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Our Classrooms Are Full of Activity
Montessori Classroom
Montessori preschool classrooms are indeed a child’s world, specially made to the size, the pace and the interests of boys and girls between three and six. Younger children learn by observing the work of older ones; therefore, older children like to share their knowledge, what reinforces their previous learning. By remaining in the same classroom for three years children experience a strong relationship with their classmates and their teachers.
There is always a busy hum of activity in a Montessori classroom because of so much carrying, walking, moving, pouring, etc. Children do respect the work the other children are doing and also feel respect for the materials themselves. If a child misbehaves in the classroom the teacher will help him to select a work that will absorb his full attention. Because children work individually with the materials, there is no competition in the Montessori classroom.
In the Montessori classroom there is not a front desk for the teacher, in fact, the teacher has no desk at all. She doesn’t seat on “her” chair, she is everywhere in the room observing the individual work children or a group of children are doing. She demonstrates the children the proper use of the material as they are chosen and assists them in choosing activities appropriate to their stage of development. Each time a child makes a mistake she lets him, whenever possible, correct his own mistake through the manipulation of the control of error of each material. It was Dr. Montessori’s principle that the child learns through experience.
The Montessori materials in the classrooms can be divided in three groups: The Practical Life Exercises, which are the beginning activities for three and four years old children; the Sensorial Materials which can be used by all ages in the classrooms; and The Academic Materials, which await each child’s moments of interest in reading, arithmetic and geography.
Practical Life Area and Exercises
What does Practical Life mean and why do we teach these so basic things to the children?
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Synonyms of Practical Life are essential, necessary, vital, needed and many more which mean basically the same. We teach them so children can learn daily tasks in a consciously way. Practical Life exercises will help children to coordinate hand-eye movement at the same time that they gain independence and adapt themselves to live in our society. Practical Life Exercises also assist in the development of their understanding; these activities help them to concentrate while they are doing them; and in turn it aids the child to develop an organized method of thinking. |
Why Practical Life?
Children like to imitate what they see their parents or caregiver do during the day and more often than not, there seem to never been enough time to teach them those simple exercises that will help them to adjust to the outside world.At the school, the directress (or the teacher) shows these simple activities usually once or twice with well planned movements, so the child can observe the way they are been done. (Depending on the activity, the lesson is taught to an individual child, to a couple of children or to a group of them). Later on when it is their turn to practice the activities by themselves, they do them carefully but in their own way of doing things.
Practical Life activities are classified this way: Preliminary Exercises, Care of the Person, Care of the Environment and Grace and Courtesy. Some of the different type of exercises they will become skilled at Mes Petits are:
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Preliminary Exercises:
Care of the Person:
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Care of the Environment:
Grace and Courtesy:
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And many, many, more…
You can help your child become a happy skilled human being by letting him help you on your daily household tasks like cleaning, washing, cooking, and gardening; anything that engage him in some easy everyday jobs will aid him in the development of his motor skills, eye hand coordination, order, sequence, concentration and independence.
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Sensorial Area
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Sensorial education helps to promote the child’s brainpower. Since it is still not clear if we got our intelligence through genetics or inherited through the environment we do our best to provide our children the best education from the very beginning. Maria Montessori created the sensorial materials to engage the children’s five senses. The five senses are at work as children learn to differentiate among colors, weights, sizes, shapes, textures, scents, tastes, temperature, and sound. |
Our brain needs information in order to understand, compare, classify and build our intellect. Children learn best by touching, seeing, smelling, tasting and listening.
The Sensorial Materials are classified in eight different groups and at Montessori Mes Petits we teach all of them.
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Visual Sensorial Material Activities:
Tactile Sensorial Materials:
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Baric Sensorial Materials:
Thermic Sensorial Materials:
Auditory Sensorial Materials:
Olfactory Sensorial Materials:
Gustatory Sensorial Materials:
Stereo Gnostic Sensorial Materials:
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| Most of the Montessori Materials have “control of error” which means that the child can recognize his mistakes and do the corrections by himself.
There is only one material of its kind in the classroom so if a child wants to work with a specific material and it is being used by another child, the first child has to look for another activity and wait for his turn. This allows the child to build patience. |
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Language Area Exercises
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Language is vital to human been. When a child comes for the first time into a Montessori classroom he is already in the process of mastering his first language, the one he has heard at home, while playing outdoors, attending storytelling, while shopping with parents or caregiver, and so on. In Montessori, he will have the opportunity of developing oral language through discussions, poetry, vocabulary lessons, etc, and a phonics approach to reading. |
| The first exercise to prepare the child for reading is through the Sandpaper Letters; the child traces the letter and learns the sound; through repetition the child fixes the path of the letters in his memory. At Montessori Mes Petits classroom the child is taught an individualized phonics instruction. Consequently, writing and reading skills are developed; to further enhance reading and writing children are taught grammar. |  |
Some Language Exercises at Mes Petits:
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The Three Period Lessons Oral Language:
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Handwriting:
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Mathematics Area
The first introduction to numbers at Montessori Mes Petits classroom is through the Blue and Red rods and the Sandpaper Numbers; by learning both of these activities the child will begin to comprehend the association between the numbers one to ten.
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Next, the Golden Beads will teach the child about units, tens, hundreds and thousands. These and many more activities will help the child understand concepts of quantities, sequence and decimal system, which will lead them to explore the process of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. All these exercises will give the child a solid understanding of basic mathematical principles at the same time that prepares them for a later abstract reasoning and problem solving. |
The materials lay the basis for algebra and geometry.
Mathematic Exercises
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