Our Gifts to Children

The brain of a young child works differently than the brain of an adult. Sensorial experiences shape children’s brains, forming neurological webs that last throughout their life.  

The fact that our interactions with young people help shape their future selves opens up an incredible opportunity. Each experience can be a gift. Often the simplest moments can carry the most meaning.

During the rush of this season, we have the opportunity to slow down and really be present with the young children in our lives. By being open to the wonder and delight our children experience, we gain new perspective while also giving the best gift of all: our total attention.  

This may mean taking a deep breath and momentarily turning off the chatter of the to-do list, squatting down to a child’s eye level, smiling, and just listening or seeing what they want to share. A helpful holiday mantra can be: Talk less. Listen more.

In addition to giving our full attention, whether for 20 seconds or 20 minutes, we can also offer to teach a young person a new skill. The key to these teaching moments is to focus on each distinct step so the skill is simple and attainable. Even very young children can be involved with tasks like setting the table, wrapping gifts, and tending to simple household maintenance. They appreciate being involved with routine activities and they want to contribute in a meaningful way.

Dr. Jane Healy, author of numerous books, including Your Child’s Growing Mind, reminds us that children need the opportunity to repeatedly practice activities that seem second nature to adults: “Self-help skills and household jobs are very important for the child to master–help your child, but encourage him to do it himself even if the job isn’t done exactly your way!”

When encouraging or supporting a child in trying a new skill or participating in a new task, be sure to take the child’s perspective into account. Showing how to do something is often the most effective and verbalized instructions can be kept to a minimum. In fact, it is best to not talk while showing something and to not show something while talking! This allows the child to focus on absorbing one kind of sensory input, thus keeping the information clear in their mind. 

These kinds of ordered and clear experiences are key to a child’s development. “Impressions do not merely enter his mind; they form it,” explained Dr. Maria Montessori a physician turned educator who spent intensive time observing children, making scientific notes, and thus coming to an enlightened understanding of childhood development.

Dr. Montessori observed how children respond positively to organization, both in terms of expected routines and physical space. Current research, such as that comparing the HOME inventory (Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment) to longitudinal information collected in the Bayley Mental Development Inventory, shows that organized environments lead to higher intelligence scores.*  

We all know that the holiday season throws our routines and even our physical settings a bit askew. With this in mind, children benefit greatly from adults in their lives maintaining a calm sense of order during this busy time.  

In order to create a calm, ordered environment, we ourselves need to have balance and clarity in our own lives! Staying present in the moment, breathing deeply, and ultimately taking care of our own needs allows us to offer our best selves to the children around us.  

What we offer to our children, in terms of our presence, special activities, or toys, can provide opportunities to aid their development. During this time of gift-giving, for example, we can provide objects that have an intelligent purpose and help children contribute in a meaningful way to the order around them. Child-sized, yet real, items are particularly valuable: cooking tools, building tools, yard tools, and even mops and brooms.  

Children don’t stay young for long, and the early years are extremely formative. In her book, Understanding the Human Being: The Importance of the First Three Years of Life, Silvana Quattrocchi Montanaro explains the significance of a young child’s experiences: “Everything that comes from the environment is received, processed and stored in the brain cells with no effort using a form of unconscious absorption. This intense mental activity is always going on, even in prenatal life, and it characterizes ‘the absorbent mind’.” 

For those interested in learning more about optimal environments for these “absorbent minds,” schedule a visit to our school. We can share more about setting up home environments that best support child development and show how our learning environments are specifically designed for neurological growth.

Knowing that the young children around us are absorbing everything about their surroundings, this season let’s give them our attention, meaningful ways to contribute to daily tasks, and a calm, ordered environment.  As a result, we’re helping some remarkable young people as they develop into capable, caring young adults.

*For more information on this research, check out the book, Montessori: The Science Behind the Genius by Angeline Stoll Lillard.

