Montessori Sunday: Care of Plants

Ahh, another visit to the lovely area of practical life, this time looking at the sub-area of care of the environment. Every notice how self-centered young children are? When something interests them the rest of the world does not exist. Activities in the Montessori classroom like care of plants, sweeping, dusting, etc. begin to bring the child's attention to the world around them. We want them to begin to feel a sense of responsibility for the environment and participate in both caring for it and making it beautiful. Taking care of plants fulfills both these desires.

Care of plants stand at my training

For taking care of plants the child first puts on an apron, and spreads an oilcloth out on a table. The training center I attended had an absolutely lovely copper-topped work bench just for plant care (see picture to right) but I've yet to see any
permanent set-ups in a regular classroom (though I'm sure it's on many wish lists!). A tray containing scissors or plant shears, a dish for cut leaves, a mister or atomizer, a cloth for spills, and a water can is brought to the table next. The child is introduced to all the objects and told their names as the Directress lays them out in the order they will be used.

The child is then allowed to choose a plant from the environment that need care and brings it to the working table. If there is a book of the plants in the classroom the teacher will help the child find the picture that matches and see how much water and sunlight the plant needs. Next she will demonstrate how to  clip off any dead leaves near the stem and how to discard them into the tray. The child is allowed to try as well, with a reminder that we clip only leaves that are brown and dry. The plant is misted lightly and the soil is checked for dryness to see if it needs water. When all this is done the child returns the plant and either picks another one to care for or cleans up their work.

While it's not unusual for plants in a classroom to suffer from too much care (especially over watering!), it's still great to have a child walk by a shelf with a plant, notice that it's not looking so well and then lovingly bringing it over to a table and tending to it. It gives the child a purpose and they are so proud of what they accomplish.

    

We don't have any plants in our classroom currently
but I think the children would love something
like this lovely terrarium my aunt got me for home.

Montessori Sunday: Scrubbing a table

I apologize, this was scheduled to post and never did for some reason...sorry about the delay. I did actually write it on Sunday, promise!)

Ah practical life, definitely one of the most relaxing and normalizing areas of the classroom. Dr. Montessori talks about the process of the child normalizing, or coming back to the normal path of development. According to her books children who are this normal path of development are calm, eager to learn and develop themselves. Think about it in context of being an adult. Is there any activity that you do that calms and centers you? Many people run, work on a craft, bake, garden, etc. Usually these activities include some kind of repetitive motion that you can lose yourself in as it becomes habitual (the word cathartic comes to mind).

The lovely table washing set from my Montessori Training cente
(note how there is red color coding to help distinguish the set)

Many practical life activities try to help children lose themselves in these repetitive motions for the same purpose. Table scrubbing consists of these lovely, repetitive circular motions that satisfy the child's need to move while directing that energy into purposeful work. And when I talk about purposeful work I'm not really thinking about the table getting clean. In fact most often the table will end up being soaking wet and possibly even still soapy when the child finishes. Instead the purposeful work is for the child themself. These repeated motions are helping them learn how to control their movements and build up their muscles. Everything the young child wishes to accomplish they must repeat over and over until they master. We as adults have long forgotten how impossibly thick our fingers used to seem when we were trying to learn a new task. For children almost every task is new and requires immense amounts of concentration.

But let's get off theory for a bit and look at the actual activity of table scrubbing. The activity begins with the child putting on an apron and choosing a table which may or may not be dirty and need scrubbing. They move the chair aside and set up a chowki (a small, short table used while sitting on the floor) and lay an oilcloth on it. The materials are all brought over and laid out in order of use on the chowki; scrub brush, soap, sponge and drying cloth. The small basin is filled using the pitcher, and then the scrubbing can begin.

The child is shown how to wet the bristles and apply the soap using a circular motion. The table is then scrubbed, top to bottom and left to right. Circular motions, beginning slowly and then speeding up in the middle of the table, and slowing again as the end is reached demonstrate paying attention to the edges of the table. The circles are overlapped and the child is show up to apply more soap as needed.

