Collaboration is a hallmark of the Elementary Montessori classroom

In the business world, collaboration is a buzzword you hear frequently. The exchange of ideas and specialized knowledge has been shown to lead to greater efficiency as well as better products and results. Pixar and Google are known for designing office spaces to maximize encounters among employees in different divisions to encourage creativity and collaboration.
Collaboration is also a hallmark of a Montessori elementary community. The mixed-age groupings are a feature of Montessori at all levels, but the elementary is intentionally designed to support collaboration because it is a need that is highlighted at this age.
Montessori Theory  
When Dr. Maria Montessori was developing her approach, she observed with her keen scientific eye the characteristics that marked each age group. The calm orderliness of the child from birth to 6 years old gives way to the elementary-age child with a fully formed social personality that craves interaction.
In the first six years of life, the child is focused on himself. He is aware of others, but they are not the center of his attention. In the Children’s House, the child’s work and lessons are mostly individual, though he may work in the company of others. Montessori noticed that there is a shift in the next six years in which the child begins to attach himself to others and wants to be surrounded by people. In elementary, the child’s work is mostly collaborative, unless he is working on perfecting individual skills.
“Education between the ages of six and twelve is not a direct continuation of that which has gone before, though it is built on that basis,” Montessori wrote in “To Educate the Human Potential.” According to Montessori, the first period of life is for the “acquisition of environment,” whereas the next phase is for the “acquisition of culture.” Meaning, the elementary years are the time when a child is eager to learn about how people throughout history have contributed to society and how the child will one day do the same.
Montessori observed that elementary children begin to separate from their family and are drawn outward toward society. Group activity becomes very important because children love to join one another. Montessori considered this behavior to be so pronounced and universal that she referred to this urge as an instinct.  
She noted that the elementary child has a “need to associate himself with others, not merely for the sake of company, but in some sort of organized activity. He likes to mix with others in a group wherein each has a different status. A leader is chosen, and is obeyed, and a strong group is formed. This is a natural tendency, through which mankind becomes organized.”
How Montessori Elementary Fosters Collaboration 

• When a guide, or teacher, gives a lesson, she selects a small group. The children in the group may not be the same age or grade. They may share an interest or a certain level of readiness. Lessons are rarely given to individuals, unless it is a review. Whole class lessons are equally as rare, unless the guide is trying to orient the class at the beginning of the year or is starting a new class.   
• A variety of tables with multiple chairs or seating are available throughout the room. Children have the freedom to move around the room and choose their own seating arrangements. Some classrooms offer the opportunity to work on the floor and spread out or work outside if there is outdoor seating.   
• Children have the freedom to communicate. There is no expectation of silence as exists in most traditional classrooms. Children do not need to wait until they are called on to answer a question. Children plan, organize, and consult with each other all day long and are free to ask the adults in the classroom for guidance if they are available. 
• Children have the freedom to move around school grounds if they have asked permission to make the adult aware of their whereabouts and purpose. They may borrow resources from other classrooms or conduct a survey of children in another classroom.  
• Children are not limited to the materials available to them in the classroom. They are encouraged to organize what is called a Going Out. They may arrange to visit a museum or a library, for example, to extend their research, or they might interview an expert in the field of a topic they are pursuing.  
• In the absence of grades, regular testing, assignments, and required homework, children are not seeking to outperform one another. The spirit of cooperation permeates a Montessori elementary classroom. Peer tutoring happens very naturally. A child who is challenged by a concept in math can ask a neighbor for help. Older children are mentors for younger children who can observe the kind of work they will be doing in the future.  
• Children with similar passions or those who need practice in overlapping areas can be paired by the guide or often discover each other on their own!

What is the Role of an Assistant Guide?

