The Montessori classroom prepares it's students for each successive developmental plane. The seeds planted in the lower levels come to full fruition in the upper levels. Most importantly, the Montessori environment prompts children, under the careful guidance of their teacher, to take initiative in their own education by making choices, developing self-respect and learning accountability to others.
The Montessori Young Child classroom is a place where children can learn and explore their environment freely. Dr. Montessori wisely observed, children are absorbing everything around them. They learn because they exist and every moment of their existence involves learning. In the Montessori Young Child classroom, there are four distinct areas that make up the prepared environment:• Practical Life: This area of the classroom enhances the development of task organization and cognitive order through care of self, care of environment, exercises of grace and courtesy, and coordination of physical movement.
• Sensorial/Math: This area of the classroom enables the child to order, classify, and describe sensory impressions in relation to length, width, temperature, mass, color, sound, and smell.
• Language: In its beginning, facilitates oral language development, articulation, and expression. We focus on very basic skills of letter shapes and putting sounds together through the use of sandpaper letters and the moveable alphabet.
• Life
Sciences: This exposes the child to nature, music, and art.
Other areas of work for the Young Child are: toileting and community building.
Toileting independently is a skill learned with consistency, repetition, and patience. By toileting consistently at the same times each day, by providing the clothes for the child to be successful, and with the inner drive and self-satisfaction of being warm and dry, the Young Child will move toward independence in this area. Parent/guardians and Teachers must be consistent to reduce confusion.Six Basic Components
There are six basic components to the Montessori classroom environment. They deal with the concepts of freedom, structure and order, reality, beauty, atmosphere and the development of community life through the Montessori materials.
1. Freedom/Independence –In the Montessori environment, it is believed that you can be independent without being free, but you cannot be free if you have not acquired at least some degree of independence. Montessori defines an independent person as one who can function without the immediate help of others. Teachers must “help” children only as much as necessary for them to be able to help themselves. All unnecessary help is a deterrent to growth and development. The child needs independence to pursue the task of becoming the person he/she is meant to be.
2. Structure and Order – Through an orderly environment the child learns to trust the environment and the power to interact with it becomes more positive. As a result of structure and order, children know what to do and where to go for books, equipment, materials, etc. We insist that children return all materials to its proper place and in doing so, they become an integral partner in maintaining the order of the environment.
3. Reality – Dr. Montessori believed that the child must have the opportunity to internalize the limits of nature and reality if they are to be freed from fantasies and illusions, both physical and psychological. The fantastic is not fantastic for the very young because they do not yet know the normal functions of things – it may confuse their efforts to construct their world. The equipment in the classroom is therefore geared to bringing the child into closer contact with reality. Also, keeping with the real world where everyone cannot have the same thing at once (there is only one piece of each type of equipment in the classroom). Since the child has no alternative, they learn to wait until their classmate is finished (taking turns). Gradually, the child comes to see he must respect the work of others not because a teacher says they must, but because it is a reality in the daily experience.
4. Beauty and Atmosphere – Closely connected with an emphasis on nature is the fourth concept. Beauty and atmosphere encourages a positive and spontaneous response to life. Dr. Montessori believed the room should be inviting, bright, cheerful and harmoniously arranged in order to encourage participation.
5. Montessori Equipment – The fifth component is widely publicized and its role is often misunderstood. Because of the visibility, the Montessori materials tend to be overemphasized in relation to the other elements in the Montessori teaching method. The Montessori materials are not learning equipment in the conventional sense. The aim is not an external one of teaching children skills or imparting knowledge; the aim is an internal one of assisting the child’s self-construction and psychic development. The materials aid this growth by providing the child with stimuli that captures the attention and initiate the process of concentration.
6. Development of Community Life – The spontaneous creation of a community of children is one of the most remarkable outcomes of the Montessori approach. This development is aided by the key elements in the method. A sense of ownership and responsibility develops toward the classroom environment largely because the room and everything in it is theirs and is geared to their needs. The children feel a responsibility toward each other. In such a classroom , the real education can begin, for they have arrived at self-discipline and have thus achieved freedom for their own self-development. This is the goal toward which all Montessori philosophy and methods are aimed and in which Dr. Montessori found such hope for all mankind.