The Stereognostic Sense

In Montessori toddler and primary classrooms, we offer specially designed materials to help young children refine their senses. In addition to the five senses—tactile (touch), visual (seeing), auditory (hearing), olfactory (smell), and gustatory (taste)—we also support children’s stereognostic sense. 

What is the stereognostic sense?

The word stereognostic comes from the Greek words “stereo” which means “around” and “gnosis” which means “to know.” Having a stereognostic sense means being able to identify the shape and form of a three-dimensional object, and therefore its identity, through tactile manipulation without any visual or auditory input.

“They are very proud of seeing without eyes, holding out their hands and crying, ‘Here are my eyes!’ ‘I can see with my hands!’”
– Dr. Maria Montessori, The Montessori Method

Children develop a mental picture of an object through the use of touch and movement. This tactile and muscular experience allows them to recognize an object by feeling and palpating without seeing or hearing the object. Everything we touch helps form a memory.

Young children are absorbing everything, so the more experiences they have with objects and parts of their environment, the more accurate their perceptions will be. Thus, the combination of language (naming objects), the tactile experience, and muscular memory provides children with a more complete and precise understanding of the world.

Mystery (or Stereognostic) Bags

In our toddler and primary classrooms, we have special “mystery bags” or “stereognostic bags” to support the development of children’s stereognostic sense. These drawstring bags contain objects children have already encountered in their environment. We make sure children know the names of the objects, too.

The first bag we introduce has a set of four to six objects that belong to a classified group, such as kitchen utensils, art supplies, bathroom items, etc. These are real items that children have used in their lives.

The next bag has four to six general objects that are not grouped in any category (e.g. a comb, rock, sponge, funnel, cloth, etc.).

The third bag has three to four pairs of objects that are very different from each other. 

The Experience

When we introduce each of these bags, we first show how to carry the bag and invite the child to take the bag to a table. We then carefully demonstrate how to open and close the bag and give the child a turn to try opening and closing. Next, we peek inside the bag and remove one item at a time, naming each object as we remove it from the bag and place it on the table. We also give the child a turn to feel each item. When all the objects are removed from the bag and lined up on the table, we name one and invite the child to place it in the bag. We repeat this until all the objects are back in the bag. 

Then the fun begins! We explain that we are going to reach into the bag to find an item. Putting both hands into the bag (and without looking in the bag) we feel around and grasp an object. With some enthusiasm, we say the item’s name before we remove the item. Then we take the item out of the bag and show it to the child. Often the child watching takes great delight in the fact that we were able to name the object before seeing it. We repeat with the other items and then invite the child to try. When using the bag with the paired objects, the only difference is that we select one item, name it, remove it from the bag, and then try to feel for the matching item.

We regularly rotate the items in the bags so children have lots of opportunities to feel for what is in these “mystery bags”. Children find the experience to be absolutely delightful!

The best part is that when children try to recognize an object through touch alone, their brain receives the sensorial input and then forms a three-dimensional image that provides a more complete understanding and precise perception of the object. 

“When the hand and arm are moved about an object, an impression of movement is added to that touch. Such an impression is attributed to a special, sixth sense, which is called a muscular sense, and which permits many impressions to be stored in a ‘muscular memory,’ which recalls movements that have been made.”
– Dr. Maria Montessori, The Discovery of the Child

The stereognostic bags are just one example of the many carefully designed materials we introduce in Montessori classrooms. We always love to have you come visit to see or experience these sensorial delights firsthand. Schedule a tour today!

The Origins of Language

Dr. Maria Montessori felt that in order to support children’s development of language, we first need to appreciate the evolution of language. In fact, the language today’s children use is a culmination of language evolution from the dawn of humans.

Languages have expanded and grown to match the complexity of our cultures. Because language is changing and evolving, children create their language as it exists in their environment. Although a child born thousands of years ago had no less potential for developing language than a child today, our languages have grown in fullness and complexity. 

Evolution of Spoken Language

Although we don’t have any records documenting the beginning of spoken language, we can imagine that certain experiences or events drove humans to produce different sounds. Over time these utterances likely became internalized and came to represent an experience. 

