It's not just for girls

A lot of people think Montessori is really more for girls. They can't imagine getting little boys to sit quietly and concentrate on something for an extended period of time. They don't think the practical life exercises like sewing, preparing food, taking care of plants or dusting will appeal to boys.

That's just being stereotypical.

I'm very lucky that right now there's no stigma of "That's for girls/boys!" in our classroom (even with colors which for obvious cultural reasons seems to get drilled in very early on). So I had no problems showing O how to arrange flowers. It's a presentation I've been meaning to give him for a while, but one that needed to wait until we had a fresh delivery of flowers. No point showing him how to cut and put them in a vase if there was only one or two flowers to use!

I'm so glad that I finally got around to this today because he absolutely loved it. This is the same little boy that came in to the classroom in September and was so unaware of his movements that he would move the tables a foot or two as he tried to see what someone else was doing. Today O stood quietly and observed with his hands at his side as I demonstrated how to cut the stems underwater and them place them in a vase. I felt no qualms about handing over the gardening shears to him. I knew he'd taken to heart my message that they were sharper than scissors and we needed to be extra careful.

I helped him through the process one time, making sure he didn't skip any steps and reminding him gently if he did. O was more than happy to try and do it the way and I had shown him and happily went to get another bunch of flowers when the first set ran out. He did come to me a bit later, upset that the flower kept falling out of the vase but perked right up when I told him how he needed to cut the leaves so it would fit inside the mouth of the vase.

M with all her arrangements.
She was so focused on making them they she didn't
want to waste time spreading them around the room for display!

O made a few arrangements, then neatly cleaned up...well at least I think he did. I know I saw him drying things and folding the apron neatly. But M had been shadowing his work station, just waiting to pounce on it to arrange some flowers herself. So she was already hard at work before I had time to go over and inspect.

Now after this whole little tirade of how much a boy enjoyed flower arranging I have to admit that I have been a little biased by only showing the girls the button sewing activity in the classroom. But NOT because the boys weren't interested in it. In fact I had one little boy that for weeks kept taking out the basket and asking for a presentation....but he wasn't ready for it yet. It's commonly recognized that boys mature more slowly than girls, and that includes the fine motor control necessary for sewing on a button.

I purposely made an activity for threading a needle, the primary step in learning how to sew a button, to help gauge when children might be ready. I told C that he needed to master that work first and then I would show him how to sew a button. He's still working at it- and so are the other boys.

There are no 'pink' or 'blue' areas in the classroom. Everything is for everyone and that's the way we like it in our room.