Montessori?

[Paperdolly]

Hi all. Can you tell me your thoughts on Montessori pre schools please? Did your children thrive or did they have too much freedom to do as they please?

[Hareinthewoods]

Raisins - I just want to clarify a few points. I can see you feel very strongly about the Montessori philosophy which is absolutely your choice but I also feel that you would have only observed a session and have limited knowledge about the philosophy.
ALL Montessori Schools (as with any nursery)will have to follow the EYFS, and will of course be inspected by Ofsted too. A Montessori School will help the children achieve the early learning goals by using Montessori materials. Do you know that the EYFS is pretty much based on Montessori philosophy? I know a person who was part of the team updating the new EYFS and most of that team are Montessorians.
It is also an Ofsted requirement that children have access to outdoors at least once a session.
In the UK there are 2 Montessori bodies and training colleges.
AMI - it sounds as if the ‘pure’ school you visited was an AMI school. Yes, they are very strict but this is their interpretation of the philosophy. As I have said in a previous post MONTESSORI is not copyright and some people interpret it in different ways.
MCI - fully follow the Montessori philosophy but also believe in giving the children an education for this century and if Dr Montessori was still alive today would also be adapting to new ideas and technology.
The reason why some nurseries say they do not have factual books or role play is because in all her years of observation Dr Montessori believed that children were only really grounded in reality at around 7 years of age (obviously this varies widely depending on the child) The differentiation between fantasy and reality is a very fine line for young children. In a good Montessori School you will find all the books you mentioned but when reading the story the teacher will remind the children that it is only pretend and a tiger cannot really talk and eat all the cakes.
The same with role play. Most will have role play of some sort but it will be about giving children real experiences. For example a fruit and vegetable shop but using real items and money rather than plastic pretend food.
You ask what happens when the children do become noisy and rowdy. Well I can say that they are children and not robots.Children will be encouraged to work/play using indoor voices and walking indoors. Outdoors they can make as much noise as they want to and run as much as they like. Obviously this doesn’t always go according to plan but a good teaching team will know when to intervene either by encouraging those children to go outdoors or to role model the correct behaviour and gently remind them of the rules indoors.
As for the children using the activities in their own way, that is absolutely fine. If a child or group want to make a tower out of something not for that purpose they should be allowed to do that so long as they are not disturbing others and still taking care of the materials. A good teacher will observe this and make a note to present that specific activity in the ‘correct’ way at another time.

[raisinsarenottheonlyfruit]

Hare thank you for sharing your knowledge and experience.

I'm intrigued - please could you explain what's the problem with plastic fruit?

It sounds like role play (in plaves that encourage it) is used for exploring real lufe scenarios, is that right? Would fantasy play be discouraged? Is it in keeping with Montessori for my DD to play a game pretend to be a talking, acrobatic cat (her current favourite) and wear a cat costume for example?

Why is it necessary to explain the tiger is not real?

I'm guessing Father Chrismas is at odds with Montessori philosophy then, would that be right?

[PetiteMarseillaise]

At the Montessori nursery my kids went to, we had real fruit and food because they ate them - little kids played and learnt to butter their bread, cut up (safely) a bit of fruit.

The also had plenty of dressing up opportunities, dollhouses, books and a lovely garden to play and do a bit of gardening too IIRC. As for Father Christmas, a particularly memorable singing "assembly" / gathering comes to mind - when the kids were encouraged to dress up in Christmassy styles including lots of Father Christmases.

If you mean, does the Montessori method disabuse young children of the idea of Father Christmas giving gifts, climbing chimneys etc. that did not happen in our experience.

I think you have to choose based on the individual establishment, regardless of the ethos behind it.

I loved that all the kids at our nursery were so calm and happy, learning and doing interesting activities.

[raisinsarenottheonlyfruit]

I'm trying to understand what the Montessori idea of embracing realism means in practical terms.

The strict one in my town doesn't do dressing up and role play - not according to the other one we visited anyway.

[Hareinthewoods]

Raisins - absolutely no issue with it plastic fruit at all! But if you can give children the opportunity to play with real fruit, the smell, texture, weight etc. Is all very different to a piece of fruit shaped plastic then why wouldn’t you? It’s giving children real experiences so using real coins and pennies in the shop instead of play money would be the same. If the children were pretending to be fairies or power rangers for example I wouldn’t encourage it and extend their play but I also wouldn’t stop them doing it.
As for your daughter pretending to be a cat. Great, she is obviously interested in cats. I would extend that learning, look at different breeds of cats, different coat colours and the noises they make etc. I remember having about 2 terms of children pretending they were dogs. We did lots and lots and lots of learning around dogs until their interests were satisfied.
Because Father Christmas is such a personal thing for different families I would neither confirm or deny it. I would say ‘some people believe....’ I have done many a Christmas play with children dressing up as F.C. or Mrs Christmas for that matter.

[raisinsarenottheonlyfruit]

So are you saying that children are gently discouraged from play based purely in fantasy? (e.g. fairies, power rangers, other made up characters?)

[raisinsarenottheonlyfruit]

My DCs' "ordinary" school is very keen on bringing the learning to the child, working with their own interests in reception and - as much as they can - when they're older also.

For example, once, the children were interested in witches and wizards.

So the teacher created a "magic club" for those who wanted to join that was really a means to teach maths e.g. measuring potions.

This kind of approach makes much more sense IMO.

However, I don't understand why you wouldn't want children to explore their imagination in any direction it took them. Why not fairies and power rangers? Why limit them in this way?

Sorry to keep going on about it - it's just that I was so surprised that the very thing I thought Montesorri was about (allowing children freedom to direct their own learning) was what I had a problem with, for the one I visited anyway!

[raisinsarenottheonlyfruit]

As for your daughter pretending to be a cat. Great, she is obviously interested in cats

Kinda. An essential part of the game is that she's a talking cat and that she does magic tricks. (She wants me to act surprised that she can do these things, every bloody time). It's not as simple as an interest in cats. It could be extended into learning about cats - or maybe acrobatics - or simply continuing the fantasy role play game to see where it goes!

[raisinsarenottheonlyfruit]

In my example above, would Montessori have tolerated an interest in witches and wizards, or would that have been brought back to reality also?

I can see there must be people who appreciate this sort of realism, the kind of people who believe in never "lying" to their children (meaning never induling in fantasy like Santa). Maybe they're right!

But for me, I feel a child's imagination is an amazing thing, an essential part of childhood and I feel very uncomfortable about adults limiting it.

There's loads that's great about Montessori and if EYFS has come about in part because of Montesorri that's an amazing achvement, Maria Montessori's influence will be affecting all early years learners.

But I find it hard to get my head aroudn this.

I went to a primary school run by hippies progressive types. We were encouraged to express our imagination in poetry, art and writing. It was a wonderful place to spend my primary years, I look back with great fondness. The playfulness and journeys into fantasy in our writing and art were an incredibly positive thing IMO. I feel sad for children discouraged from this.

[Paperdolly]

Wow! This has turned into a great discussion. . Thank you all again for your contributions.