Language is necessary for humans to work together cooperatively. In his memoir, Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood, Trevor Noah relates his experience growing up in South Africa, where there are at least thirty-five indigenous languages, eleven of which are official languages. As someone who speaks seven different languages, Noah experienced first-hand how language can bridge divides: “Language, even more than color, defines who you are to people.”  

Early humans developed language as a means of communication, but humans were isolated into small tribes or clans. Each group developed their own agreed upon communications. As populations increased and migration happened, communities came into contact. Some words got shared. Some new words were created. Etymology gives us the histories of the roots of words, and as such, historians can study the evolution of language and human migration through words and their roots. 

The vocabulary of any language is related to the culture of that community. For instance, the Eskimo language has 27 different words for snow, while Hawaiians have no words for snow. Languages constantly evolve as new experiences emerge in our culture. Currently, we can see this in how words are added or removed from the dictionary. A couple of decades ago, for example, “Google” was not a verb!

Primitive spoken languages were primarily nouns interspersed with some adjectives, verbs, prepositions, and conjunctions. Primitive languages actually sounded a lot like how young children speak. As cultures evolved and became more complex, languages evolved their own vocabulary, grammar, and syntax.

Evolution of Written Language

At some point, humans also developed symbolic language as a way to record their thoughts. These records began as pictures, such as the cave paintings that date from over 30,000 years ago. In the beginning, the pictures were realistic and over time became more symbolic, moving from pictograph alphabets to phonetic alphabets. With a phonetic alphabet containing a limited number of symbols, people could begin to create any word. The birth of the alphabet greatly simplified the writing system. As civilizations evolved, expanded, and became more sophisticated, the expansion of language in written form became more universal.

The roots of modern American English reflect the diversity of the culture. While the English language originated in Britain, the Romans added a Latin influence and the French Saxons and Anglos added their own influences. As colonists came to America from different countries, they brought their language to a place where the Native Americans had their own languages. All of these influences were incorporated into American English. 

This diverse history of the language is what makes it complicated and full of exceptions. Some words retained their original spelling while others were adapted and modified. This varied origin story explains why we can have a sound represented in so many different ways. Just think about the sound “sh” which can be represented in: shock, sugar, emotion, charade, social, and tissue. 

Once humans developed a writing system as a way of recording thoughts, another skill had to be acquired — reading. If writing is recording our thoughts, reading is interpreting the thoughts of others.

Development of Language 

Just as the evolution of writing and reading happened with humans, there is just as much magic, mystery, and power that happens when each child learns to read. In our prepared environments, we offer children the keys to their language because we have a deep appreciation for the origins of language itself. By understanding the history of language, we can better appreciate what children are accomplishing when they acquire these skills. 

Our exercises for language are not designed to teach language directly, but to offer support to children’s developing personalities. The method we use in our classrooms evolved from Dr. Montessori’s discoveries about how children learn. What resulted is a revolutionary method that is in harmony with the child’s developmental needs. Children can learn to write and read without even realizing that it is happening.

We welcome you to observe this development of language in action in our classrooms. Schedule a tour today!

Collaborative Problem Solving

So often, when we get really upset with our children, the first thing we want to do is solve the problem. Tell them what needs to happen. Take control. Sometimes even become a bit dictatorial!

In those times of frustration or anger, our rational thinking tends to take a back seat to our emotions. We forget what might be happening in our children's internal (and sometimes external) lives. We rush ahead instead of taking the time to help guide our children.

Yet our children look to us for assistance and support. When our children are struggling, they need us to show compassion, patience, and empathy.

Changing Our Perspective

Dr. Ross Greene, a clinical psychologist and author of Raising Human Beings, among other publications, makes an impassioned plea on his website, Lives in the Balance, asking adults to recast how we think about challenging behavior. When children are behaving in challenging ways, Dr. Greene explains, it is "because they're lacking the skills not to be challenging. If they had the skills, they wouldn't be challenging.”

