Montessori in action

Normally, Littles' preschool asks parents to keep dropoffs short -- no lingering around. But since this is Littles' first week, the director encouraged me to stay a little longer in the mornings to help her settle in. I jumped at the opportunity to get a little taste of what her days will be like and observe the Montessori method first-hand.

We arrived right at 9 AM on Monday morning and went to the extended-care room for a few minutes while the teachers finished preparing the main classrooms.

Most of the kids who had been in extended care went to the school's older classroom (which is for kids who have had at least a year of Montessori and are potty trained). Littles and one other little girl went to the beginner room. Soon, a boy and another girl were dropped off. The teacher told me that one of the girls had just turned 2 in March, and the other girl and boy were both 2.5.

Each child was allowed to choose their Montessori "work" for the morning. Each "work" is basically a toy, but it has a very specific purpose/goal. Littles started out with a geometric sorting board. It is similar to this:

Except the one in Littles' classroom is in the shape of a clown, with the circle as the head, the triangle as the body, the square as the lower body/legs, and the rectangle as an arm raised to the side.

Littles loved taking all the blocks off the pegs and then putting them back on. The toy looks so plain and simple, but when you think about it, it's teaching:

• Colors
• Shapes
• Numbers (since each shape has a different number of holes in it)
• Categorizing (rectangle goes on top of rectangle, square goes on top of square...)
• The one in Littles' classroom also teaches body parts, as well as emotions, because each circle has a face drawn on it that shows a different emotion

After Littles got all the blocks off, she got up and went to get a different "work." Her teacher encouraged her to finish the one she had started, so she sat down and went back to it. She got stuck because she put some of the blocks on the wrong pegs. The teacher demonstrated how to put one of the blocks on the correct pegs, then took the block off and told Littles to try it herself. She picked it up right away and finished putting all the shapes back on the board. Then she was asked to put the board back on the shelf and get a new work.

The next one she picked turned out to be much more complicated. The teacher started to demonstrate it to her, but she lost interest midway through and wandered back to the sorting board. The teacher smiled at me and said, "That's really common at this age. This is a long work." She cleaned up the complicated one while Littles played with the sorting board again.

Meanwhile, the other kids were all concentrating on their own works. At one point, Littles tried to take some pieces of another child's work, and the teacher gently told her, "No, no. That's Stephanie's work. Here's your work." I know that Montessori students are encouraged to work together, and I've seen that in action in the older classroom, but I think that two-year-olds are a little young to "get" that concept :)

It was interesting to see Montessori in action. I feel like I understand a little better why it is considered to be "child centered" and "play based." The Montessori materials are fun to play with! It may be called "work," but it feels like play. And there is no organized activity during the Montessori time; each child chooses what to do. Littles could have played with the geometric shape sorter the entire time, if she had wanted. But each work does have a specific purpose, and the teachers do guide the children one-on-one to better understand the work.

In comparison, when Littles has "dropped in" at various daycare centers, I've seen that there is usually a similar playtime in the mornings, where the children have free roam of the room with no organized activity. But not all toys in the room have a specific educational purpose, like the Montessori materials do. Children are allowed to pick up a toy and put it down -- the teacher does not necessarily encourage them to "figure out" the toy or put it away when they are done with it. And the time really is "free play" with basic supervision by the teacher. The Montessori time feels like play too, but with a purpose, and with one-on-one guidance from the teacher.

That's not to say that the traditional daycares are "bad" or unstructured. I know that the daycares where we've done drop-in care do have plenty of structured educational activities later in the day. Nor am I saying that Littles spends her entire day at her preschool drifting from one Montessori work to another according to her whims. Her classroom does have a lesson plan -- for example, they're learning about the letter "B" right now by (among other things) blowing bubbles, bouncing balls, and listening to bells.

But I can definitely see the difference in the approach. Time will tell whether the Montessori approach is the right one for Littles, but for now, at least, she seems to be doing really well with it.