what the deal with this montessori lark ????

[pugsmum]

I have been looking at pre schools all this week and have seen some lovely places but the one that is sticking in my head is the montessori ..

It seems like a great idea to me to get them learning in s sturctured school enviroment ... I have never been very accademic myself and struggled a great deal at school .. (as you can probably tell by my spelling ) i recently a found out i am dyslexic .. so schooling is a big deal to me but i worry about pushing him to hard and putting him off completly !!

I really cant decide if its the way to go or not and i dont know a lot about it only that they focus on a more school structured enviroment ... do they also have to follow the EYFS?

sometthing a friend said is sticking in my mind that in this country we are pushing our children too hard and in other countrys children are allowed to do things in there own time and they are doing just as well if not better!!

is this true

and the fact that the majority of schools follow the play to learning stratergy says that maybe thats the best way ..

which way would you go ??????

Montessori was Italian so you could say it's an Italian approach rather than a British one. The Montessori approach is structured, but not in the way that primary school is - in fact many of Montessori's (radical at the time) ideas have become commonplace in all nursery and reception classes now, like child-size furniture/equipment, having materials and toys at child height so children can access them independently. It might be worth reading up a bit on Montessori and her methods do decide if it suits you.

Montessori nurseries do have to follow the EYFS. It's worth noting though that Montessori isn't a trademark and any nursery can call themselves Montessori and buy a bit of Montessori equipment - they aren't regulated or checked to ensure they really follow the method and have Montessori qualified teachers. Sometimes it is just a marketing gimmick.

is it sticking in your head because you like the setting? Put aside the fact that it's montessori for a second.

I'm sending DS to a montessori preschool but I'm not too phased by the fact that it is a montessori one. If it wasn't I'd still send him there because I quite like it.

I would have loved to send my dc's to a montessori pre school but can't for various reasons. If the best pre school for your dc is a montessori one then go for it.

I'm a qualified Montessori teacher, and Montessori is actually the opposite of what you're describing.

Yes, the environment is prepared (structured isn't the right word) with different areas of development in mind so that children are automatically learning even when they're playing, but the whole ethos and core of the Montessori philosophy is that children are all different, and will all have a desire to learn different things at different times in different ways.

At a Montessori preschool, children are allowed to do whatever they want, whenever they want, provided they operate within the ground rules (putting toys/equipment back before taking something else off the shelf, waiting your turn for a toy while someone finishes something, not interrupting other children if they're busy, etc, etc)

The adults observe and pay attention to what kind of activities each child is focusing on, and work on making sure the classroom is changed and updated regularly to support the children's learnning desires.

Personally, I think it's a fantastic, logical, common sense approach, and if DS had had a Montessori near him, I would have put him in straight away

forgive me if i am being a dummy but what you describe as montessori sound pretty much exactly the same same as all the other pre - schools and nurserys that dont have the title of montessori. (having been to around 10 visits over the last couple of weeks ) they all sound like they are run the same and promoting the same things but i am struggling to see sny difference between the two ..

can you shed any light ?

my two have been through / are still at montessori. I love it. The difference between the montessori pre school and then big school the elder DD has moved on to is in the detail. At montessori they learn to cut using proper metal scissors instead of round ended play ones. they use glasses not plastic cups to drink from - they learn to use the proper adult "tools" correctly rather than using infantilised versions. They wash and dry their hands properly after painting / loo without help. On their allocated fruit day, they help prepare the snack for all the children, using a proper knife under supervision.

there are very few activities that they all do at once - football / yoga once a week, and "circle time" where they get together and talk and sing a song but otherwise they are free to select what they want to do. One DD made a painting every single day she went in. The other spent an entire term doing puzzles /fitting shapes together. The theory is based own their soft spots for learning and them gaining most from doing what interests them - they'll learn best if they're learning what they want to at the time

I'm sure NoWayNoHow can explain in more detail, but my understanding is that the equipment, the way the equipment is used and the learning purpose are the main differences between Montessori and mainstream. Plus in Montessori there is a bigger emphasis on self-care/children taking care of the classroom. Free play in a standard nursery can be a bit of a free-for-all whereas with Montessori there is a bit more of an organised, purposeful approach.

Rubirosa has it spot it.

Montessori split her classrooms into 5 areas, each focusing on a different element of development, and she then created her own materials and activities for each of those areas of development. It's very in depth, but I'll try to be short and sweet!!

Practical Life:

• this area is always at the entrance to the room, as it's supposed to be the area that helps bridge the gap between home and nursery, and it's designed to make the child feel more comfortable by having familiar objects
• here you'll find things like pouring activities (pouring water from one jug to another), transferring activities (eg moving rice with a spoon from one ramekin to another), clothing frames (literally wooden frames with two flaps of material attached by buttons/poppers/zips/laces), opening and closing bottles
• everything in this section is designed to give the child independence (so, for example, they will be able to pour their own drink at snack time, and set a table properly with cutlery)

Sensorial:

• Montessori believed in something called "muscle memory", that the hands are an extension of the brain, and that you learn through touching.
• activities in this section include the pink tower, cylinder blocks (which have 10 cylinders decreasing in size), colour tablets (which help children to recognise colours and match them and name them), geometirc shapes, etc
• everything in this area is intentionally in 10s so that the child starts to become subconsciously accustomed to a decimal system

Maths:

• as they get older, children start with these activities
• this area has number rods, sandpaper numbers (which children trace, again "muscle memory"), golden beads (which introduce children to the concept of units, tens, hundreds and thousands, and simple addition/subtraction, etc)

Literacy:

• alphabet box with vowels and consonants coloured differently so that children can start to construct words, sandpaper letters for tracing (much like numbers above), pens and paper for tracing object (to develop the fine motor skills for holding a pencil), etc

Cultural:

• this area is normally tailored for the time of year/season so that children can develop a knowledge and understanding of the world
• there would be things like model animal families, books and photos of children from all around the world, different items relating to relevant festivals, maps of the world, and seasonal activities (like information cards on animals that hibernate when winter is approaching)

It is important to remember that Montessori worked to age 6 when creating these materials, so a lot of schools won't have the more advanced maths and literacy activities as the kids will already have left and headed to reception by the time it becomes appropriate.

We have friends that have done the Montessori thing and in fact they run two Montessori nurseries. I see no difference in the end result. Our daughters are great friends and very similar. Just a slightly different journey to the same destination IMHO.