Dr. Greene also emphasizes two vital themes to better support our children. "Kids do well if they can," he states, and, "Doing well is always preferable to not doing well.”

If we wholeheartedly embrace the fact that our children want to do well if they can, we can take what Dr. Greene calls a “dramatic departure from the view of challenging kids as attention-seeking, manipulative, coercive, limit-testing, and poorly motivated. It’s a completely different set of lenses, supported by research in the neurosciences over the past 30 to 40 years, and it has dramatic implications for how caregivers go about helping such kids.”

How can we help?

It's worth noting that all children at some point demonstrate challenging behaviors. So how do we, as adults and caregivers, help children with these challenges?

The first step is to think about what difficulty a child is facing. The challenging behavior arises because of a difficulty. Listing specific difficulties helps us shift our thinking away from the behaviors that can cause us frustration.

Next, at a time when the behavior isn’t happening, we can find a time to connect and make sure it's a good time to talk. At that point, we can state what we've observed: "I've noticed it's been difficult for you to finish breakfast before we need to leave for school.”

The Empathy Step

Then (and this is key) we ask, “What’s up?” or “What’s going on?” 

This statement of a non-judgmental observation, and then an invitation to share, initiates what Dr. Greene calls the Empathy Step. The Empathy Step is an information-gathering process in which we really try to understand the child's perspective and experience. We listen without reacting and ask questions or reflect back answers in order to peel back the layers of what is really going on for the child in those moments of challenge.

During this time of reflective listening and questioning, it's essential that our child is heard, really heard. All too often, we try to jump in too quickly with advice or solutions, without giving enough time and space for our young person to share valuable perspectives and insights. Just this process of listening can be incredibly healing. If a child isn't used to us really listening, or we aren't used to asking questions rather than offering solutions, check out this cheat sheet for how to get to the heart of the matter.

Assuming our child has been able to share what's really going on in those moments of challenge, we summarize what is distressing to them and share our own concern. For example, "I understand, and my concern is that I feel stressed and anxious when we are rushing to get out the door in the morning." We then invite our child to work together with us to find a solution that can meet everyone's needs.

Being Heard and Validated

When using this process with children, it’s often the case that we sometimes don’t even get to the last steps of stating a concern and initiating a collaborative problem-solving process. Sometimes it makes sense to listen to what our child has to share about what is going on and then let that really settle. Sometimes just the process of being heard is significant enough for shifts to occur for our child, as being heard helps them feel validated.

In those moments of frustration or upset, let's try to slow ourselves down and remember that the child in front of us wants to do well. Our job can be to listen and empathize. And in doing so, we can support that young person in solving problems, learning new skills, and becoming a more whole human being.

Please schedule a tour to come visit our school and see how collaborative problem-solving works with children. We’ve found that it can also be helpful in our interactions with adults, too!

Support Young Lunch Packers!

At the start of this new school year, we’ve been thinking about how to offer ideas for integrating Montessori learning at home. With this in mind, we'd like to present you with a family challenge. You can think of this challenge as your homework. Even though we don’t really assign homework in Montessori, we do like to collaborate to help children develop their skills and confidence!

Children in Montessori settings do a lot of food preparation. Food preparation is a big part of their practical life experience at school and a big part of becoming functionally independent in the world. So, our challenge is this: Rather than taking on the sole responsibility of preparing lunches for our children, let's make a commitment to move toward helping our children become their own lunch packers!

Seems Daunting?

Maybe you already have a quick and easy routine for packing lunches. Or maybe it feels a little bit like a drag you stumble through every day. Regardless, preparing lunch is a part of our daily lives. Many of us try to fine-tune lunch packing to make it as efficient and painless as possible. The thought of including our children in that process may at first seem completely overwhelming and impossible. 

