they are happy. But in the process, are we helping them develop the internal skills they will need throughout life?

After experiencing a series of personal tragedies, Amy Morin, a clinical social worker, psychotherapist, and foster parent, began thinking about what helps people be resilient. Ultimately this led to her book, 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don’t Do. As people read her book, she heard time and time again that readers wished they had learned the skills of mental strength and resilience from an early age. So she created this incredibly helpful guide for parents and caregivers.

Each chapter is devoted to what to avoid so that good, healthy habits can be cultivated. The 13 things mentally strong parents don’t do are:

They Don’t Condone a Victim Mentality
They Don’t Parent out of Guilt
They Don’t Make Their Child the Center of the Universe
They Don’t Allow Fear to Dictate Their Choices
They Don’t Give Their Child Power Over Them
They Don’t Expect Perfection
They Don’t Let Their Child Avoid Responsibility
They Don’t Shield Their Child from Pain
They Don’t Feel Responsible for Their Child’s Emotions
They Don’t Prevent Their Child from Making Mistakes
They Don’t Confuse Discipline with Punishment
They Don’t Take Shortcuts to Avoid Discomfort
They Don’t Lose Sight of Their Values

To make it manageable, Morin provides real-life examples and breaks them down to examine any underlying problems and key issues. She also provides a little self-reflective opportunity for readers to take a look at how these issues might come up in our personal and parenting lives, before then examining why we might be falling into some unhelpful patterns.

With a better grasp of what we are doing and why, Morin helps us look at how each approach can affect our children in the long run and what we can do instead. Every chapter is full of concrete techniques and steps, as well as troubleshooting guidelines and common traps. To drive the message home, Morin recaps each of the 13 points with what is and isn’t helpful.

If you need a straightforward, easy-to-digest guide to changing some parenting habits, this is the book for you!

No More Mean Girls: The Secret to Raising Strong, Confident, and Compassionate Girls

By Katie Hurley

Many of the books written to address the “mean girl” dynamic are geared toward pre-teens and teens. However, in her work, child and adolescent psychotherapist, Katie Hurley, observed more and more of this “mean girl” dynamic starting as early as age three. Even though they are in the midst of these interactions, our young girls don’t necessarily have the skills to cope with such sophisticated social challenges.

Recognizing that these difficult topics can also feel overwhelming for parents and caregivers, Hurley breaks down the components of how we can support our young girls in a variety of ways. In addition to digging into the bigger concepts – such as developing healthy friendships, distinguishing between likability and popularity, building an authentic self, having a voice and expressing yourself, and developing leadership skills and social responsibility – Hurley weaves in two key ways to practice concrete support through sections she calls “Parent-Teacher Conference” and “Girls Can!”

The Parent-Teacher Conference boxes offer key points to digest, look for, or try. They are incredibly helpful as touch-points throughout the book and offer an easy-to-access way to flip back and reconnect with essential elements of each chapter. The Girls Can! sections provide games and activities to try with the girls in your life, as well as ways to introduce concepts we might not be used to talking about.

While this is primarily a guide for parents of girls ages three to thirteen, so much also applies to our boys, especially those who are perhaps more sensitive. Incredibly practical and chock full of what to do, this is the type of book in which you’ll thoroughly dog-ear the pages!

We’d love to hear what you think of these books! Please reach out to schedule a visit and we can talk more about parenting challenges and how we can support you.

An Expansive Experience: Music in Montessori

Mon, 27 May 2024 23:00:00 GMT

In Montessori, music is both interwoven into the curriculum and its own area of study. Like with the other subjects in Montessori, music begins sensorially, isolates difficulty through key lessons, and engages children in spontaneous forms of expression.

Sensorial & Connected Experiences

In our Toddler and Children’s House classrooms, we first offer sensorial experiences and impressions related to music. We encourage listening and awareness, perhaps hearing the snap of the snaps of the dressing frame or noticing the delicacy of the sound when placing a glass vase on a tray. The sound cylinders also help children distinguish fine gradations of softness and loudness. In the Silence Game, children become attuned to the many types of sounds around them when they sit quietly and listen.

Children are also able to link music and movement through the rhythm work in walking on the line activities, as well as simple activity rhymes, chants, and a wide repertoire of songs. In fact, we sing with the children every day because singing together is a powerful community builder!

We also offer children opportunities to listen to the music of various cultures. They love the challenge of identifying instruments by the sounds that they make, too.

Keys to Music

We use the bells in our primary programs, and the tone bars in our elementary classrooms, for music literacy (the reading, writing, and playing of music), as well as music theory, including notes, scales, chords, rhythm, melody, harmony, and form.

With the lovely Montessori bells, children begin to discriminate pitch by first playing individual bells, and then pairing and grading according to pitch. Next, they move on to naming the pitches and matching the pitches with their notes. Eventually, children learn the placement of the notes on the musical staff, as well as how scales and melodies can be written with notes on the staff.

In elementary classrooms, the work continues with the tone bars, as children learn about the degrees of the scale, intervals, the sequence of major scales with sharps and flats, key signatures, transposition, and the naming and notation of minor scales.

In Montessori, music is not a separate subject, only to be taught in a separate room by a specialist teacher. We want music to be an integral part of the daily life in the learning environment. As such, the Montessori music program provides keys to music that can be presented by any trained Montessori teacher regardless of musical background.

A Form of Language

Ultimately, music is a language of communication. Because music is a language, we think about music development as we do children’s language development and honor both the “spoken stage” and “written stage.”

Within the spoken stage, we may observe children picking away at bells or tone bars, striking notes without any apparent purpose. We treat this activity with respect as it represents the babbling stage of music.

The children eventually sing and play (on the Montessori’s bells and tone bar materials, as well as other instruments) and later they write and read music. Just like with the moveable alphabet for language, children can use a moveable alphabet for music notation to be able to write their own compositions. At this point, we often see children explode into music performance and notation, just as they explode into writing and reading.

While the bells and tone bars are used for many purposes, including work with music notation, they are first and foremost musical instruments and children love incorporating songs into classroom performances and sharing.

Expansive Program

In our primary and elementary communities, the music program is vast and includes music appreciation and history, singing, movement/dance, rhythm, pitch, intensity, timbre, form, style, listening, instrumental work, music theory, and the science behind the music.

By isolating difficulties and providing various preparation of skills, even our young children come to extemporaneous and spontaneous composition.

Music is part of culture and thus we want to ensure that our children have contact with the world of music. The future musicians among them will connect to their life’s path and their life’s work at an early age! Even those who don’t go on to study music develop an appreciation for and understanding of this important part of human culture.

We’d love for you to hear this harmony for yourself! Please reach out to schedule a tour !

A Summer Path to Independence

Mon, 20 May 2024 23:00:03 GMT

Has your child ever vehemently resisted the idea of summer camp? Perhaps between not knowing anyone and having to try new things, they may think the experience is just short of sheer torture!

In the face of our kids’ resistance, it can be hard to insist on our children’s engagement in a summer camp experience. But it’s important to remember the very real benefits of having broader social experiences, stretching in new ways, and trying new skills.

Offering Clear Support

In these moments when our children resist, it’s important to both acknowledge their feelings while also staying firm about what will happen. Often they have an underlying desire to take on a new challenge, and maybe are even experiencing some frustration, perhaps with their own fears and uncertainties.

The process is a bit like what happens with infants on the cusp of crawling. They rock back and forth on their hands and knees, sometimes crying in exasperation. They want to crawl, to move toward some interesting object on the floor, but seem to feel unable to make that first move.

A Path Toward Independence

From birth, our children are on a path toward independence. When they are very young we can clearly see the stages, from being held in arms to sitting, then from sitting to crawling to walking. We witness them begin to babble and then talk. With each new skill, our children develop self-confidence and learn what they are capable of achieving.

The more children have the opportunity to confidently explore their environment, the more they master developmental tasks and establish new skills, all of which help to support a widening sense of independence.

The urge to become independent is strong. As adults, we can be supportive of this natural process, even when our children are entering into activities that feel challenging and even initially unattainable.

Letting Go

If you are exploring summer camp as a step toward independence, be sure to check out Dr. Michael Thompson’s book, Homesick and Happy: How Time Away from Parents Can Help a Child Grow . Thompson clearly outlines how important it is for our children to have their own experiences, especially those that are not under parents’ purview.

This letting go can take great effort for both children and their parents. “Every child has to practice being independent,” reminds Thompson, “and every parent has to practice letting his or her child be independent.”

In order to achieve independence, children need to be able to experiment with what they can do and be able to accurately judge their own limitations and abilities. The summer camp experience, whether overnight or day programming, offers children this chance to push their limits, without worrying about varied reactions from parents.

