Montessori Sunday: The Prepared Environment (part 2)

This is slight continuation of my earlier post about the prepared environment. Like I said in that post, it is a huge topic (trust me on this, I wrote a 20 page paper on the subject and still only hit the high points) so I thought it deserved a second post. Last time I focused on the arrangement of materials and how this made it easier for the children to navigate the room. This weekend I want to really delve in to what it means to have things be child sized and accessible.

Child sized seems obvious. Most preschool provide chairs and table that are small enough for children to sit at properly. They often provide hooks or cubbies that are also at the child's level. Montessori does all this and adds having all the shelves be sized for the children. One will not likely find high shelves containing things for adult use only, rather everything will be at least within reach of the average 6 year old.

A Montessori room will also have a sink (or 2!) down at a level the children can reach for themselves. Ideally each classroom will have a bathroom in it, or at least very near by, that contains a child sized toilet and sink. Windows will go down almost to the floor so even the youngest child can look out without stretching.

Photo Courtesy of Montessori Services

Beyond these physical components though, a Montessori guide will ensure that all the objects in the
room can be handled by the child. A job concerned with pouring water will contain a pitcher that is the right size for a young child's smaller hands, not an adult. Cloths for wiping up spills will be small enough for the children to fold neatly and wring out if they get too wet. All the dishes for preparing and eating snacks will be smaller than normal, and light enough for children to carry easily.

The standard Montessori materials available for purchase are obviously designed for use by children, though it is still up to the guide to make sure there are appropriate trays and/or baskets to store and carry them in.

Child sized might also be re-interpreted as child accessible. A pitcher with too tight of a cap is not useful to a child because they cannot refill it themselves. Beads stored in a container that requires adult strength to open is simply asking for children to try themselves and either fail or create a huge spill. Aprons for activities obviously need to be sized for the child, but it important to have Velcro or snaps rather than the standard ties because most younger children are incapable of tying bows on their own yet.

Of course having something be child sized is not always an option. Doors need to be of normal height for safety reasons (and the comfort of the adults who need to use them!). While some well planned schools may be able to have two doors to solve this problem, most will not. Instead the doors should be light enough for children to push them open easily, with handles that turn easily for smaller hands.
Light switches may also be out of reach of children and should have extenders attached to them so children can independently turn the lights on and off.

Most important to preparing the environment for children though is to observe them using it. Simple things like angling a shelf or swapping out a tray for a basket, can make a huge difference in accommodating children's development.

Passing off the workload

By the end of the day, I'm tired, I'll admit it. By the time those last few children are woken up from name and wander in, all bleary eyed and still half-asleep, I'm pretty much out of ideas and energy. Luckily by the end of the year, there's a great solution to this problem-

Have the children do the work instead.

We teachers choose one older child to read and let them go. By this point the children all know the routine and even know how to quietly make the circle bigger as new children trickle in. The older ones who can read aren't afraid to ask the younger ones to be quiet so everyone can actually hear the book.

But the best part is they take it all the way through to dismissal. In fact they love to be the one in charge of deciding who gets to go to which sink to wash their hands for snack. Today our reader graciously chose a younger child, A, to do the dismissals, since they don't normally get a chance to do it.

I don't think I've ever heard a 3 year old take any task so seriously. He stood up, surveyed the circle and began pointing and calling up each child by name. And of course he had to assign them a sink to go to. He would say to them either "Lunch sink" for the one in the lunchroom, or "Us sink" for the one in the classroom. A few of the children corrected him, "You mean, our sink?" but he was so involved in his task that I'm not sure he even heard them. The thoughtful concentration on his face was priceless and he judged who was ready to go next.

And what did his classmates do?

Why, they sat quietly and waited for him to tell them where to go. I want to see a regular preschool pull that off!

The main distraction in our classroom?

Story books.

Yep, a story will stop 95% of our children in their tracks. You can always tell when a teacher is reading a book because the group gathered around grows bigger and bigger, yet doesn't get any louder. They are drawn so strongly to them that we need to make sure that when we read to a small group that we don't position ourselves near a child working on something else because they will not be able to focus.

Stories are what help us to refocus children who may be wandering around without a purpose. I've used stories to break up a working duo that may be getting too silly. Stories help to get 11 children though the bathroom and ready for nap in under 15 minutes. Oral stories can quiet the lunch table or stop a child from crying. They can even draw the attention of a group who is just minutes away from going home (the second highlight of the day for many children after snack!).

