Monarch Montessori Cafe'

  The place for discovering the wonderful world of Montessori
 

                                                                                                                                                                          Montessori Method

Practical Life

Practical Life exercises provide self help skills that lead to independence.  They allow the child to take care of himself, others and environment.  The movements required build self confidence as the child gains self mastery.  Also, a foundational hand-eye coordination skill is being laid down as the children learn responsibility, order and sequencing.  These exercises are most foundational.  Once the child has these areas mastered the learning process is freed up by establishing order outside and inside the body.  Now he is ready to proceed.

  

The materials in a Practical Life room are the most familiar to the children, there for appeal to them first.  The experiences of Practical Life have objects and materials normally encountered in everyday living experiences such as cleaning, pouring, dressing, and polishing.  The exercises of Practical Life fall into four major categories: Care of Self; Care of the Environment; Grace and Courtesy; and Control of Movement.  Many are fundamental exercises that the child needs to master to be able to live comfortably in the real adult world.    For a special "Practical Life" site you may click here.

Sensorial

 

The sensorial area consists of materials that educate and refine the child's senses.  The child learns to recognize similarities and differences; to discriminate between similar objects; to grade similar objects.  This is important for later mastery of tasks involving math and language.

 

The first thing we must understand is the child's intellect doesn't work by itself, but is fully and wholly bound together with his body, particularly with his nervous system and muscular systems. Unlike angelic beings who are pure spirits mentioned in the bible who can carry on with out any connection what so ever with matter, the human beings soul and body are woven together in an indissoluble unity.

 

                     Language

When a child enters the Montessori preschool at 21/2 he/she is at a critical stage of language development.  Reports say between 1-2yrs children learn 3-4 words, between 2-5yrs they are learning 12 new words per day and by age 6 they know from 8,000-14,000 words.  The child is moving from observer of language to user of language with incredible speed, desire and ability to do so.  The Montessori Method understands this time in a child's development and takes great care to lay a solid foundation through concrete forms of language in creative and fun ways before moving to abstract ideas.  This is a steady, child paced phonetic concept. 

 

The Montessori Method has separate levels of learning which encompass the whole language arts program.  First there is the mechanical stage.  This is setting up activities that lead to whole hand and three finger muscle control then writing.  (Please see pictures under "metal insets")  Then there is the interpretive stage, which begins with the object boxes and moveable alphabet.  This is when children begin to learn the sounds each letter makes.