We recognize the challenge may feel uncomfortable, but bear with us! Not only does helping our children learn how to pack their own lunches help prepare them for important life skills, it also supports their Montessori experience in a pretty significant way. Plus, all too often we see children open up their lunch at school and complain that the food is something they don’t like or want. The side benefit of having children be part of the process is that they have some responsibility and accountability for what they bring. If it's food they helped choose, prepare, and/or pack, they know what they have!

Let’s break down the steps for supporting children as they learn how to prepare their food, pack their lunch, or even just be part of even putting items in their lunch bag or box. Keep in mind that this family “homework” challenge can even start with toddlers!  

Shop Together

A wonderful way to enlist children’s involvement is by including them in some part of the shopping experience. Young children can be part of selecting certain food options off the shelf and putting them in the cart. Older children can help make a grocery list, figure out the cost of different items, and keep track of what is needed while in the store. Even a little bit of involvement in picking out lunch food options helps children have a sense of ownership and control. 

Choice within Limits

In order to have a balance between wants and needs, it’s worth also weaving in some conversation about balancing different food groups and having plenty of healthy options. Some families have success with collaboratively creating a list of different choices within each food group. Decide as a family what you prioritize then list various options from food groups (e.g. grains, vegetables, fruit, dairy, and protein). It can help to create a visual guide so even young children can see what their choices are when thinking about what to plan for and purchase.

Accessibility

After coming home from the grocery store, children can be part of putting away the items they will be using to prepare and pack their lunches. Accessibility is key. Having a designated spot for lunch foods helps with the packing process. Low cabinet shelves or even low drawers work well. If possible, also find an easy-to-reach space in the refrigerator for perishable items. 

It can help to have clear containers so children can easily see their options. For example, after purchasing grapes, children can help wash them, remove the grapes from their stems, and then place the ready-to-eat grapes in a glass or plastic container to store in the refrigerator. Similarly, carrots can be washed, cut, and stored in water in a see-through container. If this system works for your family, even non-perishable items, like crackers, can be removed from their packaging and placed in a clear storage container with other accessible lunch foods. 

Easy to Make & Easy to Eat

Young children tend to love having small portions with lots of variety. So when preparing food, think about how children can help with this step. They might like to help cut a sandwich into mini-sandwiches, peel and section a clementine, or slice some cucumbers. With a variety of different choices, children can try combining foods in different ways. They might like to sample a piece of cheese with their apple slice or see how cream cheese tastes on a cracker. Older children can create their own wraps, roll-ups, or sandwiches or choose some dinner leftovers to put into containers for the next day’s lunch. 

When children are part of preparing food, there can be some mess involved. It’s good to allow a little time and space for spills to happen. We can show children how to clean up after themselves, while also remembering that the youngest children won’t necessarily be able to clean it all up themselves. When we collaborate in the process, we are helping our children learn how to do it themselves. Whatever path makes sense for your family, just remember that when children are part of the preparation process, they are more invested in trying and eating a variety of foods.

Plan Ahead

Because mornings can be rushed, it often helps to do a little planning ahead of time. Some families like to use the weekend to map out a lunch menu with their children. This can be posted in an easy-to-reference place in the kitchen. When it’s time to get the foods ready or put them in lunch containers, children can just look at the lunch plan for that day. Some families go as far as collaborating with their children to get as many lunch foods as possible ready over the weekend so that their kids can just put that day’s items into their lunch bag or box each morning. Other families might set up a routine so that children are part of emptying and washing their lunch containers when they get home from school and then can use that time to get their lunch set up for the following day. Children may even like to get their lunch packed the night before, store the whole lunch bag in the refrigerator, and then just grab the lunch and go in the morning. 

Your kids are more capable than it may seem! Although the process may feel overwhelming at first, remember that you are helping your child learn valuable life skills and reinforcing their Montessori education. If you’d like to come visit the school to see children’s food preparation in action, schedule a tour. We would love to support you with this Montessori challenge!

Participation in Practical Matters

In our daily lives, we do so much to maintain our surroundings, as well as care for ourselves and others. As adults, we take these activities for granted. Young children, however, yearn to participate in practical matters.

