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We recognize that Montessori education can have some lingo that might need a little explanation. So in this Montessori Dictionary post, we’re going to focus on a few terms (some familiar, some perhaps not so familiar) that apply to both the early childhood years and beyond. When possible, we’ve included some quotes from Dr. Maria Montessori and we encourage you to take a look at her work. Dr. Montessori was a woman well before her time and her books, such as From Childhood to Adolescence and To Educate the Human Potential, can be a source of insight and inspiration! Grace and Courtesy Grace and courtesy is an essential aspect of Montessori environments and supports children as they develop social relationships. Grace is how we move through the space around us, and courtesy is how we treat each other. In the Montessori primary classroom, grace and courtesy is considered one of the areas of practical life. For example, adults give lessons on how to interrupt, how to accept an offering, how to offer help, or how to introduce oneself. These lessons are offered in small groups and the technique used is role-playing. Little social scenarios are acted out and provide a model for behavior that is situational. Like all other learning activities, grace and courtesy lessons are practiced and repeated. They provide a respectful way of learning expectations and aiding social skills before they are needed. Grace and courtesy is never offered as a form of punishment or correction. We make sure children don’t experience embarrassment by being corrected by adults on the spot, as this makes children feel disrespected and not safe. Dr. Montessori reminds us of this in The Secret of Childhood: “I have come to appreciate the fact that children have a deep sense of personal dignity. Adults, as a rule, have no concept of how easily they are wounded and oppressed.” In time, if we offer these grace and courtesy lessons, and give children a safe place to practice, children will eventually perform these skills independently. Human Tendencies Human tendencies are unconscious, universal drives that support our adaptation to our particular time and place. All humans are born with innate needs and drives and are wired to adapt to their environment. The human tendencies – to orient, explore, order, abstract, imagine, calculate, work, be exact and repeat, perfect oneself, and communicate and associate with others – help aid this adaptation. Dr. Montessori alluded to human tendencies when she wrote about the inner drive she observed in children and how this drive helps individuals construct themselves to develop into maturity: “Their behavior led us to become aware of a fundamental truth, namely that the child works for his own inner development and not to reach an exterior aim and that when he has done this work he has not really developed a special ability but he has developed something in himself.” Prepared Environment The Montessori environment is carefully prepared so that children can satisfy their human tendencies and thus develop to their fullest potential. The prepared environment takes into consideration what children need at their particular stage of growth, and as individuals on their own trajectory of development. The prepared environment consists of the physical and psychic aspects of the environment, of which the adult is a key part. Through interactions in a prepared environment, children can construct who they are as human beings. As they go through this process of self-construction in their environment, children learn, grow, adapt, and create. The prepared environment is part of the triad of the child, the environment, and the adult, all of which are interconnected components. Sensitive Periods/Sensitivities Dr. Montessori was first and foremost a scientist and she was interested in what was happening prior to observable signs of human development. She was curious about what was going on in the mind before the skill manifested itself. For example, she wanted to know what was happening during the many months prior to children speaking their first word. Without the high-tech tools that neuropsychologists and psychologists now have to measure brain activity, Dr. Montessori had to rely upon observation. She watched children, took notes, and made charts about what they did. As a result, she discovered that a particular object or aspect of the environment would have an irresistible draw for children. This attraction would last for some time. Children would keep going back to the same activity or element of the environment and would be continually drawn to it. Then the day would come when it held no more interest and something new would be attractive. Dr. Montessori observed this phenomenon over and over again, which led her to believe that there must be something innate in children that was driving this interest. Building upon the work of biologists, Dr. Montessori adopted the term, sensitive period, to describe transitory periods of psychic development. Beyond the Montessori world, sensitive periods are now referred to as critical periods or windows of opportunity. What does a school look like that focuses first on grace and courtesy, human tendencies, a prepared environment, and sensitive periods? Schedule a tour to see for yourself!
