Why Montessori?
We know parents have choices when it comes to their children’s education. We know these choices are not easy. Every parent hopes to find the best educational program for their children.
Montessori education has been successfully serving children and families around the world for over a century. Several key elements of the approach meet the educational goals we believe parents are looking for including growing into capable adults who have a strong sense of self, the ability for them to connect with others, and the potential for them to be productive throughout their lives. With Montessori, that growth starts early. With Montessori, it’s the early years that are critical to set a strong foundation for who a child will become.
Montessori Philosophy
The Montessori Philosophy is a brain-based, developmental approach to child development. While academics play a part in learning, Dr. Montessori emphasized that her approach supports the development of the whole child and their social, emotional, physical, spiritual, and academic needs.
The Prepared Environment
Our classrooms are often called “prepared environments”. In order for self-directed learning to take place, the whole learning environment - classroom, materials, and social setting/atmosphere - must be supportive of the child. The Guides provide the necessary resources and together, the Guides and child form a relationship based on trust and respect that fosters self-confidence and a willingness to try new things.
The Montessori Materials and the Process of Learning
Montessori materials teach through hands-on learning, spontaneous engagement, active involvement, and self- directed activity. Montessori materials have a control of error inherent in their design. This allows children to work independently, unafraid to make mistakes, and to become comfortable with the fact errors are essential to the process of learning. While making independent choices and exploring concepts largely on their own, Montessori students construct their own sense of individual identity. They become independent and confident individuals.
The child is intrinsically motivated to learn. In a Montessori classroom children don’t work for grades or external rewards, nor do they complete assignments given to them by their teachers. Children learn because they are interested in things and in gaining an understanding of the world around them.
In the classroom there are three stages of learning a new concept or lesson:
- Introduction to a concept. This is usually occurring by means of exploration within the classroom, observing another child at work, a conversation, reading something in a book, etc.
- Processing the concept. The child develops an understanding of the concept through working with materials that illustrate the ideas, provide opportunities for exploration and experimentation, and provide an opportunity for repetition of an activity.
- Mastering the concept. The child is confidently able to explain the concept and teach the concept to another person.
Evaluation of Student Progress
The Montessori curriculum is carefully structured and sequenced based on the developmental needs of each individual child. Teachers maintain careful records of each student’s individual progress. Portfolios of work are kept for older children. Children are not compared against arbitrary standards or the performance of their classmates. Parent-teacher conferences are held twice a year to discuss student progress. Additional conferences can be held at a parent or teacher’s request. If requested, written summaries of conferences can be provided.
Nature's Way Montessori
uses online Montessori Software that offers specific record-keeping systems that will have a variety of components parents will be able to access to “check-in” on the progress of their child and learn more about specific lessons being presented in the classroom.
The Montessori Guides
Our Montessori and Support Guides are the designers of the environment, resources, role models, record-keepers and meticulous observers of each child's behavior and growth.
At Nature's Way Montessori, we hold that:
- Children are to be respected as different from adults and as individuals who differ from each other.
- Children possess unusual sensitivity and intellectual ability to absorb and learn from their environment that is unlike that of the adult both in quality and capacity.
- The most important years of a child’s growth are the first six years of life when unconscious learning is gradually brought to the conscious level.
- Children have a deep love and need for purposeful work. They work, however, not as an adult for the completion of a job, but for the sake of an activity itself. It is this activity that enables them to accomplish their most important goal: the development of self - their mental, physical and psychological powers.
- Children learn through their own errors to make the correct decision versus having the teacher point it out to them.
- Each child learns at a different pace and allows that growth to happen.
- Children are quiet by choice and out of respect for others within the environment - The Montessori classroom allows children to return to the "inner peace" that is a natural part of their personalities.
- There is an emphasis on concrete learning rather than on abstract learning - Children need to experience concepts in concrete "hands-on" ways.
Goals of a Montessori Classroom
The primary goal of any Montessori school should be to provide a carefully planned, stimulating environment for creative learning. We hope that:
Children develop a positive attitude toward school.
Every child has the opportunity to engage in a learning task that particularly appeals to him. Because he finds the activities geared to his needs and level of readiness, he works at his own pace, repeating the task as often as he likes, thus experiencing success. In this manner, he builds a positive attitude toward learning itself.
Children develop self- confidence and independence.
Tasks are designed so that each new step builds upon tasks already mastered, thus removing the negative experience of frequent failure. A carefully planned series of successes build inner confidence and assure him that he can learn by himself. These confidence-building activities likewise contribute to the child's healthy emotional development.
Children develop extended concentration and perseverance.
Effective learning presupposes the ability to listen carefully and to attend to what is said or demonstrated. Through a series of absorbing experiences, the child forms habits of extended attention, thus increasing his ability to concentrate.
Children foster an abiding curiosity.
A deep, persistent and abiding curiosity is a prerequisite for creative learning. By providing the child with opportunities to discover qualities, dimensions and relationships amidst a rich variety of stimulating learning situations, curiosity is developed and an essential element of learning has been established.
Children develop initiative and persistence.
By surrounding the child with appealing materials and learning activities geared to his inner needs, he becomes accustomed to engaging in activities on his own; gradually developing initiative - an essential quality in leadership. "Ground rules" call for completing a task once begun and for replacing materials after the task is accomplished. Natural persistence is thereby accomplished.
Children foster inner security and sense of order.
Through a well ordered, enriched but simplified environment, the child's need for order and security is intensely satisfied. This is noticed in the calming effect the environment has on the child. Since every item in the Montessori classroom has a place and the ground rules call for everything in its place, the child's inner need for order is directly satisfied.