Their Own Experiences

Thompson conducted hundreds of interviews with campers and former campers for his book, Homesick and Happy, How Time Away from Parents Can Help a Child Grow . Overwhelmingly, children described how their camp experiences helped them realize how strong and competent they really are. Thompson reminds us of the importance of being away from home and out of parents’ loving, yet sometimes overbearing, watchful eye. “When children are away from their parents, they do not have to view their own life and achievements through the lens of my-athlete-father-standing-on-the-sidelines-watching-me or my-mother-is-worried-that-I’ll fail. When a child is on his own, the experience is his alone, the satisfaction belongs only to him and he does not have to filter it through what his parents think and feel.” When in a summer camp program, children can fail, learn, and succeed on their own terms.

With an engaged and expanded learning environment that is often extremely experiential, camps help our children realize new abilities and different ways to deal with challenges, which helps them feel more competent and capable. As a result, they build up their problem-solving skills and sense of agency.

Opportunities Abound

In addition, our children get to form healthy new relationships, with peers and friends, as well as adults who are not their parents. In a summer camp atmosphere, children get to practice social skills in a relaxed environment and with adult leaders who can offer different kinds of guidance.

In addition to introducing new people and activities, camp experiences help children learn about their strengths, weaknesses, likes, and dislikes, all of which help them form a strong sense of identity. Finding their strength, as well as making hard-won progress in areas of difficulty, helps children build self-esteem and identify worthwhile hobbies and interests that they can continue to pursue as they get older.

Often children’s response after the camp experience speaks to their awareness of claiming their space and being aware of a parental reaction. For example, one eight-year-old, after the first day of camp, told her camp counselor: “Don’t tell my mom, but summer camp is really fun.”

This summer, let’s offer our children the opportunity to face something that might at first feel uncomfortable, but that offers them so much.

The Power of Color

Mon, 13 May 2024 11:00:02 GMT

When you look inside a Montessori classroom, you’ll notice the general attractiveness and warm quality of the room. As you peruse the environment, you may also notice the array of colorful materials on the shelves and how they stand out in contrast to some of the neutral feel of the rest of the room.

These colorful learning materials are designed for beauty so that our young children will be drawn to them. However, this isn’t the only reason Montessori materials have distinct colors. The color-coding also helps with organization and structure in the learning environment, and perhaps even more importantly, plays an important role in facilitating children’s cognitive development and learning.

Creating External and Internal Order

In our toddler and primary classrooms, practical life—activities like scrubbing a table, cleaning a window, watering a plant, or creating a flower arrangement—are set up so that all of the objects for a particular activity are arranged by color. This way young children can rely on color cues to know what objects go together and to independently access supplies, like getting a dry apron.

Sensorial materials often use color to help isolate a quality and help children develop their perception. For example, when discriminating dimensions with the pink tower, all of the cubes are the same shade of pink. Color-coding is also used to help children pair two identical sets of materials, like when matching sounds with the sound cylinders.

These forms of color-coding help children with both the order in their surroundings and also in constructing an internal sense of order.

Integrated Throughout

The color-coding gets even more interesting as children move into more academic subjects, like language, mathematics, and even geography.

When our primary children begin to use puzzle maps, they start with the continent map, a two-dimensional representation of Earth, and the continent globe, which shows the planet as a sphere. The puzzle map and the globe show the continents, and each is painted a distant color: North America is orange, South America is pink, Europe is red, Asia is yellow, Africa is green, Oceania is brown, and Antarctica is white. As children begin to learn the physical representation of each continent, they also associate a color with that continent. All other learning materials that involve the continents–such as picture packets, information cards, or booklets–maintain this color scheme.

In the math materials, children learn to associate a quantity with both the number of beads represented and the color of those beads. The beads are the same size but change only by the number on the bead bar and the color. So a ten bar is always constructed of ten gold beads, a nine bar with nine dark blue beads, eight with brown, seven with white, six with light purple, five with light blue, four with yellow, three with pink, two with green, and one with red. This color scheme is consistent throughout all the math materials that use the bead bars, from the simplest lessons in the primary to advanced cubing and cube roots in the elementary and beyond.

Similarly, there is clear and consistent color coding in other materials and concepts, such as with the hierarchy of numbers to designate place value or the role of different parts of speech with the grammar materials.

Strengthening Neural Pathways

While this color coding does continue to help with organization and structure, now the color also helps children with their cognition and memory. Color has long been used as an effective tool in marketing, through brand recognition, consumer attitude, and purchasing decisions.

How the brain processes color impacts our children’s attention, comprehension, and retention. Dr. Maria Montessori may not have had all the current-day studies at her disposal, but she did recognize the power of color in the learning process.

We now know that color connects neural pathways and integrates different forms of intelligence, which allows learners to construct more consolidated meaning and make deeper cognitive connections with content.

When learning the quantity of six, children count the six light purple beads on the bar to determine the quantity of six. At the same time, neurologically they are creating pathways in their brain for quick and easy recall when they see the light purple bead bar so they can immediately think “six” in the future rather than having to count the beads.

Later, when children start to use the bead bars for advanced work with compound multiplication, the distributive law, squaring, cubing, and so much more, the neural connections they have are strengthened by both a clear and concrete understanding of the quantity and the associated color.

Leading to Abstraction

The color-coding in math, language, and other subjects, also helps children move from the very concrete to more abstraction and symbolic representation.

Because they learn to associate nouns with black equilateral triangles and verbs with red circles, as children analyze sentence structure they can begin to parse out the subject and predicate by using those two color-coded shapes and eventually even just the color.

With the understanding that our decimal system place values have associated colors–units are in green, tens are blue, hundreds are red–children can better conceptualize the pattern in the numerical hierarchies because unit thousands are also green, ten thousands are blue, hundred thousands are red, and then unit millions are green, and so on.

This color-coding also helps when we move into operations with larger numbers and quantities. When children move from very tangible representations of a bar of ten beads to represent ten and a square of one hundred beads to represent a hundred, they use small color-coded tiles with just the color and number. Thus children can manipulate a blue tile with 10 printed on it and a red tile with 100 printed on it, and (thanks to the neural pathways established) fully understand what those tiles represent as they add, subtract, multiply, and divide.

A Powerful Aid

The power of color is fully integrated throughout Montessori classrooms and provides an amazing aid to children’s cognitive development. In addition to helping memory and learning, the color brings beauty and appeal to our learning environments while also supporting children’s independence!

We recommend coming to see this for yourself. There are so many examples of how color brings learning to light. Schedule a tour today!

Walking On The Line

Mon, 06 May 2024 11:00:01 GMT

Our young children are developing their body control, concentration, and equilibrium. So in Montessori, we intentionally provide opportunities for them to practice these skills.

Dr. Maria Montessori was especially curious about helping children acquire equilibrium. She developed the “walking on the line” exercises after observing children's interest and delight in walking on curbs or along any line they could find.

What is Walking on the Line?

We first start by creating a designated place for children to practice the balance, control, and focus needed to walk along a line. The “line” is often in the shape of an ellipse and can be in the classroom, another indoor space, or even outdoors. The line can be temporary (e.g. chalked on the ground), slightly more enduring (e.g. created with fabric or electrical tape on the floor), or painted onto the surface for a more permanent line.

Walking on the line is a favorite activity and although it is mostly found in primary classrooms, elementary children also enjoy walking on the line challenges, too!

Preliminary Activities

The first activity on the line is simply walking on it with natural steps. That being said, we start with preliminary exercises to help children master small components to ensure success when multiple children are involved.

The first stage is learning how to come to the line. We introduce a signal (e.g. one drumbeat) and show children how to put their toes on the line and face towards the center when they hear that signal. Then we play a short game with the children. We might have them hop inside the line, then use the signal as an indication to come back to the line, or go for a walk and come back to the line, take a step backward and come back to the line, and so forth. All of this is to practice hearing the signal and coming to the line in the designated way.

When children can do this consistently, we may introduce another challenge. This time, with a new signal (perhaps two drumbeats), children learn how to make space so they can spread out on the line without touching their neighbors.

With this mastered, children are ready to learn how to turn to face the same direction. We often need to assist so children learn how facing the same way means looking at the back of their neighbor’s head (rather than at another student’s eyes). This new skill requires a new signal (e.g. rubbing the drum)!

Learning and practicing these various preliminary activities can take a series of days or even weeks. We take our time, rather than rushing the process, as children find delight with each component. Once they know all three signals, children love playing a game that incorporates coming to the line, making space, and turning to face the same direction.

Walking to a Beat

With these foundations in place, we introduce walking to a beat. Children know how to come to the line, space themselves out, and turn to face the same direction. Now they try to walk on the line with each step corresponding to the beat of the drum. When the beat stops, they stop. This is quite a challenge for our little ones, but also great fun.