My favorite use for them this year though? Convincing reluctant children in the morning that right after they say goodbye to mom or dad I'll read a story-just for them! It works like a charm and even though it can take up to 20 minutes for them to get to the point when we can actually read they're the ones reminding me about it!

Today I brought in some new stories from the public library for out children to read. Other than one boy complaining that I forgot to get "the little old lady who swallowed a fly" they were pretty excited. I know I personally read at least three of them to small groups, and another teacher did the same. It's amazing how enthralled the children can get.

At the same time reading a story is always slightly sad to me because of what I learned in my Montessori training. The training center is attached to a free public charter school and is located in a low income area. This means that they see a lot of children who are not read to and I was shocked to hear that some of them come in having no idea what a book is. They don't know how to hold the books right side up, or how to turn the pages. In contrast I have a young niece who at about a year old already knew how to use book because she'd been read to so often.

I feel so lucky that the children where I teach already know what wonderful things books are. They're full of questions about them, sometimes so many I need to stop answering so we can actually finish the book!

Thanks for the help

Well the children welcomed me back with a bombardment of asking for presentations. I showed three different children the geometry cabinet with its matching cards. Then I worked with two other children on reading and labeling cards. 

This in addition to all the other small things I did during the morning work cycle that have just become routine. (I've quit even trying to keep track of how many times I've said the words, "Walk please.")

My favorite part of the day though? I was getting ready to show one of the twins the sound cylinders, having him carry each of the boxes over to an empty table while I wrapped up my last project. As I look up to see how he's doing I see him carrying one of the teacher's stools over to his table! I walked over to join him and said "Thanks for getting me a stool"

"Yeah," he replied non-nonchalantly, "Me think you want stool." Then he sat down and just waited for me to show him what to do with the material. Now that is a child who's gotten down the classroom routine!

I do need to say that D did carry his stool
in a more correct Montessori manner than this boy! :)

What's in a name?

"Alex! Spring here!" the little boy declared happily, spreading his arms out wide from his perch on the children's climber.

Now it wasn't how excited he was about the warm weather that had me smiling. It was the fact that this was the first time he had used MY name, instead of the generic teacher. It's about time.

Silence isn't golden, it's difficult!

S hadn't done it for a long time, but today she clammed up.

The whole first half of the year this was pretty typical behavior. She would freeze up as soon as anyone other than her sister spoke to her. But that last month or two she's finally started speaking up. She's still a bit hesitant to answer questions, but making it very clear that you're expecting an answer, and giving her one or two specific things to say usually snapped her out of it.

But that's not what happened today.

She and her sister, N, were wandering around the classroom,`being pretty disruptive and chatting away. I had them stop and said that it was time to choose work. N immediately pipped up that she wanted to make a fish book and took off to get the cards out. S immediately tried to follow her and that's when it all went downhill. I told her to stop and said that N had already chosen a work and she, S, needed to choose her own.

S looked up at me in utter silence, her eyes big and her face shocked. I asked what she would like to do and she clammed up. Patiently waiting and asking the question occasionally in a slightly different way didn't work. She didn't even respond to yes or no questions by moving her head. The only thing that moved was her eyes, flicking from me back down to the floor.

Getting nowhere I led S over to a shelf, saying that maybe she could get some ideas there. She followed me, but when I stopped moving so did she, going back to her frozen state. A couple more minutes of trying to get her to take something out did nothing except give her time to work a few little tears into her eyes.

At this point I figured it was probably just best for me to give her some space, since it was obvious she wasn't going to tell me what was bothering her, or make a choice like  I was asking. So I took something off that shelf that I knew she had mastered and usually liked to do and told her that we were going to go find a table for her to work at. I led her to the quietest corner in the room, figuring it would give her some space to get herself together again. Again she followed me with just a little nudge and I set the work on the table and let her alone.

10 minutes later she was still standing over in the corner, looking at the table.

Another teacher went to talk to her and got the same blank stare I had gotten, along with a few more tears. So she gave her a tissue and also left her alone.

I have to admit that I wish I could have helped her out more, but when a child doesn't respond, what else can you do? I think I'd rather have them yelling furiously at me instead. That I know how to deal with!