What is Montessori
Our educational philosophy is based on an approach called the 'Montessori Method'. Briefly this method of learning focuses on helping children develop the self-belief & confidence to become independent and productive members of their communities; to think and make good choices for themselves; to treat others and their environment with respect and kindness; and to enjoy their work.
(Montessorians call play ‘work’, because all children learn through play and because play has the same importance for a child as work does for an adult.)
To help facilitate these learning goals, the classroom is laid out so that children can take responsibility for it by themselves. Wherever possible, tools, utensils & furniture are child-sized . Children are helped and encouraged to keep the classroom clean & tidy, to take care of their own personal needs as much as possible and to look after themselves & others as well as plants & animals that might share their space.
Teaching materials are divided into areas of learning. They are carefully designed to teach skills and concepts by way of graded activities that logically build & follow on from each other. Learning activities also make use of all the child’s senses, recognizing that all children learn through different channels. Activities are presented as self-contained units on trays or in baskets and easily accessible on open shelves. Because teachers make sure that every activity on the shelves is a good one, children are free to choose to work with the activities that interest them most.
Montessori teachers have extensive training in child development as well as their educational curriculum. This means that they can actively help all children to become interested in, develop and work in all areas of learning – even if this means that they have to design and make a special activity just for one child. Children can choose to work by themselves, with a friend or in small groups, either inside or outside. Most importantly, all learning is hands-on, so if you ask a child who taught them a particular skill, they are most likely to answer that they learnt it by themselves.
To ensure that everyone can live and work in harmony, there is a set of classroom rules that are easily understood & followed and gently but consistently enforced.
Running alongside all of this industrious activity is the over-riding aim that we hope to achieve by giving our children this type of education. We would like to give them the confidence & skills to be able to grow up into people who are able to forge positive relationships, lead productive lives, solve conflicts and protect their environment.
It is precisely these ideals that won Maria Montessori (Italy’s first ever female doctor, child psychologist, educator & founder of the method) repeated nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize. Although Montessori developed this method of education nearly 100 years ago, all major aspects of her work have now been verified and confirmed by recent child developmental research and adopted by child-care settings around the world as best-practice.
Knowledge & Understanding of the World:
All the below areas of learning focus on helping our children to acquire skills. This area of learning, we usually call it 'Cultural', uses all of these skills to let our children acquire knowledge. Here we focus specifically on what is most important in our own environment, society & culture. Every year have at least one dinosaur enthusiast, a bug expert and a transport specialist.
FINE MOTOR SKILLS
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Another big focus in our classroom are activities specifically designed to develop fine motor skills. Strong fine motor skills are essential to complete tasks such as writing, cutting, using a fork or spoon, zipping, buttoning and tying shoe laces. All of these are critical tasks for becoming independent & productive members of society and essential preparation for primary school.
EXPLORING OUR SENSES
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Children learn by exploring the environment using all of their senses. Lots of modern toys are geared to this, but we think that many overload our children with too much information - there are shapes, sounds, colours, textures & smells all mixed up together. Of course all of these qualities are important to explore, but we like to do this by giving our children learning activities that focus on one particular aspect or quality at a time. This focus really helps give children a stable base from which to start classifying their world.
PROBLEM SOLVING AND NUMERACY AND REASONING
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Many adults shy away from maths. We think this is partly because they did not get enough chances as young children to explore mathematical ideas and concepts with hands-on materials. We have an extensive maths-based toolkit of fun learning activities to practice sorting, sequencing, matching, shapes, amounts & patterns. In tandem with this, our more formal maths curriculum gives our children many different opportunities to work out and really make sense of numbers & operations.
LANGUAGE SKILLS, READING AND WRITING
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We want to create a rich language environment for our children. Group & individual discussions using open-ended questions give children the chance to express opinions, formulate ideas and practice different speech patterns as well as new vocabulary. Fine motor activities prepare for writing. Rhyming songs & ‘I spy’ games develop phonemic awareness. We watch our children carefully for signs of readiness before we formally introduce reading & writing. When we do so, we are firm believers in using phonics. Children start by matching little objects to beginning sounds before sounding out and writing easily de-codeable words using our moveable alphabet. It seems that children find it easier to write with pre-made letters because sometimes writing by hand is still quite tricky.
All areas of learning are available to our children every day so that they can choose to work with the activities that interest them most. It is our job as teachers to make sure that our children become interested in all areas of learning, even if this means that we have to make a special activity just for one child.
LEARNING THROUGH PLAY
Creative Area: Of course it's nice to take things home that look good on walls and that are instantly recognizable for what they are supposed to be. We like making these sorts of arts & crafts in our group sessions but this is not what our creative area is all about. Here children have free access to a great variety of materials & media and can explore them free from the preconceptions or ideas of others.
Quiet Area:'Working' is hard work. When it all gets a little bit too much we have a lovely little corner with some cushions and a little sofa. Rules here are slightly different - the code is mostly for peace & quiet. There are books, blankets and we also have a CD player with music and short stories.
Blocks & Imaginative Play:
We have taken inspiration from the Steiner/Waldorf philosophy of education for our block & imaginative play area. Here we have beautiful large wooden blocks, natural materials like pine cones & shells and large colourful silk scarves & a wooden clothes horse for den building. A little bit less Steiner but nevertheless lots of fun we also like to throw in some realistic animal figures or toy cars from time to time.
Large Motor Skills & Physical Play: Kicking, climbing, running, throwing and any other forms of physical expression are just as important for our children as learning to count or write. As well as our garden & outdoor area, we have a large designated indoor space for active play that is available to our children every day whenever they feel like only a good 'run-around' will do.
Outdoor Learning: Our beautiful sunny garden has lots of open ended play resources that do not prescribe any particular way of playing.
We have crates to climb on or turn into pirate ships, ropes to practice tying knots or jumping over, small traffic cones to run around or pretend to serve ice-cream in, a lovely little sandpit that is always very popular, hurdles, chalks, hoops, balls, tarpaulins, bean bags, speed cars, space hoppers & plenty more.
One thing is for sure - wherever possible, we try to stay away from colourful plastic play equipment and bring creativity & simplicity to our outdoor learning.
Peace Table: Wherever there is a group of people living & working together there is bound to be conflict at some stage. Learning to live in harmony with your fellow human beings without feeling that you are loosing out is a difficult skill to master, even for adults. We try to give our children the tools to be able to sort out their own squabbles.