As always, we make a game of the experience. We may offer little suggestions, or points of interest, to aid in their success. If we notice little feet moving off the line, we can suggest that children “follow the line” if. Or we may challenge them with different kinds of instructions: walk with your whole body, hold your chin up, relax your arms, or keep your body very still.

We also try to model a natural heartbeat rhythm for the children to walk to. When the beat stops, we teach the children to stop and turn to face the inside of the ellipse.

Walking with Changing Rhythms

When children are walking consistently to a beat, we let the children know we may change the beat and they can change their steps to follow the beat. We start with the natural beat, then introduce different modulations, from speeding up, coming back to a natural rhythm, slowing down, to coming back to the original beat. We always end with the natural rhythm, for it brings children back to a place of calm.

Equilibrium Exercises

With equilibrium exercises, we introduce challenges such as walking on the line heel to toe or carrying objects such as beads on a string, a container of water, an object on a tray, or a sphere on a spoon. Sometimes children try to walk carrying a bean bag on their head without the bean bag falling as they walk. As an added challenge, children can try turning their heads to the right and left.

We also introduce ways for children to adjust to a changed center of balance. In a “follow the leader” method, we start by walking with hands at our side, but then change and move them in the air, or on hips, or even hands on shoulders. While these adjustments may seem simple for adults, continuing to walk heel to toe while making these movements can take a lot of concentration and balance for our young ones!

Rhythm Exercises

When children have made good progress with their equilibrium, we can help them turn their attention to walking on the line with music. We may use the bells, tone bars, or prerecorded music, so children can walk on the line when they hear the music and stop when the music stops. We eventually introduce different types of music that inspire different types of movement, from walking to marching to galloping or skipping.

Alternating between the types of music helps children become attuned to how their movements change according to what they hear. We always end with a slow, sedate walk on the line to bring everyone’s heart rate and energy level down.

Movement as Expression

With all of the walking on the line activities, children begin to become more aware of what they can do with their bodies and as a result, develop more conscious control of their movement. Ultimately movement is an essential component of human expression. To see more about how these kinds of movement activities help children’s development, please be sure to schedule a tour to visit our school!

The Absorbent Mind

Mon, 25 Sep 2023 11:00:01 GMT

Unlike other species that are born with a predetermined set of behaviors, human babies are born with a set of potentials. When a child is born, we have no idea if they will be a master musician or a creative chef. It’s pretty amazing when we think about it! Children are constantly creating the skills they need to become contributing adults.

Dr. Maria Montessori observed children from a scientific lens and over time she concluded that this kind of creative work could only happen with a mind that was different from the conscious adult mind. She realized that children’s minds operate in a fundamentally different way. In The Absorbent Mind , Dr. Montessori states:

“The child has other powers than ours, and the creation he achieves is no small one; it is everything. Not only does he create his language, but he shapes the organs that enable him to frame the words. He has to make the physical basis of every moment, all the elements of our intellect, everything the human being is blessed with. This wonderful work is not the product of conscious intention.”

Well before brain scans, Dr. Montessori discovered so much about how children’s brains function and she termed this special mental functioning, the absorbent mind. Her book, The Absorbent Mind , was one of the last books she compiled.

The words Dr. Montessori used to describe the child’s absorbent mind were chosen deliberately. The word absorbent implies “taking in” and integrating into the whole. What is absorbed becomes a part of what is doing the absorbing. Children take in their experiences and impressions which become part of the structure and content of their brains.

“Impressions do not merely enter his mind; they form it. They incarnate themselves in him. The child creates his own ‘mental muscles,’ using for this what he finds in the world about him. We have named this type of mentality, The Absorbent Mind.”

The absorbent mind is a superpower of children from birth to around age six.

Because children under six are absorbing everything in their environment, our actions need to reflect what we expect. If we want children to sit at the table to eat, we need to sit at the table to eat. If we want children to talk with quiet, calm voices, we need to talk with quiet, calm voices. If we want children to carry one item at a time, using both hands, we need to do so, too. The key is to model this behavior at all times. Children are absorbing indiscriminately. We may not think they are looking, but they are taking it all in!

We can share an example of this from a Montessori classroom. Once upon a time, a tall toddler teacher would always squat down in front of the low shelves to select a material to show a child. After squatting down, she would pick up the item she wanted to show. Although all the toddlers were at the right height to easily take the item, the teacher noticed that they would walk to a shelf, squat down, and then pick up the material. Even though this movement was much more difficult for the toddlers, they had unconsciously absorbed the steps the teacher had demonstrated: walk to the shelf, squat down, and pick up what you want.

So in our Montessori environments, we are very careful with how we move and what we do. When the adults want a snack, we follow the same procedure as the children. We wash our hands, use a plate, and sit at the snack table. Doing what we expect the children to do also gives us a wonderful opportunity to see how the process can be improved. By having snack and cleaning up after ourselves, we can experience the process. Are the dustpans easy to access and in a place that makes sense? Do the spray bottles work well for spraying and wiping the table? What parts of the process feel cumbersome? What flows well?

We can also look at our school and home environments from our children’s perspective. Sometimes it helps to even kneel or sit on the floor and look at a room from a child’s height. What do they see? What stands out from their vantage point? Is the space welcoming and beautiful? What attracts attention?

Our young children’s brains are hardwired to effortlessly absorb what is around them. Because our children are full of potential, we want to provide them with the best! Let’s start by taking a look at ourselves and our children’s surroundings. As we think about our children’s absorbent minds, we can work to provide them with clear, consistent images as we move through our days.

If you would like to learn more, please schedule a tour . We love to share how we support children as they are discovering what is possible!

Moving Away from How Was Your Day?

Mon, 18 Sep 2023 11:00:02 GMT

When we pick up our children from school, it can be so tempting to ask, “How was your day?” Often the responses are pretty lackluster.

As adults, we can likely relate. If a partner or friend asks about our day, our responses may be along the lines of fine, good, tiring, okay. Sometimes we just don’t feel like rehashing the day!

For children, there can also be an element of not always having the language to explain what they did or experienced. In Montessori environments, this can be even more challenging. How can a young child describe the sensorial experience of carrying each block of the pink tower to a rug and creating a geometric tower of cubes based on the decimal system? Or convey their emerging conversation with a friend during community lunch? Or relate their delight in discovering that ten 10s create a hundred square?

As children get a little older, they are also starting to grapple with figuring out their relationships with peers, which involves so many social nuances. Younger elementary-aged children are still seeing these relationships in black and white. So their descriptions of the day may be pretty two-dimensional: someone was mean or nice, the day was good or bad (usually based on an interaction with a friend), etc.

It can be hard for children to talk about their experiences at school. However, if we shift our approach, we can often get more insight into our children’s experiences.

Ideally, we focus on connection first. When we see our children at the end of the school day, we can greet them in a way that conveys how happy we are to see them. They may be tired, need to fall apart a little, have a snack, or just have a little time for rejuvenation. Allow a little loving space. Each child has a different way they feel fueled, loved, seen, and held. That first moment isn’t an ideal time to ask about the day because our children are transitioning into being back in our care. Plus, there is a lot going on during that transition!

Later, when our children have settled into being with us or at home, and hopefully have had a snack or a little time to decompress, we have a chance to connect about the day. However, a word of caution: questions like, “How was your day?” or “What did you do today?” are so open-ended, they can also feel overwhelming to children.

Instead, when we focus on starting a conversation rather than digging for information, our children are more likely to open up. They also need to feel that we are completely present for their responses, which means putting down our phones, not focusing on getting everyone into or out of the car, or not being involved in something like preparing dinner. It helps when we can show with our body language that we are really listening.

In those times when you are ready to explore a conversation, we recommend trying some other kinds of questions. Here are 40 of our favorites. The first five work best for younger children.