After the scrubbing the teacher demonstrates how to wet the sponge and squeeze it until no more water drips back into the basin. The sponges is then drawn in a straight line across the bottom of the table, collecting the suds and stopping just short of the edge. This is the only time a circular motion is not used. The child is show how to rinse the sponge out in the basin and squeeze it dry before collecting the last of the suds. Finally the drying cloth is pulled out, folded into a small mitt around the hand and (using circular motions!) the child is shown how to dry the table.

And of course once everything is cleaned the child is responsible for drying the materials, wiping up any spills on the floor, and returning it to the shelf for the next person. Typical expectations for any Montessori activity. If you're ever having a bad day I honestly suggest setting up something similar at home, it's actually really relaxing and you've got a nice clean table when finished!

Meet the Parents

That's right, it was the dreaded first meeting with the parents today at school. My co-teacher and I spoke to all the parents of our new classroom children and gave them a short seminar on the area of practical life. I think it went well. While the returning students from last year, and any new student who is 4 or older, will be beginning tomorrow we will have a few days for these new parents to take in all the information we gave them. The rest of the day was spent putting the final preparations on our room so it all ready for the older children to come in tomorrow morning. It's going to be a busy day.

Classroom ready for the children

Special dessert before the first day of school!

Montessori Monday

So I did want this blog to be not just about my doings in Hong Kong, but also to add some Montessori philosophy into it. I'm also hoping it will help me learn how to explain the Method in a concise way that people who know nothing about it can understand. So I'm going to try to every Monday have a post about a different Montessori material and how it plays an important part in the curriculum.

Maria Montessori with children

But since today is the first post let's do a quick overview of the Montessori curriculum. Maria Montessori began the first Montessori class in 1907 in the slums of Italy. The owners of a building for low income families initially hired her to keep the children who were not old enough for school occupied while their parents were at work so they did not damage the building. Dr. Montessori began this school with only a few materials originally designed for children with special needs, and some practical activities such as hand washing and sweeping. The children in this setting flourished and their behavior so impressed visitors that new schools following the same method were opened and the scenario repeated with children from different backgrounds. Over the years Maria Montessori developed materials for teaching reading, writing and math due to the prompting of parents. She found that not only could children do these higher level academics when given the right materials, but that they enjoyed mastering them as well. As the years progresses Dr. Montessori expanded her teachings to children of school age, and then for children from birth to three.

100 years later the Montessori method is still in use and succeeding with children around the globe. Some schools follow the philosophy as laid out while others have adopted new ideas as the years have progressed. The Association Montessori Internationale is the body which helps monitor schools for their adherence to the original Montessori method. Unfortunately the term 'Montessori' is in the public domain and many schools which claim to follow the philosophy do not. Today many research studies about child development are finding that the ideas developed by Dr. Montessori in the 1900's have a scientific base.

In the children's house, which covers children from 3 to 6 years of age, there are four main areas of the classroom: practical life, sensorial, language and math. Practical life encompasses those simple, everyday activities that we do to maintain and beautify our environment and selves. Activities like buttoning, dusting, caring for plants or preparing food may all be part of the practical life curriculum. The sensorial materials are specifically designed to isolate one quality of the world such as color, smell or weight, and give it a physical form. These materials are not designed to teach the children that objects have different properties (such as roughness or smoothness) but to help them classify and name these qualities. The area of language in Montessori covers both oral and written language (which is both writing and reading). Much of the language material is given after the child has had experience in practical life and sensorial as these activities indirectly prepare the child for writing and reading. The math materials are designed to give children physical objects that they can manipulate when working with numbers. Montessori found that even very young children could do arithmetic with numbers into the thousands if given the right material.

Beyond the materials the Montessori classroom emphasizes the building of community. Children are given a chance to practices the lessons of grace and courtesy, which include things such as blowing your nose, and greeting visitors. The children are encouraged to collaborate and help one another, a system that is greatly enhanced by the mix of ages in the classroom. The youngest students are shown the culture of the classroom by the older ones, and in turn help them practice leadership skills. Montessori focuses on the whole of the child's development, not simply the academic skills.