After my first classroom observation at Guidepost Montessori, I had a conversation with my Lead Guide, who highlighted the most important tasks an Assistant Guide needs to focus on. Assistant Guides must keep the environment in order, which allows children and the Lead to succeed. Assistant Guides must also protect the lesson so that when a lesson is being presented by a Lead to a child, Assistant Guides help by steering children and other interruptions away for the length of that lesson.
My Lead ended with something that every Guide keeps at the top of the list of importance: The safety of the child. “There could be a day where we get nothing accomplished, where things keep going wrong, but as long as the safety of the children are intact, that is all that matters.”
As Guides, we have overarching goals, such as the safety of the children and keeping an organized environment, that leads to a long list of things that need to be accomplished each day. There are dishes to wash, accidents needing to be cleaned and sanitized, materials to be replaced, snacks to prepare, and at every moment there is a child waiting to interrupt. These often lead to the most wonderful moments of excitement and exploration.
In my favorite “excite-erruption,” a child in the classroom was trying to teach himself how to tie his shoes. For weeks, he would sit on the floor and attempt the task of tying his shoe, and for weeks it led to frustration. I was on my way to bring a child some paints when he asked for my help. I sat down on the ground next to him, showing him again how to tie his shoe, and waiting patiently as he attempted it again, and again, and again. I showed him again, with a slight adjustment, and then there it was. He did it, by himself. He untied his shoes and did it again. He looked at me, tears of frustration still in his eyes but now with a huge smile. “I did it!”
Another task that Assistant Guides are expected to complete is keeping the environment in order. This can include making sure the materials are presented correctly, keeping the environment clean, preparing snacks, and doing laundry. There is always something needing to be done for the environment and, at the same time, there is always children who need your attention. Much of the material in the classroom is geared toward cleaning, at both a size and shape that is optimal for small children. Brooms, dustpans, an entire basin full of materials to clean tables, an area to hand launder towels. It was not until my Lead said, “The environment is in the care of the children,” that it dawned on me.
I am here to help make sure the environment works and is safe (both at the physical level and the microscopic level), however the children are supposed to provide the cleaning and care of the classroom. When I bring the laundry back from the dryer, the children have the responsibility to fold and put away the towels. After lunch is over, the children clean their own dishes, clean their placemats, the table, and the floor. Just like that, my job became so much easier. I was still cleaning the environment and keeping it in order, but I did not have to rush to every spill or mess. I now knew the children would help me to take care of our environment together. 

What is the Sensorial Area of the classroom?

There are five main areas of the Montessori classroom: Practical Life, Sensorial, Math, Language, and Cultural Studies.
Math and language make sense, but what's "Sensorial" all about? Let's take a deeper look at what children can learn in this particular area of the classroom and how you can relate some of the same principles to life outside the classroom.
All of the activities you'll find in the Sensorial area help a child train one of their five senses: touch, sight, smell, taste, or hearing. Anyone who has observed a young child putting just about everything in their mouths understands how much children learn through their senses!
Let's look at each sense individually and examine how the Sensorial materials help children explore their world.
Touch
There's an activity called the Fabric Boxes in Sensorial that epitomizes the development of the sense of touch. The box contains squares of fabrics of different weaves or fibers. The child has to find the matching pair, typically with a blindfold on! By carefully rubbing a piece of wool between two fingers, for example, then feeling a piece of cotton, the child is honing their sense of touch without the added distraction of sight. At home, place many different fabrics in your child's environment. Speak about how soft or how prickly some fabrics are, and encourage feeling a fabric between thumb and pointer finger!
Sight
You'll often hear teachers speak about a child developing visual discrimination, and the Sensorial materials help to do just that. Take the Pink Tower for example. It's a relatively simple set of building blocks, but while building, children learn to visually discriminate the dimensions of one block as compared to another. When built correctly, the tower ranges from the largest block at 10cm cubed to the smallest, only 1cm cubed. At home, help your child learn visual discrimination by making simple "smaller" or "larger" comparisons.
Smell
The olfactory sense, or sense of smell, is delightful to explore with children. Smells are associated with memory, like fresh-baked cookies or fall leaves, and other smells, like the smell of a skunk or bleach, alert us to danger. In the Sensorial area, you'll find Smelling Bottles that act much the same as the Fabric or Sound Boxes. There are two sets of jars with cotton balls moistened with a certain scent, and the child's job is to find the matching scent pair. At home, you can explore scent in the kitchen by isolating spices in small dishes and smelling them, or perhaps even setting up your own matching game. Make observations about scents outdoors as well, "Do you smell that lilac bush? Wow, so pungent!"
Taste
This might seem like a difficult sense to explore in the classroom, but the Sensorial area includes Tasting Jars with flavors like salty, sweet, bitter and sour. Teacher and student taste the flavors by dropping a few drops onto a clean spoon. Once again, they attempt to match flavors from two identical sets of bottles! In most of these Sensorial activities you'll notice that only one sense is developed at a time. This is called "isolation of difficulty". It allows a child to practice one new skill at a time without distraction or confusion. At home, try isolating flavors and making a game out of tasting. For example, mix a little lemon juice and water to taste, or salt and water, or sugar and water! See what you like best.
Hearing
A fun activity for children that hones hearing is the Sound Boxes. Like the Fabric Boxes, this is a matching activity. There are two sets of tubes, some marked red and some marked blue, that contain identical filler materials like sand or rocks. The child needs to shake one red tube, then find the matching sound in the set of blue tubes! The small distinction in sounds when shaken is quite hard to hear, but children soon master this activity and delight in their ability to match the tubes! At home, set up a similar activity using plastic easter eggs, or even up-cycled water bottles. Make a blindfold so your child can't see what's inside the bottles!
The Sensorial area of the classroom is literally a feast for the senses. No matter what type of educational setting your child is currently enrolled in, remember there are plenty of ways you can encourage exploration of the world through the senses at home! Get creative, and follow your child's interests.