We often get asked the question, “How do you handle discipline issues?” We love this question because in Montessori we think about discipline from a different lens. We start by being curious because misbehavior is a form of communication. Children want to do well and do the right thing. So what are they trying to tell us when they misbehave? Unmet Physical Needs Children often misbehave due to unmet needs. At a very basic, physical level, this might be due to being hungry, tired, or overstimulated. So we look at children’s environment and what could change to better support those needs. Perhaps the problem is due to missing their sleep window and being overtired? Or maybe there’s a need for a more protein-packed breakfast so as to not fall apart mid-morning. It might be that a room full of people is causing too much sensory input and a little time in a quieter space or fresh air is just what’s needed. Unmet Emotional Needs Other times children might have unmet emotional needs. Dr. Jane Nelson provides an excellent overview of unmet needs in her Positive Discipline work. Positive Discipline aligns well with Montessori because both are based in teaching children respect, responsibility, and problem-solving skills. In Positive Discipline, Dr. Nelson outlines unmet emotional needs and categorizes these as four mistaken goals. The essence of Positive Discipline is that children develop behaviors in response to feeling disconnected or powerless in certain situations, so they unconsciously use four strategies to try to get their needs met. Unfortunately, these strategies tend to backfire because the behavior isn’t effective! So our goal is to support children in learning new ways to meet their needs. Mistaken Goal #1: Attention The first mistaken goal is attention. We see this when children show behaviors like whining, interrupting, or causing disruptions of some sort. They are seeking attention but can’t yet distinguish between positive attention and negative attention. So when adults respond with annoyance, irritation, or even by giving in, we are inadvertently reinforcing the attention-seeking behavior and children’s underlying belief that they only belong when they have our attention (even if our attention is based on frustration!). A way to help children meet this need is to offer positive attention, encouragement, and connection at times when they aren’t showing misbehavior. Another proactive approach is to find engaging and meaningful tasks for children to do, which helps provide them with a sense of belonging and connection. Mistaken Goal #2: Power When we, as adults, feel angry or challenged in response to children’s behavior, that’s usually a sign that the mistaken goal is one of power-seeking. This kind of behavior can quickly escalate into power struggles, defiance, or even other ways to exert control such as through tantrums or arguing. When children have an unmet goal of power, they have an underlying belief that they can belong only when they are in control or when they can prove that no one can boss them around. We can support children who have this unmet need by practicing collaborative problem-solving during times when things are already going well. In the moment of challenge, we can avoid power struggles by offering limited choices in a firm but kind way. Mistaken Goal #3: Revenge One of the more confusing forms of misbehavior is when children do things that seem intended to hurt others, such as hitting, name-calling, and other destructive actions. When acting this way children are demonstrating that they don’t feel loved so they will hurt others as they feel hurt. What’s tricky is that this behavior often leads to others feeling hurt and wanting to either distance themselves or retaliate. In order to address this mistaken goal, we need to focus on repairing the relationship and over time addressing the underlying hurt. Empathy and restorative practices help in the process of healing emotional wounds. This mistaken goal requires us to get genuinely curious without any form of accusation or disapproval. Mistaken Goal #4: Assumed Inadequacy When children give up easily, withdraw, avoid challenges, or refuse to try, they may be operating under the belief that they belong only by convincing others not to expect anything from them. Our reactions may include feeling helpless, giving up, or even taking over tasks our children were expected to do. An alternative approach is to encourage small steps toward success and to focus on effort over outcomes. Over time, by breaking up tasks into smaller, manageable parts, and providing side-by-side support without taking over and doing the task for them, we can help children develop more confidence and belief in their abilities. Shifting our Thinking So when thinking about misbehavior, we shift our approach to first consider what physical and emotional needs children are trying to communicate. Then we focus on long-term solutions while practicing kindness and firmness. Consistent encouragement, respectful communication, and proactive planning help us address what might typically be seen as “discipline issues” so we can guide children toward healthier behaviors. Part of this includes helping children begin to understand their own needs, learn how to communicate respectfully and establish healthy habits and boundaries. Do you want to learn more about how school can nurture children’s emotional well-being and their sense of belonging? Schedule a tour to see how we create environments of mutual respect and cooperation!