What made you feel happy today?
Who did you play with today? What did you do together?
Who did you sit with at snack/lunch today?
What made you feel sad today?
What was your favorite activity today?
Did everyone have someone to play with today? Who played together?
Who brought the best food in their lunch today? What was it?
What was your favorite thing in your lunch box?
What games did you play at recess?
What is the most popular activity at recess? Is it something you like to do? Why or why not?
Did someone get in trouble at school today? What did they do?
What did you notice today that other people probably didn’t see or pay attention to?
What is something you did today that you’d love to do every day?
How did someone fill your bucket today? Whose bucket did you fill?
What made you feel worried today?
What made your teacher smile? Did anything make your teacher frown?
What were you grateful for today?
If one of your classmates could be the teacher for a day, who would you want it to be? Why?
What is your class or teacher’s most important rule?
Who do you want to make friends with but haven’t yet? Why?
What did you learn about a friend today?
If aliens came to school and beamed up three kids, who do you wish they would take? Why?
What did you do today that was helpful?
When did you feel most proud of yourself today?
What rule was the hardest to follow today?
Which person in your class is your exact opposite?
Who is the friendliest person in your class? What do they do to be friendly?
What did you do today that was creative?
Did your teacher read to the class today? If so, what was the story or book about?
What was the high point of your day? What was the low point?
Was anyone in your class absent today? Do you know why they weren’t there?
What is something you heard that surprised you?
What is something that challenged you?
What is something that you were super good at today?
What compliments did you get (or give) today?
How were you brave today?
If you could change one thing about your day, what would it be?
How was your day different than yesterday?
What superpower would have come in handy today?
What are you looking forward to tomorrow?

After a snack, over dinner, on an afternoon walk, or before bed, try starting conversations with these kinds of questions. Notice that most of them can’t be answered with one word.

In addition, we can also provide our own responses, which provides a model for our children and gives them some scaffolding as they are thinking about how to answer. For example, “At lunch today I sat with someone who just started working with me. We talked a lot about going hiking and I shared some of my favorite hikes.” Or “When I was about your age, we loved playing capture the flag. One of my favorite memories of this game was when…” Sharing parts of our day or some of our own school memories not only shows that we are interested in conversation, but it also gives our children a guide for how to begin.

Let us know how it goes to first connect and later start conversations with open-ended questions. If you have any conversation starters that you and your children especially love, please share them! You can also download this printable of our favorite 40 questions to keep handy for those opportune moments.

Going Out: An Expansive Elementary

Mon, 27 Mar 2023 11:00:25 GMT

At the elementary level, children want to know the how and why of everything. As a result, they have a strong drive to explore the world beyond their immediate family and even their classroom or school. New interests compel elementary-age children to explore anywhere and everywhere! Plus, they are creating their ability to function in society. In order to achieve this, our elementary children need to acquire new skills.

One of the ways Montessori elementary programs help six- to twelve-year-olds develop these new skills is through something called “going out.” Dr. Maria Montessori developed the idea of “going out” both literally and figuratively. She recognized how, developmentally, elementary-age children needed to go out the door of the classroom and that the door should open into the wider world.

What is Going Out?

Imagine that a group of two, three, or four children have been studying something in the classroom. They have exhausted all of the resources in the class or school library and are eager to learn more. For example, a group of children may have learned about falcons. They want to interview a falconer and see some falcons up close. Or maybe a couple of students have been interested in mice, so they visit the local pet store to learn about the care of rodents. Students who just researched the Titanic may discover a nearby museum with a display about the Titanic, so they arrange a visit. Children learning about a period in history might visit a local theater’s costume shop to find clothing from that time period and recreate what someone would wear. The options are endless.

Purposes of Going Out

This small group experience serves elementary children’s need for independence, collaboration, and experience. They need new opportunities for intellectual stimulation. They are curious to learn more. They want to learn everything about the universe and the universe won’t fit into our classrooms!

In addition, elementary children need to be social and collaborate. In preparing for a “going out” experience, students get to work together in an authentic and meaningful way. In the classroom, they share resources, make group decisions, delegate and divide labor, take responsibility, and celebrate each other’s success. Inevitably conflict can arise and can be a necessary and important part of their work. With support, children practice respectful problem-solving. So with all this practice, they are ready to apply these skills outside of the classroom through their “going out” experiences.

“Going out” trips also require a new level of self-discipline. Children must make decisions and take action. In order to have a successful outing, they have to organize their thinking, themselves, and each other. They also must demonstrate a high level of responsibility, as individuals and as a group.

Different than a Field Trip

Although field trips are important and delightful, they are quite different than the “going out” experience. Field trips involve the entire class and are often planned and executed by an adult. The “going out” trip, however, involves a small group of children who want to learn more about something they are studying or investigating. Those children are then responsible for all of the logistics of the “going out” trip. The outing is conceived, planned, organized, and carried out by this small group of children who have a mission to learn more.

The responsibility for setting up a “going out” experience can require a variety of skills ranging from letter writing, sending emails, filling out forms, making appointments, finding transportation, reading schedules, budgeting for the day, making a phone call, speaking to different kinds of people, using electronics respectfully, packing supplies, confirming appointments, and following up with acknowledgments or thanks.

Sometimes children may need little mini-lessons about particular forms of decorum related to their “going out” — how to enter a theater, how to conduct an interview, how to write a thank you note, how to show you are listening, how to pay an admissions fee, etc. These are all vital skills that help our children prepare for how they will enter society.

A Community Effort

A successful “going out” program requires the support of the whole school community and the community at large. Sometimes parents or school staff offer to transport children. Being a “going out” driver is very different than being a field trip chaperone. A “going out” driver relies upon the children to share the directions, where to park, and what to do. If the children have neglected to check the hours of the place they are visiting, and they arrive to find the doors locked, the driver merely waits for instructions from the children about what to do next. This requires a great deal of adult self-restraint and an understanding of the aims of the program!

The children take on the challenge and expectation of what is expected. They want to be capable and they want to know what successful entry into society requires. When they find out what the rules are, they feel more secure in the world. Over time, as children develop connections and relationships out in the greater community, they also pave the way for future “going out” trips.

Support at Home

The spirit of “going out” can be supported at home, too! Think about the various activities that happen in our daily routines and how our children can take on some ownership or responsibility. For example, going to the grocery store can become its own “going out” experience. Part of the planning and preparation can involve sitting with our children to peruse the weekly sale flier to map out some menus for the week ahead. Children can make a list of what to buy and even estimate how much it will cost or try to work within a predetermined budget. Before leaving for the store, they can gather what is needed: reusable bags, the shopping list, snacks so no one shops hungry, etc. Or perhaps a recent weekend hike sparks curiosity about a particular subject, like rock slides or mushrooms. Children can find out the hours of the local library, talk with the librarian about their interests, and initiate the process of checking out or requesting some resources.

Elementary children are capable of so much, physically and mentally. Thus, we want to acknowledge their potential and offer keys for our children to unlock new experiences and step into the wonderful world beyond the school. The best part? Not only does the “going out” experience meet elementary students’ developmental needs, it also promotes a future full of good citizenship and responsible community members.

To see this work in action, please schedule a tour . Our doors are always open!

Looking on the Positive Side

Mon, 20 Mar 2023 11:00:37 GMT

Our brains are hardwired to look for problems and generate solutions. In The Neuroscience of Change , Kelly McGonigal, a health psychologist and lecturer at Stanford University, explains how this brain state has been helpful for human evolution so we can improve our state of being. Looking for what’s wrong, however, often prevents us from seeing what is good in the present moment.

Because of our negative bias, we can easily become focused on what children need to do better: pick up their clothes, get ready faster, be quieter, solve math problems better, make less mess, and on and on. As a result, our children can easily be bombarded by what they are not doing right.

Clear Feedback & Encouragement

In Montessori environments, we focus on offering clear, accurate feedback and encouragement, which includes acknowledging children’s work and effort. We want children to develop an internal drive so they can be independent, responsible, thoughtful learners and community members.

To support this development, our feedback and encouragement are focused on what is happening for children internally. We acknowledge what children might be feeling and the effort involved. Instead of the focus being on what the adult is feeling, we reflect upon children’s experiences. So rather than saying “I’m so proud of you,” we might say “You look very proud,” or “You worked so hard. Congratulations!”

Phrases of encouragement or positive feedback work best when backed up by evidence. For example, “I noticed how your friends looked relieved when you offered to help sweep up the spilled rice. They seemed to really appreciate your kindness.” Or “I saw how you looked frustrated and then how you took a deep breath. You showed a lot of self-control at that moment.”

State the Positive

Developmentally, young children need to hear requests or reminders framed positively. They need to know the expected behavior and they need us to state what we expected to see. If we say, “don’t hit,” young children cannot easily differentiate between the commands “hit” and “don’t hit.” The last word they hear is “hit,” so that is the image that lasts in their minds. Thus, statements like “don’t run” or “don’t hit” aren’t as effective for our young children.

Rather than saying what not to do, we focus on the behavior we want to see. Statements like “walk, please,” “touch gently,” or “please talk quietly” offer a clear and positive image of what to do. Children hear how to be successful and thus can more easily be successful.

Catch Them Doing Something Right

In addition to these clear directions, we can recast children’s self-image by acknowledging times they are making a good choice. In doing so we are providing our children with positive attention. All too often children get attention when they are engaged in behaviors we don’t like. Children then quickly learn that they need to act out in some way if they want attention. To counter this trend, we need to catch our children doing something right.

