MONTESSORI TEACHER TRAINING International resources
Who was Dr. Maria Montessori
Founder of Montessori School System
Maria Montessori was born on the 31st August 1870 in the town of Chiaravalle, Italy. Her father, Alessandro, was an accountant in the civil service (government job), and her mother, Renilde Stoppani, was well educated and had a passion for reading.
The Montessori family moved to Rome in 1875 and the following year Maria was enrolled in the local state school. Breaking conventional (ordinary) barriers from the beginning of her education, Maria initially had aspirations (wishing) to become an engineer.
When Maria graduated secondary school, she became determined (decided ) to enter medical school and become a doctor. Despite her parents’ encouragement to enter teaching, Maria wanted to study the male dominated field of medicine. After initially (at first) being refused, with the endorsement (support) of Pope Leo XIII, Maria was eventually given entry to the University of Rome in 1890, becoming one of the first women in medical school in Italy. Despite (even though) facing many obstacles due to her gender, Maria qualified as a doctor in July 1896. Soon after her medical career began, Maria became involved in the Women’s Rights movement. She became known for her high levels of competency (something a person is good at) in treating patients, but also for the respect she showed to patients from all social classes.
Introduction to Practical Life
What is Practical Life
Practical: means basic, useful, purposeful Life: means the way of living.Practical life Exercises are just that, they are Exercises so the child can learn how to do living activities in a purposeful way.
Meaning and Purpose of Practical Life
The purpose and aim of Practical Life is to help the child gain control in the coordination of his movement, and help the child to gain independence and adapt to his society. It is therefore important to “Teach teaching, not correcting” (Montessori) in order to allow the child to be a fully functional member in his own society. Practical Life Exercises also aid the growth and development of the child’s intellect and concentration and will in turn also help the child develop an orderly way of thinking.
Exercise Groups
Practical Life Exercises can be categorized into four different groups: Preliminary Applications, Applied Applications, Grace and Courtesy, and Control of Moment.
In the Preliminary Exercises, the child learns the basic movements of all societies such as pouring, folding, and carrying.
In the Applied Exercises, the child learns about the care and maintenance that helps every day life. These activities are, for example, the care of the person (i.e the washing of the hand) and the care of the environment (i.e dusting a table or outdoor sweeping).
In the Grace and Courtesy Exercises, the children work on the interactions of people to people.
In the Control of Movement Exercises, the child learns about his own movements and learns how to refine his coordination through such activities as walking on the line.
Reason for Practical Life Exercises
Children are naturally interested in activities they have witnessed. Therefore, Dr. Montessori began using what she called “Practical Life Exercises” to allow the child to do activities of daily life and therefore adapt and orientate himself in his society. It is therefore the Directress’s task to demonstrate the correct way of doing these Exercises in a way that allows the child to fully observe the movements. Montessori says, “If talking don’t move, if moving don’t talk”.
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Characteristics of Practical Life
Because Practical Life Exercises are meant to resemble everyday activities, it is important that all materials be familiar, real, breakable, and functional. The materials must also be related to the child’s time and culture. In order to allow the child to fully finish the exercise and to therefore finish the full cycle of the activity, the material must be complete. In the environment, the Directress may want to color code the materials as well as arrange the materials based on difficulties in order to facilitate the classification and arrangements of the work by the children. The attractiveness is also of utmost importance as Montessori believed that the child must be offered what is most beautiful and pleasing to the eye so as to help the child enter into a “more refined and subtle world”.
Sensorial Education
Why is the Sensorial curriculum so important in the primary classroom? Maria Montessori emphasized that there is a sensitive period for children, ages three to six, "when there is a natural inclination to perfect one's senses and movements." (Discovery of the Child) Understanding that young children learn by moving and exploring through their senses, Montessori developed the elegant Sensorial apparatus, which introduces abstract concepts (for example, long, broad, tall) with concrete objects.
