The best Montessori outdoor activities include practical life skills, such as gardening and washing, and toys like gardening tools, buckets, watering cans, and hoses. Climbing and balance items (stepping stones and balance beams) and sensory items (sandboxes and mud kitchens) are also great choices.
A lot of Montessori bedrooms for babies and young children have mirrors because they have been proven to help babies recognize and understand their reflections. Mirrors are a great way to keep little ones entertained and will encourage interactive play and healthy movement.
When children display repetitive behaviors like throwing, they are developing something called a play schema. Play schemas are how children learn about the world around them and develop essential tools for interacting with that world.
Most Montessori schools use computers and digital technology. However, technology use in a Montessori school looks very different than it does in a mainstream school. This is because the Montessori philosophy, also called the Montessori Method, has strict ideas about the classroom environment.
Our world is always evolving, and circumstances in our diverse world are ever-changing, enabling us to learn something new every day. The Montessori method of teaching enables us to embrace the beauty of discovery by encouraging self-directed exploration. No matter if we refer to it as work, or as play, these are lessons that can carry our children into their future.
Montessori activities can foster a sense of independence throughout all age groups. Many Montessori activities are created around natural life skills and allow children to explore their environment.
Montessori schools use the five key areas of the Montessori curriculum: Practical Life Exercises, Sensorial Education, Mathematics, Language, and Cultural Subjects to help the child attain social, emotional, physical, and intellectual developmental milestones.
Grace and Courtesy is the term used to refer to the idea of teaching children to be a polite member of society and conduct themselves properly in social situations. Grace and Courtesy is one of the foundations of the Montessori method and is applicable both in the classroom and in everyday life.
Montessori specific methods for reading focus heavily on sound and sensory experience before introducing the child to phonics and the alphabet. With a vocabulary knowledge rooted in sound, a child can easily associate written letters with the sounds they already know. This is called encoding or reading.