Building a Foundation

If we are caught in a cycle of only seeing the negative, one way we can change our outlook is to make a list of all the things our children have done right over the course of a day. When we start noticing and acknowledging the good stuff, we help create a positive feedback loop. Young children also love hearing a story about their day that highlights the positive choices they have made.

In Different Learners , Jane M. Healy, Ph.D., offers a strong reminder about the profound influence we have on our children: “One thing brain research tells us – loud and clear – is that the way we raise and teach our children not only helps shape their brains, but can also influence or even alter the way genes play out their roles.”

In this season of new growth, let’s offer positive reminders and in-the-moment acknowledgments to help our young people develop successfully. By doing so we will also be helping ourselves see the world in a more positive light.

We also encourage you to come to visit our school to hear how the adults and children in our community interact with each other in positive ways!

Pandemic Impacts & Optimal Child Development

Mon, 13 Mar 2023 11:00:48 GMT

We’ve enjoyed some return to normalcy after the intensity of the early COVID years. However, it’s important to remember that our young children are still living with some of the impacts of the changes we all experienced. One of the reasons the COVID years have affected our children is because so much critical development happens in the first few years of life.

While home is an incredibly nurturing place, many of our children were limited to only being at home which led to fewer opportunities for socializing and learning different kinds of relationship skills. To further complicate the scene, many of us were also trying to juggle our own changes in work and life.

With all this in mind, we’ve been focusing on identifying some impacts of COVID and sharing strategies to support optimal development in our young children.

Socializing with Peers

During the early COVID years, children didn’t have as much time to be around others, especially other children. Even when we could be with other people, we all needed to maintain a physical distance.

Yet children learn how to navigate social situations through play. Think of the rough and tumble romping of wolf puppies. It is through those interactions that the pups strengthen social bonds and learn how to navigate social status in the pack. Similarly, during interactive play, children learn to negotiate, share, wait for a turn, follow the rules of a game, and consider others’ feelings.

Our children now have an intense hunger for socialization while their socialization skills are still developing.

To support their social development, we can:

provide plenty of opportunities for unstructured imaginative play with peers
observe to see if children are hanging back or avoiding interactions
offer gentle help for joining into play or suggest phrases children can use to ask to participate
recommend tasks they can do to help the group
identify real-time emotions
model positive communication

Before intervening, though, it’s also important to give time and space for children to negotiate and problem-solve. Children learn best through opportunities to make some mistakes and, just like with the wolf pups, the learning might look a little messy at first!

Connecting to the Real World

Many of our children have had a lot more screen time over the past few years. According to Carlota Nelson, director of the documentary Brain Matters , too much screen time can impact children’s concentration and focus, reduce their ability to control impulses, and affect their capacity for empathy.

Young children need lots of opportunities for concrete, tangible, hands-on play. They need to use their bodies and hands to manipulate the world around them. Plus, multi-sensory experiences help children develop strong neural pathways.

To help this real-world connection, we can:

provide more time in nature and green spaces
incorporate more movement, exercise, and free play into the day
play board or card games with our children (or just play with them!)
make sure to practice and model face-to-face interactions and eye contact
engage in healthy human touch
reduce passive screen time

As an added bonus, these pursuits also provide children with more opportunities to experience a language-rich environment. As we know, the amount and quality of language children experience have a direct correlation with the rate of their language development. Thus, they need plenty of experiences to develop their language skills through listening to and interacting with a variety of people around them.

Developing Independence

Being home more with our children led to lovely family time, however it also may have increased our children’s reliance upon our presence while decreasing their tolerance for uncomfortable situations. Yet as children grow, they need opportunities to develop independence. These experiences are immensely important for children to build a sense of self while also increasing their self-esteem, frustration tolerance, and perseverance.

Rather than shield our children from challenging situations, we can make sure they have practice with experiences that can be a little anxiety-provoking. Anxiety is a normal human feeling and helps our bodies prepare us for something that might be hard. So our children can gain practice in how to regulate themselves, they need opportunities to be a bit out of their comfort zone.

To develop our children’s confidence, we can:

expose our children to experiences that can produce a little healthy anxiety
create opportunities for children to talk and share their thoughts
engage in warm, responsive conversation (with lots of listening!)
experience and discuss stories or situations together
teach practical life skills for self-sufficiency
include our children in household chores

As children become more confident, they are better able to handle transitions, experience less anxiety, and become more flexible. If you need any more convincing, Psychology Today references a study showing that children who started contributing to family chores at age three or four were more likely to have successful relationships, engage in rewarding careers, and be more self-sufficient in their lives.

As we shift into more regular routines after the intensity of the pandemic, let’s use this time to bring out the best in our children.

“We then become witnesses to the development of the human soul; the emergence of the New [Human], who will no longer be the victim of events but, thanks to his clarity of vision, will become able to direct and to mold the future of [human]kind.”

– Dr. Maria Montessori, The Absorbent Mind

We welcome you to visit the school to see firsthand how we support our future leaders, the young children, as they develop their independence, strengthen their social bonds, and make lasting connections with the wonder of the world.

What is the Montessori Three-Year Cycle?

Mon, 06 Mar 2023 12:00:12 GMT

When visiting a Montessori classroom, it can at first be surprising to see children of a range of ages in one room. Visitors often ask how children of very different sizes and abilities can all be supported and challenged in one classroom. There are many factors, but one reason the mix of ages works so well in Montessori is because we have “three-year cycles.”

What is a Montessori Three-Year Cycle?

In Montessori, children typically enter a classroom as the youngest children and then stay in the same learning community for at least three years. Over the course of those three or so years, they cycle through a rhythm of growth and development.

When children first come into a new classroom it is a bit like what happens when transplanting a perennial flower: they need some time to establish their roots and initially don’t show a great deal of external growth. This first year in a classroom is when children are exploring their environment and making sense of their new community.

During their second year, children are more established and, like perennial flowers, they often show more growth and blossom a bit more. This is when children are experimenting in a learning space where they feel comfortable and established.

By their third year, children are the experts in their community. Similar to perennial flowers, children’s growth becomes exponential and abundant. They truly blossom. The children who have benefited from a three-year cycle show what happens when they have had an opportunity to establish their roots, extend themselves, and then have the time and space to bloom in exciting new ways.

Evolving Roles

Because children in Montessori classrooms are with each other for a series of years, their learning community becomes a family. As they move through the years together, children get the opportunity to play the role of the youngest, middle, and oldest child, and experience the responsibilities and opportunities that come with those roles.

The younger children look up to their older peers, quickly learning through observation how to behave, what is acceptable, and even what to look forward to in terms of advanced work. The oldest in the class serve as mentors, leaders, and even teachers. As the older students master certain skills or materials, they have the opportunity to share what they have learned and in the process are able to synthesize their learning. Through this mutually beneficial process, children move through the process of developing aspiration, building confidence, and demonstrating mastery.

Consistency of Community

By having a consistent community for at least three years, children are able to build a foundation that serves them in multiple ways. In addition to having time to gain mastery, children establish long-term relationships with their peers and the adults.

With their training and sensitivity to developmental needs, Montessori teachers understand individual children’s learning styles, rhythms, and needs. They can tailor their presentations to the individual, recognizing where and how to help children stretch beyond their comfort zones. As a result, children are able to feel secure enough to take risks in their learning.

One of the additional benefits is that over the course of multiple years, a meaningful and supportive partnership develops between families and the Montessori guides. A consistent community provides support that empowers our children and families.

Zone of Proximal Development

The three-year cycles of Montessori mixed-age classrooms provide children with scaffolding to work in collaboration with a skilled teacher and more knowledgeable peers. Supportive learning environments allow children to make connections that they wouldn’t necessarily be able to make on their own. Psychologist Lev Vygotsky called this scaffolding the “zone of proximal development.” As children grow within their zone of proximal development, they develop more confidence and are able to practice new skills and abilities. They have social support through meaningful, purposeful interactions with others.

As children solidify their learning and consolidate their knowledge, they experience new possibilities for growth in a family-like learning community. This mixed-age experience is an essential component of what we do and our three-year cycles make it possible.

Come see the benefits for yourself! Schedule a tour to get a first-hand glimpse of this three-year cycle in action.

What is Social Organization?

Mon, 27 Feb 2023 12:00:35 GMT

As humans, we develop as social beings in our communities, society, and culture. In fact, associating with others is a fundamental human tendency. Therefore, in Montessori education we prioritize social development, even (or especially) as children grow into adolescents.

At the adolescent level, young people are experiencing a bridge from childhood into adulthood. They no longer need and want to create little practice societies as they did in their elementary years. Instead, adolescents need and want to understand and experience adult-level roles and responsibilities. Adolescents therefore require new opportunities for independence and valorization, as well as opportunities to contribute in purposeful ways to their community. In Montessori, we call this social organization.