Isolating One Quality
The Sensorial materials help children explore and refine the five classic senses of sight, hearing, taste, touch, and smell, as well as the complex senses of thermic (temperature), baric (weight), and stereognostic (identifying objects by size and shape, based on touch alone). Each material isolates one quality, such as color, shape, roughness, or length, and then varies just that one quality. This isolation of what's different in just one aspect allows children to perceive the "Piagetian cognitive skills such as one-to-one correspondence, classification and seriation." (Chattin-McNichols, The Montessori Controversy)
Sensorial Games and Variations
We can challenge a child who has mastered the basic presentations of the Sensorial apparatus by showing games such as matching from memory, grading from memory, and then adding complexity by grading from any point in the series. For example, place the Red Rods on one rug and then carry a medium length Red Rod to a second rug on the other side of the classroom. Ask the child to fetch the Red Rod that is "the next longer than this one." Vary this activity by asking for the rod that is the next shorter. These same games can be played with many of the Sensorial materials such as the Bells, Pink Tower, Brown Stair, and Sound Boxes.
Sensitize the Fingertips
Many teachers don't show children how to sensitize their fingertips, which is an activity that will optimize experiences with the tactile materials (the Rough and Smooth Boards, the Sandpaper Letters). Show children how to soak their fingertips in warm water and then gently stimulate the fingertips while drying them with a towel. Not only does it prepare children's fingertips to be more sensitive, it also teaches respect for the materials and helps to keep them beautiful and clean.
Keep It Fresh: Sensorial Extensions
Take the children on a listening walk. How many different sounds can they hear and identify?
How about a smelling walk? Especially when flowers are in bloom, after a rainfall, or when the grass has been freshly cut.
Cooking with children is a marvelous time to appreciate smells: vanilla, cinnamon, apples, lemons, the smell of yeast when making bread. Touch can be refined by noticing the feel of flour, the textures of fruits and vegetables.
Use fresh herbs from the garden to put seasonal scents in the Smelling Bottles.
The Progressive Exercise: Use corks, buttons, shells, or beads of increasing size. Children grade items progressively from largest to smallest.
As an extension of the Tasting Bottles, show older children a diagram of the tongue highlighting which area is most sensitive to which taste (bitter, sweet, sour, salty). Children can place the same taste on different parts of their tongue to see if they notice the sensitivity.
Blindfolds Increase the Challenge! Montessori noted that the eye can interfere with what the hand knows. Using a blindfold with the following exercises will isolate the sense.
Place rough and smooth rocks or shells in a mystery bag for the children to sort into the two categories of rough and smooth. Then grade them: "Can you find one that is smoother?"
Sorting Grains: Place a small amount of two different grains, beans, or seeds into one bowl. Invite the child to sort the grains from the mixture. Later add another grain, varying the combinations using wheat, rice, barley, lentils, peas, beans, mustard seeds, coffee beans. Using a blindfold helps the child concentrate on what he's feeling.
Cultural Studies
The Montessori Cultural Studies curriculum provides children with an opportunity to explore the larger world. As part of a rich exploration of the different cultures of the world, students learn about the people, terrain and animals of each continent as they study them in the course of the three-year cycle.
Cultural Studies also introduces children to the physical world that surrounds them, providing them with the opportunity to explore real things, and learn the scientific names for plants and animals. Areas studied include geography, zoology, botany, physics, earth science and social studies.
The Land & Water Globe and the Continent Globe
These two special globes are used to introduce physical geography. The first is used to teach the idea of how land areas and water are represented on a Globe. Land is shown as rough brown area; water is smooth blue surface areas. The second introduces the seven continents. Each is shown in a distinct color. Children learn the names and location of each continent. The color code used on the Continent Globe is carried on with the Puzzle Map of the World and in early work in continent studies.
Puzzle Maps
The large wooden puzzle maps are among the most popular activities in the classroom. The child can put each puzzle piece into place by means of a little knob on its flat, shiny surface. The introductory map of the world has a separate puzzle piece for each continent. After working with
the world map, the child can do one of six puzzle maps of continents in which each country is represented by a separate puzzle piece. Finally, there is a map of Pakistan with a separate piece for each province. As they manipulate these puzzles, students learn about the different countries located on each continent. An extension of this initial introduction invites the child to create his or her own continent map on paper. The child pin-punches each country out of different colored construction paper, and assembles these into the whole continent using the puzzle maps as a guide. A further refinement of this work for older children involves using the puzzle pieces to trace each country onto a blank piece of paper, thereby re-creating a given continent. The countries are then individually colored in and labeled.