Elementary Spotlight: Economic Geography

An enticing box full of tiny stamps and several ink pads of different shades are a staple on the geography shelf of any Montessori elementary classroom.
The stamps depict cotton, corn, oil, and more. Children use this appealing material to explore economic geography — the production, consumption, and distribution of resources as well as the flow of goods and money.
The puzzle maps of Children’s House and the pin maps of elementary are excellent preparation for the sequence of lessons in economic geography. 


From this jumping off point, children will eventually learn to research and diagram the complexity of world trade!
What do children gain from this area of inquiry?

• familiarity with local production where they live;  
• exposure to resource distribution on a national and international scale; 
• an impression of the vastness of human production and consumption; 
• reinforcement of math applications of rounding, estimation, and graphing; 
• comparison and trends in production and consumption;   
• an understanding of the interdependence of countries; 
• an appreciation for how countries rely on one another to meet needs;  
• the concepts of import, export, deficit, surplus, and trading partner; 
• experience interpreting data, identifying relationships, and drawing conclusions; 
• the ability to analyze and synthesize information and represent it graphically. 

This work offers rich, advanced learning of economics for the elementary child using hands-on materials and real data!

Montessori: A Practical Approach to Toddler Development

Key Takeaways:
-Why is Montessori perfect for toddlers and their budding independence?
-What are the parts of a Montessori environment?
-What is the importance of Practical Life - now and in later academics?
-How can parents introduce Practical Life at home?
Presenter
Ellie Venegas is a Montessori Mentor for Higher Ground Education with a background in Early Childhood Education.  Her love for Montessori started over five years ago, and she has gained experience in Infant and Toddler communities and with Guidepost Montessori’s Spanish Immersion programs.  Ellie is inspired by young children’s budding independence and the dedicated educators who guide them.  It has been a rewarding experience for her to partner with Guidepost teachers and provide quality learning environments in our communities.
Webinar Series
Guidepost Montessori is hosting a series of free webinars on Montessori, child development, relevant research, and parenting topics! Whether you're a parent interested in learning more about Montessori education, a prospective or enrolled family looking to connect with our larger community, a Montessori practitioner, or a parent interested in how to incorporate Montessori principles at home, we'd love for you to join us!