In order to support this experience, Dr. Montessori envisioned an ideal setting where adolescents could live within as many aspects of society as possible. In her book, From Childhood to Adolescence , Dr. Montessori even outlines a road map for social organization at the adolescent level. In describing the practical aspects of social organization, Dr. Montessori suggests that adolescents live away from their families in a residential setting, preferably a farm that includes components such as a shop or store, a “museum of machinery," and a way to host others.

Residential Experience

Developmentally, adolescents need to break away from their families. Having some sort of residential setting or away-from-home option allows adolescents to figure themselves out in new ways amongst different adults. In addition, a residential opportunity allows adolescents to live in a community and recognize the impact they have within and on their community. Even if a full residence isn’t possible, adolescents can prepare meals for each other, make sure the kitchen and tools are ready for the next meal, ensure the compost is taken out, clean the dining area, and so forth, all of which allow adolescents to experience how their work matters.

This kind of experience is similar to how students in a Montessori primary or elementary environment become aware of how what they do in the classroom impacts others: if they run, are loud, or step onto someone’s work rug, that has an impact. Yet at the adolescent level, the experience of social organization needs to be in the context of real living. Adolescents need to step into adult-level roles. They need to coordinate lunch for their community or be the barn manager in charge of animal care. This also means they need to handle what happens if part of the work is left undone.

Land-Based Opportunities

Another ideal aspect of adolescents’ social organization is being on a farm or working on the land, which offers adolescents the opportunity to experientially understand our agricultural roots as humans. To survive, humans have needed to grow, raise, and harvest our food. When working on the land, adolescents get the experience of what it means to care for other living things and how those living things provide human sustenance. There are big moral questions that come up in this process: what do to when an animal is sick, how to honor an animal that will be butchered for meat, or how to handle pests that are decimating crops. Farm life allows adolescents to grapple with challenging questions that are part of living in a society.

Production & Exchange

Similarly, when operating a shop or store, adolescents get to experience the process of production and exchange as it works in society. They can labor to make sure a hive of bees is healthy and producing honey, and then determine how to package and market that honey to sell. Or they can create cutting boards in a wood shop and puzzle over how much to sell them for based on the cost of materials, the time for labor, and the value of their artistic work. They can harvest cucumbers and pickle them. They can create artwork for auction. They can harvest lettuce and wash it to prepare a salad for the community. Opportunities abound.

This experience also offers adolescents the chance to understand interconnections and interdependencies. Many people have done a great deal of work so that we can enjoy each thing we eat, purchase, or enjoy! Through the process of production and exchange, adolescents can also begin to understand the role of monetary systems and how to budget, plan, save, invest, share, and be responsible with their earnings.

Hosting & Using Tools

Other ideal options for adolescents include a hostel or host experience and a “museum of machines.” In hosting, adolescents get to experience how to give back to others. For example, in making a meal for guests or providing a place for parents to stay for the night, adolescents must put others’ needs first, while also taking on new roles and responsibilities.

Finally, Dr. Montessori’s “museum of machines” isn’t about having machines on display behind glass but rather means having many tools and machines available for adolescents to use, take apart, and repair. This collection of machines allows adolescents to learn and practice with tools that will help them on the land or farm, with their residential setting, in their shop, or with their hosting experience. Use of different tools of society helps adolescents learn skills and abilities that will serve them as capable adults.

Preparation for Adult Life

Preparation for adult life is a significant part of the adolescent experience. This isn’t preparation for a job, though! Rather preparation for adult life means that adolescents begin to understand the context for the human experience amongst other living things on earth, within the big picture of human progress, how we have used technology for the building up of civilization, and how each of us is a part and player in human history.

It is important to remember that adolescents are on their path to maturity. Social organization offers them the opportunity to step firmly onto the bridge from childhood to adulthood by living and experiencing aspects of what it means to be in society and the moral questions that arise as a result of being a human living amongst others in the web of life. In addition, social organization provides adolescents the chance to develop their own independence in the context of how we are all connected to each other.

In our families, communities, or schools, let’s keep these ideal principles in mind as we support our adolescents. We also welcome you to visit our school to see how we prioritize social development!

Toilet Learning: The Montessori Way

Mon, 20 Feb 2023 12:00:52 GMT

As parents we quickly learn that children have control over three things: eating, sleeping, and toileting. Rather than engage in power struggles, however, we can help children develop the skills they need to manage and gain mastery over these essential aspects of life.

In Montessori learning communities, young children learn how to prepare snack, fall asleep without assistance, and dress themselves. In addition, they learn how to control their sphincter and stay dry. This process, which we call “toilet learning" or “toilet awareness” takes time, yet it is a vital part of becoming independent.

Because we are helping children with an important aspect of their independence, we try to avoid the terminology of “toilet training.” After all, we aren’t training our children like we might train a dog! Rather we are helping children feel the success of becoming fully independent as they become masters of their own body functions.

The process takes time but doesn’t have to feel daunting. Here are some key aspects of toileting the Montessori way.

Establish Body Awareness

Toilet awareness starts at birth. From the earliest days of life, we talk to our infants about what is happening as we change their diapers. We might say, “Your diaper is wet from your urine,” or “I am wiping your poop off your bottom.”

To help our infants become aware of being wet or soiled, it’s best to use cloth diapers. Disposable diapers are very effective at wicking away moisture, which leads to children not connecting the act of eliminating pee with the feeling of being wet. As children shift into toddlerhood, they can begin to wear cloth underwear.

Useful phrases:

“Does your diaper feel wet or dry? Is there poop in your diaper?”
“Your underpants feel so heavy! You must have had a lot of pee come out.”
“I see you are squatting down and pushing. Your poop is coming!”

Collaborate

When a child is wet, we help them to the bathroom and collaborate with changing out of their wet underwear. We allow them to sit on the toilet to see if any urine is left that can be pushed or released into the toilet. Then once they have on dry underwear, they return to their activity.

Children need to feel involved in the toileting and changing process. They can assist in getting the clean underwear or diaper and putting any soiled items in their appropriate place. This gives children the feeling of some power or control in what is happening.

Useful phrases:

“You can hold your shirt up while I pull down your pants.”
“You can open the Velcro on this side of your diaper and I’ll open the Velcro on that side.”
“I’ll have a turn to wipe your bottom, and then you can have a turn!”

State the Facts

We are careful to stay matter of fact through the toileting process. Going to the toilet is a very natural thing to do, so we treat it as such. When children have wet or soiled their underpants or cloth diapers, we show them the dirty pair of underpants or diaper and where it should go. When appropriate we may even deposit feces from their underwear or diaper into the toilet. Children very quickly begin to associate and understand the process. Even when they begin to use the toilet successfully, we avoid clapping and celebrating and instead stick to the facts.

Useful phrases:

“Everyone poops!”
“Pee and poop go into the toilet.”
“It’s time to try sitting on the toilet.”
“Your underpants are wet. Let’s change into some dry underpants. Do you remember where to find your dry underpants in the bathroom?”
“Look, there’s some pee on the floor. Please bring me the clean-up bucket from the bathroom so that we can dry the puddle.”

Keep it Light and Friendly

Children are very sensitive to adults’ emotions, even when we try not to show them! Thus we make sure to have a positive, light, and friendly attitude toward the toileting process. Our approach helps children feel comfortable with their normal bodily processes. So we make sure to avoid any facial expression, comment, or tone of voice that conveys disgust or dislike, frustration or impatience. We stay relaxed and positive, so children can feel that way too.

Useful phrases:

“We can always change into dry clothes!”
“Everyone used to wear diapers—even Mommy and Daddy! Now we can use the toilet. You can, too!”

No Tricks or Treats

We offer the toilet, but we never force children to sit on the toilet. We also avoid asking children if they would like to sit on the toilet. There is a happy middle in which we suggest that they sit on the toilet or let them know it is time to sit on the toilet. Ultimately, we trust that children will incorporate this part of daily life into their routine. Young children love the consistency of routines, so we ensure, from the very beginning, that toileting is a regular part of the day.

Bribing, reward charts, and punishments may have short-term results, but do not work for the long-term goal of helping children develop independence, self-assurance, and mastery of this essential part of their humanity. We allow children the time to be successful. Rather than scolding or over-congratulating, we know that children will learn through experience and feel proud of their accomplishments.

Useful phrases:

“It’s time to sit on the toilet.”
“You peed in the toilet. You did it all by yourself.”

Respect the Process

Often when adults change children it is all done so quickly that children aren’t even aware of their bodily functions. Rather than rushing, we take time to explain what is happening and offer opportunities for collaboration.