Botany
Botany is introduced using beautiful sets of nature cards which illustrate in color such information as the parts of a tree, the parts of a leaf or the parts of a flower. The children match these illustrations with the corresponding names. Working with these cards helps the youngsters to become more observant of the characteristics of things which grow in their own environments. They frequently have plants, flowers, or vegetables growing in the classroom; or they bring in samples which they can coordinate with the illustrations on the cards.
An extension of this matching work for the older students is the opportunity to create a “book.” The book is made up of one page describing each part of the tree, flower or plant. Using the matching cards as a guide, the student colors and labels the specific part of the plant on each page in turn, and then staples these together to form their own book.
Biology
Students are introduced to the concept of living vs. nonliving early in the 3-year cycle. They are then introduced to the five vertebrate classes: mammal, amphibian, reptile, fish and bird. Throughout the three-year curriculum, there are opportunities to learn more about the animals that belong to each of these classes. In addition, students learn about the human skeleton using a life size model, and also study invertebrates. Whenever possible, teachers will produce a live exhibit to illustrate teaching in zoology.
Earth Science & Physics
Dr. Montessori’s rich science curriculum begins with hands-on experiences in the Primary classroom. There are items from nature displayed throughout the classroom, and students are invited to explore different kinds of rocks, shells, and other specimens. In addition, students may conduct small experiments to help them explore such concepts as “sink and float”, “living and nonliving” or “magnetic and nonmagnetic.” A constantly rotating curriculum also provides the opportunity for students to explore such areas as the solar system, volcanoes and the weather.
Language in the Classroom
Much evidence has been provided for Maria Montessori’s theory on the Absorbent Mind since it has been observed that children, without ever being taught, seemingly explode into language, reading and writing. Within the Montessori primary environment, language is given in all the areas and throughout the day at Language, Reading and Writing in the Montessori Classroom. Enriching the child’s vocabulary expands his capacity to clearly communicate to others and express himself. Once the child is able to better express himself, his personality begins to truly surface and shine. Language in the Montessori Language Area is taught with the Three Period Lesson. With this lesson the teacher can evaluate the child’s understanding without pressure or stigma, so that his intrinsic motivation is not thwarted. The adult first states the name of an object. Next, the adult asks the child to hand her or point to the object when she states the name. Lastly, the child is asked when the adult points to a particular object to recall that object’s name. If a child cannot complete a certain stage of the lesson, the Guide stops and resumes it from the beginning another day. With this lesson the Guide is able to see if the child comprehends the presentation’s concept and language.
Writing
Written Language in the Montessori environment is given as early as age two and a 3 half with Sound Games. The Guide might state to a group of children, “I am thinking of an object that starts with the sound ‘A’,” and have the children look around the environment and guess ‘A’ words. With this knowledge the child can begin to analyze word sounds, and recognize that each word is made up of these sounds. It has been said that writing is one of the first academic obstacles a child must overcome, however in the Montessori environment the different obstacles this task is made up of are broken down, so that the child overcomes them one at a time when working with other materials.
Math
Math in the Montessori Classroom Although art and music are often thought to be the most “hands-on” forms of learning in classrooms, the Montessori approach believes that math offers one of the richest opportunities to make connections between the hands, the brain, and the numbers that make up the world around us. As Dr. Montessori theorized, the connection between brain development and motor skills both impact children’s ability to understand concepts at different ages, moving from the abstract to the concrete over time. Before the age of 10, Dr. Montessori felt that children needed to work with mathematics in a concrete, physical, and highly tangible way in order to understand their basic functions. She believed that this tactile learning style, a radical approach compared to the rote pen-to-paper drills and memorization that most children learned through, gave children the ability to understand concepts in the physical sense, so that they may understand them in more abstract ones. As children mature, they become more attuned to abstract perception, therefore able to ‘fill in the blanks’ of their comprehension and solve in ways that they couldn’t at a younger age.
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