Everything we do to care for the environment, ourselves, and others make up what can be called "practical life" activities. In a Montessori home or school environment, practical life activities help children learn about cultural norms, while also helping them develop internal motivation, intellect, and body coordination.

Purposes of Practical Life 

With this in mind, we can really think about how practical life activities have two purposes: one is external and one is internal. The first purpose is to help children engage in something meaningful and real. For example, washing a table leads to a clean table. The second aim is to help children develop their internal worth and sense of competency. 

Practical life activities help children become psychologically and physically independent. By the time 24-year-olds begin life on their own, they should be able to provide for themselves, be responsible for their actions, plan for their future, and perhaps even help support others. The little things we do early in children’s lives set them up for later success.  

As children engage in purposeful work, they develop a sense of being an important part of the family or community. By beginning to help take care of their personal needs, they also develop a sense of accomplishment. 

In a Montessori environment, children have a place where practical life activities are carefully prepared and presented to support emerging independence. The sink is at children’s height. The faucet is easy to turn on and off. The soap container holds just enough soap to wash hands. Children can perform activities that were perhaps previously done for them. 

Practicing Self-Care

The practice of self-care can begin early in children’s lives by approaching tasks with an attitude of collaboration. Even if a baby can’t do an action, they can have a sense of participating. We can invite this participation by saying things like, “I’m going to put on your shirt. Let’s put your arm through the sleeve.” As we allow for more and more collaboration, children’s active participation gradually increases. Opportunities for collaboration can be as simple as offering something in front of a child rather than actually putting it into their hands.

Caring for Surroundings

In addition to self-care, a Montessori environment provides numerous ways for children to care for their surroundings. In order for children to be successful in this process of caring for their surroundings, we thoughtfully prepare the environment. Child-sized materials give children an opportunity to participate successfully. Their work must be real work, rather than activities to just keep them busy. Plus, the impact on the environment needs to be clear. If the plants need water, then children can water the plants. If the floor is wet, children can mop the floor. If a table is dirty, children can wash the table. Through real and meaningful activities, children develop a strong sense of belonging within a community. 

Supporting Practical Life at Home

Parents often ask how to support their children’s practical life work at home. One easy and meaningful strategy is to create routines that help children care for their surroundings. They can clean up toys at the end of the day, set the table for dinner, or put dirty clothes in the laundry basket. The preparation for these kinds of activities isn’t elaborate and merely requires carefully selected items or furniture: a basket in the laundry room for dirty clothes, a special shelf for toys, or a low drawer in the kitchen prepared with items for setting the table. 

When thinking about how to create practical life activities, consider the following:

1.     Will the activity help develop independence and coordination of movement? 

2.     Can it be done independently?

3.     What skills are needed?

4.     Will this activity allow repetition?

5.     Is it culturally appropriate and necessary?

6.     Is it beautiful?

7.     Is the material child-sized?

8.     Is it logical? 

9.     Is it safe?

With these guiding questions in mind, we can create simple yet purposeful ways for our children to learn how to care for themselves, those around them, and their surroundings. In the process, children observe what is essential and then make the activities their own. Plus, as they internalize the procedure, children start to realize how capable they are! They put their whole focus into their work and experience great satisfaction in completing the activity. Meaningful engagement in practical life activities allows children to develop a strong sense of belonging and ultimately flourish into their fullest selves.

During these summer days, take a look at where your children might be able to contribute to the daily rhythms of the household, or even take more ownership of their own routines for self-care. Children will begin to imitate adult actions, which leads to them performing tasks in their own unique ways.

Keep in mind that this process is not completely linear, as some days children need more support than on other days. At this point, we can offer loving assistance while still upholding a sense of their involvement: “I see your clothes are still on the floor. Let’s pick them up together.” We all can use a little help sometimes!

From infants to adolescents, our young people are quite capable and benefit greatly from participating in practical life activities. If you would like some inspiration for how children are involved in caring for themselves, their surroundings, and others, please contact us!