It’s showing the utmost respect to children when we help them learn how to do something for themselves. When children able to respond to their body’s needs, they are one step closer to being fully functioning, independent young people.

Art for Self-Expression

Mon, 13 Feb 2023 12:00:33 GMT

Numerous theories and lots of research expound upon the importance of artistic expression. For young children and adolescents, art is an especially crucial form of personal expression. As such, children need to experience their own process rather than to produce a piece that someone else wants. In Montessori, we also have sensitivity to different expressive needs throughout different stages of development.

Process vs. Product

For young children, the process of making art is much more important than the product. When infants and toddlers are engaged in art activities, they are expressing feelings that they may not yet have words to express. Thus, during these early years, we focus on offering young children a variety of different artistic mediums.

When children are using different art materials, we first provide opportunities to work with larger spaces and then later move into the smaller more refined possibilities. For example, we start with painting at the easel, then as children develop more coordinated hand movements, we offer smaller paper or objects to paint.

Use of Tools

In addition to introducing different kinds of materials, we also show young children how to use different tools. We show how to use just a little water and the tip of the brush with watercolor paints. We explore different techniques with crayons. We introduce various tools–like knitting needles, crochet hooks, or looms–for fiber arts. Whatever the form of art, we offer the tools required for successful expression through that form.

We also open up a range of possibilities for children to explore. For example, in introducing clay, we show how to carefully get out the clay, how to use different techniques such as forming coils and slabs, how to cut, carve, or roll the clay, and how to store it when finished. We may also show examples of clay sculptures, whether in books or museums. With all of this information, children have a range of inspiration when they decide to work with clay.

Adult Response

To support young children’s artistic expression, we offer objective comments: “Oh how interesting…the lines go up and down,” or “I can see you used a lot of red and blue paint today.” We want to be very careful with what we say so we don’t give any indication of judgment, either good or bad. Young children do not yet have the language to explain their art. Therefore, we want to make sure our comments don’t inadvertently create expectations for children.

In Montessori, adults don’t insist that children express themselves artistically, or tell children what to express. When children choose some form of artistic expression, adults allow them the freedom to be with themselves while in the process of creating art. With this in mind, children’s artwork is individual, creative, non-competitive, and often connected to other subjects. We don’t expect children to learn to imitate adult creations or turn out products that all look alike.

Into the Elementary Years

From six to twelve, children began to use art in a more cognitive way. Often elementary-aged children began to want their artwork to be very realistic. They may focus more on the finer details of a particular piece of art rather than on the overall composition. As a result, children of this age can become discouraged if they feel their art “doesn’t look right.” Their determination is relentless. Because they will often insist upon realism, even at the risk of giving up on their artistic ability, we offer many different sub-skills to help children refine their techniques.

Art in a Montessori elementary classroom is often connected to students' intellectual pursuits. When studying Ancient Egypt, students may want to create a portrait in profile or a model of a pyramid. If they are immersed in learning about a country, they might learn about the symbolism of the flag’s colors and sew a sample flag.

All of this work is aided by the fact that children of this age love big projects. To support their artistic and intellectual pursuits, we provide elementary students with a kind of mini-studio so they can access the materials they need to create big projects and share their learning with their peers.

Through Adolescence

During adolescence, young people need even more opportunities to form, shape, express, and clarify their inner thoughts, feelings, and experiences. Artistic expression can be a vital outlet during this turbulent time, and can allow adolescents to not only reach a better understanding of who they are but also to be able to connect deeply with others through shared expression.

Questions of identity and fitting in weigh heavily on adolescents. Without ample opportunities for expression, these already perplexing questions can fester. Adolescents need creative outlets to keep their spirits vibrant!

In addition, expressive opportunities allow adolescents to merge their emotions with their intellect. It’s best to have a variety of avenues for artistic expression: instruments readily available to pick up, an art studio to transfer complex feelings into visual art, or opportunities for dramatic interpretation of academic content.

Vital Form of Expression

In Montessori, we feel strongly that young people need artistic outlets so they can have balance in their physical, emotional, social, intellectual, spiritual, and creative development. A Montessori environment supports the development of the whole person, thus allowing children to explore their personal creativity.

Art is a vital form of expression throughout different stages of growth. Through art children can express what they are feeling, elementary-age students can integrate their learning and refine their skills, and adolescents can better understand themselves and their connections to others. Creating art can allow our young people to reveal feelings that they could perhaps not express in words. Thus, we offer children a variety of art mediums and different experiences, as well as the freedom to choose and experience the form they have chosen.

As always, we invite you to come to visit our school to see this artistic expression in action!

The Role of the Montessori Teacher

hello@montessorithrive.com (Montessori Thrive) — Wed, 25 Jan 2023 16:55:02 GMT

What, exactly, is the role of the Montessori teacher? How is it so different from that of any other teacher?

Sometimes it’s easiest to begin by explaining what a Montessori teacher isn’t.

A Montessori teacher is less like the traditional idea of an instructor, and more like a gentle guide. They don’t consider it their job to give a child information. They rather lead children in the general direction and give them the tools they need to find the information themselves.

Maria Montessori once said, “The greatest sign of success for a teacher...is to be able to say, ‘The children are now working as if I did not exist.’”

Montessori Teachers Cultivate Independence

In a Montessori classroom, rather than seeing a teacher at the front of the classroom giving the same lesson to every child, the teacher will be working quietly with individual children or small groups. While that is happening the rest of the children are free to spend their time doing the work that calls to them. A Montessori teacher works hard to create structures that allow children to be independent and to trust themselves as learners.

One large part of what a Montessori teacher does is to intentionally prepare a classroom environment that is developmentally appropriate, is inviting to children, and supports them on their journey to work independently. This environment is constantly changing in tiny ways as the teacher notices new and evolving needs of the students.

Montessori Teachers are Trained to Think Like Scientists

Parents should know that Montessori teachers are highly trained. Most have recognized Montessori credentials in addition to their college degrees. Montessori certification programs are intensive and demanding; one might compare them as being the equivalent of another college degree. These training programs don’t just teach Montessori educators how to use the specialized materials; there is extensive coursework about Montessori philosophy, child development, and integrating the arts.

When it comes to assessments, Montessori teachers don’t rely on standardized tests; they rely on the power of observation. They have notebooks brimming with evidence of what their students have mastered, need more support with, and are curious about. They are constantly recording what they notice children working on, how that work is being executed, and ideas they might have in anticipation of a child’s next steps. Montessori teachers literally sit beside a child and determine exactly what they know about a wide range of content areas.

Montessori Teachers Think Long-Term

Because of Montessori’s three-year cycles, teachers have the unique ability to consider their big picture when working with students. There is a natural tendency to allow the children to genuinely learn at their own pace. Getting to know a child and their family well over the course of a few years really supports this approach.

Montessori Teachers are Often Called ‘Guides’

...and for good reason. While children in Montessori classrooms have an abundance of choice in their educational pursuits, Montessori is based on the idea of ‘freedom within limits’. It’s the Montessori teacher’s job to carefully craft those limits. Children rely on having a certain amount of structure in place. This gives them comfort and a safe place in which they can take risks and try new things. Montessori teachers set some boundaries and then carefully help students navigate within them.

What if your second grader loves to read but tends to avoid math? Their Montessori teacher will find ways to ensure the math still gets done. Sometimes this involves a gentle discussion with a child about time management skills, priorities, or setting goals. Sometimes the teacher will find a way to integrate the child’s interests into the less desirable work. Sometimes all it takes is a minor change in the environment. Montessori teachers gives children freedom, but they assist children in finding their way to success in this environment.

Montessori teachers value independence, self-reliance, and intrinsic motivation.

They also value cooperation, kindness, and strength in community.

Still curious? Call us to set up an appointment today to observe in a classroom. See what Montessori is really all about.

The Benefits of Multi-Age Grouping

hello@montessorithrive.com (Montessori Thrive) — Wed, 28 Dec 2022 16:45:52 GMT

One hallmark of a Montessori education is the use of multi-age classrooms.

Infants and toddlers may be together or separate, with a toddler classroom serving children 18 months to three years. Primary classrooms are for children ages 3-6, with preschool and kindergarten-aged children together. The elementary years serve children ages 6-12; some schools separate into lower (6-9) and upper (9-12) elementary, while many split elementary into two groups. Even Montessori middle- and high-school students learn in multi-age classrooms.

While Montessori is not the only type of education that utilizes this approach, it’s not what most people are used to. What are the benefits of structuring a classroom this way? Read on to learn more...