We have seen how children feel more grounded and cooperative when they have a role to play. Thus, whenever possible, it’s helpful to find little (and sometimes big!) ways for children to help with holiday preparations. Children’s active participation helps them develop important life skills and also helps them better adapt to changes in holiday rhythms and routines. We wanted to share a few ideas on incorporating Montessori principles into holiday celebrations and time with family this holiday season. Above all, we advocate for keeping the holiday season calm and joyful! So, we offer this sprinkling of options during a time when we have a lot going on in our lives and with our families. If even one can help sweeten your time together, fabulous! Children’s participation can take a variety of forms. Choosing meaningful activities that don’t cause more stress and strain is important. Here are a few of our favorites! Holiday Decorating If your family enjoys decorating, consider creating a child-sized decoration station, perhaps with a small tree or table at your child’s height. They can practice hanging ornaments, placing candles, arranging decorations, and generally having a hand in creating their own festive space. Of course, if it feels right, they can also add to the general household decorations! Gift Wrapping When preparing gifts for family and friends, consider setting up a simple wrapping station with materials appropriate to your child’s age and abilities. They can help tape, cut paper, add ribbon, decorate tags, or even add colorful scribbles to butcher or white paper. Child-decorated wrapping paper tends to be a family favorite! Plus, the skills involved with wrapping encourage fine motor development! Older children might appreciate step-by-step instructions on measuring the wrapping paper, folding it around a gift, and taping it securely. The youngest ones might appreciate a simple process of placing items into fabric gift bags and tightening the drawstrings. Baking and Cooking Allowing children to participate in creating, baking, and decorating holiday treats often provides a huge sense of pride and accomplishment. There are all sorts of simple, manageable steps in this process, from pouring remeasured ingredients into a bowl, to kneading dough, to using cookie cutters, to adding icing or sprinkles. It’s nice to have child-sized tools like small spatulas, whisks, and rolling pins whenever possible. Setting the Holiday Table Children can also help create or select a centerpiece for the table. If possible, they can even use natural or found items. A little collecting walk may uncover natural beauties, like pine branches or pinecones. Table-setting is a big part of the Montessori experience, so placing utensils, napkins, and dishes is a natural way to involve children in getting ready for guests or a meal! Children like learning the correct placement of each item, and table setting is a great opportunity to reinforce counting and one-to-one correspondence. We recommend modeling for younger children how to carry one item at a time, for example, making multiple trips to get one fork and then the next. Once children learn this process, they can be quite independent and thus can stay focused and busy as they go back and forth. If time is of the essence, an adult can bring a tray of forks to the table for children to place at each setting. Older children prefer to find more efficient ways to manage the process! Making Handmade Gifts or Donation Decisions We can help our children learn about the importance of giving and gratitude by involving them in decisions about charitable giving or donations. They can help pick out toys or clothes or assist in preparing gift baskets for families in need. We can also support our children in making handmade gifts, which can foster their creativity and thoughtfulness. Depending upon the intricacy of the process, handmade gifts can range from simple crafts like beaded jewelry or friendship bracelets to hand-drawn cards or framed artwork to homemade ornaments or decorations created from clay or salt dough. Ultimately, the goal is to encourage generosity and thoughtfulness while giving children a sense of accomplishment in gift-giving. Simple, Predictable, and Calm Young children are especially sensitive to routines and changes to routines, so whatever you choose to do, remember to manage holiday overwhelm by keeping activities simple, maintaining predictable routines, and cultivating a calm space. By involving children in holiday preparations, we can create meaningful memories and promote independence, responsibility, and creativity. Plus, children appreciate hands-on experiences and real-world activities. Schedule a tour if you’d like to learn more about how we cultivate these skills at our school!
The Wooden Hierarchical Material takes up a great deal of space in our primary and elementary classrooms, and for good reason! This key math material helps children understand the hierarchy of numbers and physically represents units through millions. The Concrete Material The Wooden Hierarchical Material comprises cubes, prisms, and squares that vary in size and color according to the different place values they represent. Units are green. Tens are blue. Hundreds are red. This pattern continues throughout the families or categories, so unit thousands are also green, ten thousands are blue, hundred thousands are red, and then unit millions are green. Units are represented as cubes, tens as prisms (or a line of ten units), and hundreds as squares (constructed from ten tens side-by-side). Due to this repeated pattern that is reinforced through shape and color-coding, children can visualize the structure of our decimal system. The Presentation to Children When we present the Wooden Hierarchical Material, we first connect with other math materials children have used, like the golden beads and the stamp game. In this way, children can build upon their prior knowledge of place value and how 10 of one category are exchanged for one of the next category (e.g. ten units become one ten). The material is constructed to reinforce the relationship between base-ten numbers in concrete form. As we place the blue ten bar to the left of the small green unit, we remind children how when ten units get together, they make a ten. We also point to the little green marks on the bar and use the unit to count that ten of the units make up the ten bar. Young children love double-checking this correspondence! We repeat this process to show how ten of the blue ten bars correspond to the ten sections on the red hundred square. Then how when 10 hundreds get together, they make a thousand. When we place the green thousand cube to the left of the red square, we leave some extra space between them because we are starting a new family (or category). This green thousand cube is units of thousands, and we can continue the process with tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands. Children love getting to the green unit of the millions cube and often want to try to imagine or represent ten million, hundred million, and beyond! The Many Benefits Because children can physically explore how ten of the thousand cubes make a line that represents 10,000, just like ten of the unit cubes make a line that represents a 10, they develop a strong understanding of the hierarchical value of numbers and their position in the decimal system. Similarly, they can experience how ten 10,000s make up a 100,000, and ten 100,000s make a million! This physical manipulation helps them better grasp abstract mathematical