3 (Stress-Free) Tips for Starting Montessori At Home

In light of the coronavirus pandemic sweeping our nation and world, schools everywhere have moved to closures. Many of us parents are abruptly feeling a spotlight placed on our home environments and routines.  How can we support our children at home, and where would we even begin with implementing Montessori?  
Getting started in any major life shift can feel overwhelming, but that is precisely where Montessori at home can help. It has been a foundation for our family that gives us a sense of order and calm, and where there is order and calm, we can finally step out of reactive mode – what did you do? – to responsive mode – what do you need so that you can be successful at what you’re trying to do?
Here are 3 stress-free tips for taking those first steps into Montessori at home:  
1. First, observe. 
Before you rush to cultivating activities and placing out toys, there is one preparation that I learned from Montessori that makes these efforts more successful. And no, it has nothing to do with buying expensive stuff!
Observation is a pillar of the Montessori classroom, and the same is true for adding it to our Montessori parenting toolbox. I carve out neutral moments throughout our day to watch how my children are interacting with their environment. These few-minute check-ins with my children must be agenda-free, otherwise I will start unintentionally inserting myself. When I see them through a more objective lens, the more clear their capabilities and interests become.
When I observed them this week, I noticed my son seemed particularly interested in counting and the concept of time, and my daughter just wants to keep moving. Neutrally honoring their interests helps me narrow down how to guide them at home, and it keeps them connected to meaningful choices.
2. Cultivate your home to include your children 
Shelf work and independent play is realistically a small fraction of our day at home. Our young toddlers and preschoolers crave connection, movement as much as they crave the opportunity to be independent, but sometimes as parents we get so hooked on Montessori as something that solely promotes independence that we get frustrated when our children boomerang back to us. Independence is a journey, and it cannot be forced.
This is something that helps me set realistic expectations. Practical life is a huge area that I copy from the classroom to our home that satisfies the acquisition of independence, but also honors movement and connection. I do not exclude my children from happenings in our home; I invite them to work with me. A step stool invites them to prep food on our kitchen counter; a child-sized vacuum helps them sweep up the floors just as I do; and laundry is not something that I reserve for nap-time. Carrying loads of clothes back to their bedroom is one of their favorite contributions!
And no, this does not require a magical reserve of patience as a parent, but it does require surrendering a bit of control over how perfectly things get done. If you can surrender to the latter, I find that patience is restored because it is much easier to integrate my children into our family routine than it is to try to juggle a segregated routine.
3. Lead with Honesty  
Montessori taught me that children in these early years are wired to analyze and categorize the real world around them through their absorbent minds and foundational sensitive learning periods. This was a stark difference to how society conditioned me to see them from birth, as somehow too young to have access to concrete reality. This was a game-changer for us in many aspects of our parenting, but one of my favorite changes that concrete learning inspired was our commitment to a family honesty policy. I give them real answers, whether it’s factual information to all their “why” questions, and I also give them real answers behind the limits and boundaries I need to set.
Of all pillars to Montessori, why is this valuable to start with? When we are abruptly thrown in this new dynamic of working from home with our children during these school closures, honesty can be immensely grounding for everyone. If we put pressure on ourselves to shelter our children from how we are feeling, how we are coping, and why we are making some changes, we can unintentionally add to the stress.
I am honest about why we are learning from home with basic information about the coronavirus.
I am honest and inclusive about the work they see me needing to do from home.
I am honest about the reasons behind changes and limits I am asking of them at home.
And, most importantly, I am honest when I don't have all of the answers.
These three Montessori pillars don’t solve for all the challenges that humbly arise on the home front, but they do help us maintain order, restore calm, and connect in meaningful ways.

How the imagination aids learning

Dr. Maria Montessori regarded the imagination as a kind of a superpower during the elementary years. The ability to imagine is highlighted as the brain makes new connections during this stage of development. It allows the child to conceptualize things and ideas he has never seen — from microscopic cells to ancient civilizations.
In Children’s House, the absorbent minds of the children gather images from the work they do in the sensorial area and from experiences at home and in the world. “Imagination can only have a sensory base,” Montessori wrote in “The Advanced Montessori Method: Volume I.” “The sensory education that prepares for the accurate perception of all the differential details in the qualities of things is therefore the foundation of the observation of things and of phenomena, which present themselves to our senses; and with this it helps us to collect from the external world the material for the imagination.”
As children get older, their minds take those impressions and images and categorize them as related, unrelated, similar, opposite, etc. In elementary, children can analyze, compare, contrast, determine relationships, identify patterns, and recombine those concepts and images into novel ideas using their imaginations and intellects.
This is why storytelling is such a powerful technique for Montessori elementary guides and parents alike to engage children and share information. Children in Montessori are not expected to learn through memorization, but by striking and engaging their imaginations. The Great Stories are retold each year of elementary to orient the children to the vast areas of inquiry. Beyond that, storytelling is incorporated into many lessons, as well as told separately.
Montessori wrote about how to capitalize on the elementary child’s imaginative powers in “To Educate the Human Potential”: “In the study of history and geography, we are helpless without imagination, and when we propose to introduce the universe to the child, what but imagination can be of use to us? I consider it a crime to present such subjects as may be noble and creative aids to the imaginative faculty in such a manner as to deny its use, and on the other hand to require the child to memorize that which he has not been able to visualize.”  
One of the most incredible experiences as a guide or a parent is to see the children’s eyes light up when you are telling a story or sharing a read aloud book. The children are captivated by stories and can extrapolate from the posters and demonstrations that are part of the Montessori elementary materials and lessons. They weren’t there — and neither were you — during Genghis Kahn’s time or the Mongol Empire, but you can still make it come alive for them and inspire further exploration and study! 

1931: Maria Montessori

In thousands of classrooms around the world, as children work independently to solve math problems with beads and learn the alphabet with sandpaper letters, their activities can be traced back a century to Maria Montessori’s radical educational philosophy.
One of the first female physicians in Italy, Montessori developed early-childhood teaching methods that made the student a respected collaborator and independent thinker, rather than the submissive pupils of yore. In 1931, she trained teachers through her Association Montessori Internationale and hosted Mahatma Gandhi, who supported the use of her methods in India. Her approach has educated generations. —Katie Reilly