Learning at an Individual Pace

Children in multi-age classrooms tend to have a little more flexibility when it comes to mastering skills within a specific timeframe. We know that learning is not linear, and that learners have periods of significant growth, plateaus, and even the occasional regression. In multi-age classrooms, children are typically able to work at their own pace without the added pressure of keeping up with the whole group, or even being held back by the whole group.

When children in a classroom range in ages, everyone has someone they can work with, regardless of their skill level. Children don’t feel left behind if they struggle with a concept, and they also don’t feel bored by repetition of something they have already mastered. Teachers who teach in multi-age classrooms typically have deep knowledge for a range of developmental abilities, leaving them well-equipped to differentiate instruction for each individual child.

Building Stronger Relationships

Traditionally children move from one class to the next each year. This means not only a new set of academic expectations, different routines, and different classroom structures, but a different teacher.

In multi-age classrooms teachers have a longer period of time to get to know a student and their family, and vice versa. When teachers really get to know a student, they are able to tailor instruction in regards to both content and delivery. They know how to hook a specific child onto a topic or into a lesson. They know what kind of environment a child needs to feel successful.

Parents have an opportunity to get to know teachers better this way, too. If your child has the same teacher for two or three years, the lines of communication are strengthened. Parents get to know the teacher’s style and expectations. The home to school connection becomes more seamless, and the biggest beneficiary is the child.

Mentors and Leaders

When a child spends multiple years in the same class they are afforded two very special opportunities.

Children who are new to the class are fortunate enough to be surrounded by helpful peer mentors. Children often learn best from one another, and they seek to do so naturally. First and second year students watch as the older children enjoy advanced, challenging work, and this inspires them. They look to the older children for guidance, and the older children are happy to provide it.

After a year or two in the same room, students have a chance to practice leadership skills. In Montessori classrooms, the older children are often seen giving lessons, helping to clean up spills, or reaching out a comforting hand to their younger friends.

The best part is kids make the transition from observer to leader in their own time. It doesn’t happen for all children at the same time, but when it does it’s pretty magical to observe.

Mirroring Real-Life

There is no other area in life in which people are split into groups with others who are exactly their chronological age. Whether in the family, the workforce or elsewhere, people ultimately need to coexist with people older and younger than themselves. Doing so makes for a more enriching environment, replete with a variety of ideas and skills.

Why not start the experience with young children in school?

Moving On

While staying in the same class for multiple school years has many benefits, a child will eventually transition into a new class. While this can feel bittersweet (for everyone involved!) children are typically ready when it is time.

The Montessori approach is always considering what is most supportive of children depending on their development. When formulating how to divide children into groupings, Maria Montessori relied on her ideas about the Planes of Development. There are very distinctive growth milestones children tend to reach at about age 3, another set around age 6, and yet another at age 12. The groupings in our schools are intentional, and they give kids a chance to feel comfortable in their community, while also preparing them to soar forward when the time is right.

The Planes of Development

hello@montessorithrive.com (Montessori Thrive) — Wed, 30 Nov 2022 16:35:22 GMT

Maria Montessori based her entire educational philosophy on the idea that children developed through a series of four planes. Each of these planes is easy to recognize and has clear, defining characteristics. If we study and understand these stages, we can approach our interactions with children with a new perspective.

Learning about the planes of development isn’t just for Montessori educators. Understanding your child’s development can help at home, too.

The First Plane: birth-6 years

During this stage children absorb everything like sponges. They are, indeed, excellent examples if what Montessori called ‘The Absorbent Mind.’ This is a time in which we are able to utilize what Montessori called sensitive periods of learning. While each child is different, there are typical patterns that emerge in regards to brain development and general readiness to learn particular skills.

During the first three years of this plane, all learning is done outside of the child’s conscious mind. They learn by exploring their senses and interacting with their environment. During the second half of the plane, from about 3-6 years, children enter the conscious stage of learning. They learn by using their hands, and specialized materials in the Montessori classroom were developed with this consideration.

During this time, children have a wonderful sense of order. They are methodical and can appreciate the many steps involved in practical life lessons in their classrooms. The organization of the works on their classroom shelves is intentional, which appeals again to this sense of order.

The first plane is a time in which children proclaim, “I can do it myself”; it is a time of physical independence.

The Second Plane: 6-12 years

During the elementary years children begin to look outside themselves. They suddenly develop a strong desire to form peer groups. Previously, during the first plane, a child would be content to focus on their own work while sitting near others. In the second plane, a child is compelled to actually work with their friends. It is during this time that children are ready to learn about collaboration.

During the second plane there is a sudden and marked period of physical growth. This may be a contributing factor to the observation that many children of this age seem to lack an awareness of their body, often bumping into things and knocking things over. Children begin to lose their teeth around this time as well. Their sense of order and neatness tend to fade a bit during this plane.

Throughout the second plane, children’s imaginations are ignited. Since Montessori education is based in reality, we find ways to deliver real information to children through storytelling and other similar methods. For example, when teaching children about the beginnings of our universe, Montessori schools use what is called a Great Lesson. The first Great Lesson is a dramatic story, told to children with the use of props, experiments, and dramatics (think: a black balloon filled with glitter is popped to illustrate the Big Bang, with bits of paper in a dish of water used while talking about particles gathering together). This lesson is fascinating for children in the way it is presented, but gives them basic information about the solar system, states of matter, and other important concepts.

Children in the second plane have a voracious appetite for information, and are often drawn strongly to what we in Montessori call the cultural subjects: science, history, and geography. While we support their rapid language and mathematical growth during this time, we are also responsible for providing them with a variety of rich cultural lessons and experiences.

It is important to note that children develop a sense of moral justice at this time. They are very concerned with what is fair, and creating the rules to a new game is often as important (if not more so) than playing the actual game itself.

This is the period of time in which children are striving for intellectual independence.

The Third Plane: 12-18

The third plane of development encompasses the adolescent years. During the second plane, children become aware of social connections, but in the third plane they are critical. During this time children rely heavily on their relationships with their peers. They feel a strong desire to remain independent from adults, although they are not quite ready to do this entirely. It is our job to find ways that allow them to experiment with independence while also providing a safe structure in which they may do so.

Children in the third plane tend to require more sleep, and they sleep later than when they were younger. They long for authentic learning experiences, and Dr. Montessori imagined just that. Her ideas of Erdkinder (children of the earth) led her to contemplate a school setting that would support children’s development during this time. She imagined a farm school, in which children would work to keep the farm operational, but also contribute to planning and decision making while doing so.

During the third plane children are refining their moral compass while developing a stronger sense of responsibility.

The Fourth Plane: 18-24

The final plane is a time in which young adults are striving for financial independence. They are often living away from home for the first time, and use this time to figure out where they fit into their society. Many make choices to further their education and/or explore career paths.

It is during the fourth plane that people begin to develop a truer sense of who they are as individuals.

Each plane of development should be mindfully nurtured. If a child is able to experience one developmental phase in a rich and carefully prepared environment, they are ready to fully take on the next phase when it is time.

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What does feedback look like in Montessori classrooms?

How does Montessori support self-assessment?

How does this approach work with more advanced academics?

Why is a healthy approach to feedback beneficial?

Cultivating Mindfulness Part 2: Resources

You have shared a lot about mindfulness, movement, and journaling. What resources can you recommend?

Tell us more about the Super Journals.

Are there ways families can have this kind of experience together?

Can you give some examples of how people have implemented these practices?

Cultivating Mindfulness Part 1: A Conversation with Elizabeth Heller

Thank you for connecting with us! As we all know, parenting is hard work! How do you see mindfulness helping in our families and with our children?

Where do you suggest families begin?

What are some priorities or practices that you uphold for yourself or in your work with children?

Based on what you know about Montessori principles and practice, how do you see your work with mindfulness and journaling connecting with or supporting what happens in Montessori schools and in Montessori families?

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What is creativity?

What is fantasy?

Pretend Play vs. Adult-Generated Fantasy

The Real World is Amazing

What does assessment look like in Montessori?

What do tests, quizzes, and grades really measure?

What if we designed assessments that provide a more accurate reflection thinking and problem-solving?

But how do teachers keep track of this learning?

What are the results?

Developing Body Awareness

What is Body Schema?

Why is the Development of Body Schema Important?

How Does Body Schema Develop?

How Can We Help?

What Should We Avoid?

What is the Result?

Looking Deeper: Understanding Needs Behind Behaviors

First Look at Needs

Understand Mistaken Goals

Practice Self-Acceptance

Examine the Clues

Peel Back the Layers

Our Montessori Bookshelf: The Parent Corner

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Keys to Music

A Form of Language

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A Summer Path to Independence

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A Path Toward Independence

Letting Go

Their Own Experiences

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The Power of Color

Creating External and Internal Order

Integrated Throughout

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