As children approach their elementary years, they can truly access the power of their imagination. As a result, they begin to ask big questions and want to explore through space and time. One way to support this big thinking is to provide resources they can explore. We love to find books that children lose themselves in, and that support deep learning. We’ve found the following books particularly engaging, especially as children begin to grasp the vastness of time, the interdependency of all living things, and how human life is a continuation of much that has come before. For those children who have spent time working with the Timeline of Life, these books will reinforce concepts while offering new doors to open! Continental Drift: The Evolution of our World from the Origins of Life to the Far Future By Martin Ubce The dance of the continents throughout the earth’s history provides a structural overview of this incredible resource. The mix of types of illustrations, including images from the Natural History Museum in London, support the engaging text. This is a very large book, and rightly so! While Continental Drift can be a resource for students’ research, it is also just a delight to read due to the author’s ability to make complex topics quite accessible.` Evolution: The Story of Life By Douglas Palmer, Illustrated by Peter Barrett Although the beginning of the book has a great deal of helpful introductory and background information, children will most appreciate the one hundred illustrated site reconstructions based on fossil data. These two-page spreads provide a visual of what life may have looked like from a strelley pool 3460 million years ago in what is now considered Western Australia to a late Carboniferous ice age 299 million years ago in what is now Karoo Basin in South Africa to the big-game hunters of Folsom, New Mexico 10,500 years ago. With a color-coded timeline across the top of each of the 100 illustrations and specifics about each scene detailed below, children pour through this resource, making it well worth its hefty weight! Forgotten Beasts: Amazing Creatures that Once Roamed the Earth By Matt Sewell With 45 lushly illustrated forgotten creatures and accessible paragraphs about each, this is a wonderful resource for children wanting to start prehistoric life research or just peruse particular pages. Each life form listed also has a key for their size, weight, diet, and the period they lived. Sewell’s stated intention is to bring these often lesser-known beasts of our past into more bright and colorful detail as paleontologists theorize they were probably not “muddy brown or boring green” and he does so quite well! In the Past: From Trilobites to Dinosaurs to Mammoths in More Than 500 Million Years By David Elliott, Illustrated by Matthew Trueman A collection of short poems about creatures from the Cambrian Period (544-505 million years ago) to the Quaternary Period (1.8 million years ago to the present), this sweet book can inspire young people to think about prehistoric life from a new perspective. With just the right touch of humor and science, the poems provide illuminating information and fresh perspective, while the illustrations fill the page and expand the reader’s senses. Plus, the notes at the end of the book provide a launching point for children who want to learn more! Life: The First Four Billion Years: The Story of Life from the Big Bang to the Evolution of Humans By Martin Jenkins, Illustrated by Graham Baker-Smith This incredibly large book is full of information and is the perfect resource for young people who have big questions about life on Earth. The illustrations balance a deep sense of mystery with scientific details, and this book embodies the magnitude of the story of our planet. It is a must-have for those interested in exploring everything from the primeval seas to the various giants who rose and fell as the dominant rulers of the land and air. Life on Earth: The Story of Evolution By Steve Jenkins This uncomplicated yet scientific story provides stunning watercolor cut-paper collage illustrations. It can be shared as a picture book with a story-style narrative explaining the evolution of what we know about life on Earth. Those wanting more details can rely upon the smaller caption-style text that follows a more chronological timeline and offers more information and examples that support the overarching narrative. This is an excellent introduction to broad concepts! Prehistoric Actual Size By Steven Jenkins For young people looking for a simpler source of prehistoric information, this picture book relies more on images with just the right amount of accompanying text to capture our imagination. The life-sized illustrations help young readers visualize the Baryonyx claw or the spiny shark's size. Super fun for any age! The Story of Life: Evolution is Amazing! By Anne Rooney, Illustrations by Nat Hughes Chock full of content, this book is one children will want to spend some time exploring. Organized chronologically, the sections focus on scientific concepts and major themes as life evolved. To reinforce critical ideas, circles of text hone in on particular examples, such as “adaptation in action.” The captivating and playful, yet thoroughly scientific, illustrations fill each page and bring rich information to life. This book can serve as a reference for children to return to again and again. We hope these resources serve not only as a subject of study but also a source of wonder and inspiration. As children immerse themselves in the rich tapestry of life's history, they develop a deep sense of connection to the natural world and a profound respect for all living beings. Here is a printable list of the book titles for you. We invite you to schedule a tour to see how children embark on a lifelong journey of learning and discovery!