My Philosophy: Am I Montessori?

The short answer is: Nope, I just borrow from them.  


Besides, I think my kids are getting too old and lots of the traditional Montessori principles are geared toward pre-schoolers.


My longer answer is based on the10 learning principle list from Living Montessori Now.  See her blog for the fuller explanation of each principle, but here I'll respond to the naked principles individually:

1. Follow the child. 

KINDA.  Montessori schools let the child lead to a great extent.  I have BOTH free choice and assigned work.  Some work is not optional, regardless of the child's mood.  I do, however, try to build activities that correlate with the child's interests and learning style.  I don't make them swim upstream if I can help it.

2. Respect and encourage your child’s absorbent mind and sensitive periods.

KINDA...I'm not sure I completely understand what this looks like for a nine-year-old, but I do let them tell me what they're interested in when it comes to "entertainment" centers that I leave out while I'm working with the others.  Like last week, they all wanted to learn to iron, so we did that and I left out the iron for them to practice.  I do know that anything they perceive as BIG PEOPLE work, they are automatically driven to master, but if it's something they've already mastered, like fingernail clips..."Mom, that's baby stuff."

3. Allow your child the freedom to explore indoors and outdoors – as long as your child is safe and using the freedom in a positive manner. 

Hmmm...I don't really know what this means.  She says it has something to do with self-directed learning.  I'm all over that, but only when they aren't doing assigned school work.  There's no self-directed math around here.

4. Give your child as many opportunities for hands-on learning as possible. 

YES!  This is where I C.A.S.E. Montessori...Copy And Steal Everything.  They have manipulatives galore and every one is beautiful and AMAZING!  My oldest loves the sensorial manipulatives for free "play," but math and reading ones are super confusing to him.  He's a very traditional "drill" responsive kid.  Repetition and bribery is the way to go.  But for my younger two, they HAVE to have manipulatives.  You can repeat the same information every day for the 180 day school year and unless they had a beautiful, interesting, engaging manipulative...it's like pushing a wet rope uphill.  I'd rather just buy the pretty manipulative and avoid all the fights.  Learning  new concepts isn't the time for obedience training.

5. Emphasize practical life and sensorial activities in the preschool years. 

YES!  We aren't in the preschool years but we have sensory issues in the family, so we may never stop emphasizing sensory (smell, visual, touch, etc) centers.  Sometimes these are even assigned to help develop and desensitize them.  And the sensorial/practical activities are my go-to resource for getting them to voluntarily practice math and language foundation skills like sorting, grading, go-togethers, and sequencing.  Real lock and key go-togethers are just as valid as pictures.  Sorting objects by whether they are magnetic or not is just as valid as the traditional cut and paste picture sorting.

.6. Provide child-size materials (and real child-size tools) wherever possible. Place materials on trays on low shelves, allowing your child the opportunity to choose his or her own work and to repeat activities as often as needed.

NO.  I left the rest of her explanation on there because this is where we really differ.  I don't have a dedicated school room, so there's no leaving out anything.  And I only have a limited number of centers I set out each day, like ten.  These are on the dining room table, floor on mats, and the fireplace.  At the end of the school day, they're all packed away into a crate.  And we don't have child-sized materials and tools.  But, my kids are pretty big, so it's not a big issue.  And as I said above, this all refers to the free-choice busy centers in the living room.  There's no free choice when they're working individually with me in the other room. They might have some control over the order, but not whether or not multiplication practice happens.

7. Don’t interrupt your child’s work cycle. Let your child develop an ever-increasing ability to concentrate. 

NO and YES.  I definitely interrupt certain subjects.  I won't let a child practice making his letters wrong or reading wrong words out loud.  But as for the free-activities, I leave them to it until it's time to come work with me.  For our school work, I let them think as long as they need or work on a manipulative without interruption.  And, if something really captures their fancy in the language or math lessons, I'll adjust the rest of the day to give them more time. A good example is the object boxes, my daughter will spend lots of time with them, making up and writing down songs, rearranging the words so they make funny compound phrases, and since she struggles in the phonics area, I generally leave her alone to "work."  I just usually put that lesson at the end of the school day so she doesn't have to do anything else afterwards.

8. Make your child’s environment as orderly and attractive as possible. 

YES!  I love how a Montessori school looks.  I use the heck out of all those orderly little trays and mats.

9. Demonstrate how to do an activity. 

YES!  This is my very favorite thing I've learned from Montessori folks.  But it's not something we use during school much.  Before I take the first kid away to work, I demonstrate any new activities, but it's not usually necessary.  My kids can figure most things out since they're older.  However, around the house we use this constantly.  One day, Middle Kid was struggling with sweeping, so I put tape on the floor just like a Montessori school and demonstrated step by step, letting her toss rice krispies on the floor as many times as she liked to practice it. Same for anything else around the house they want to do or "have" to do for chores.  I've done "fixing yourself cereal" demonstrations, "cooking yourself eggs" demonstrations, and we love the Montessori courtesy lessons.  My kids know how to politely interrupt because I demonstrated it and we practiced it.  

10. When you offer an activity, check that the difficulty is isolated (for example, it helps if only the color – and not the shape – varies if you’re introducing your child to colors), and there is a control of error (instant feedback built into the activity) whenever possible.

YES!  This is another favorite principle.  I love isolating skills.  This is why I don't cross over between kindergarten writing and reading.  We write uppercase with no discussion of sounds.  We read lowercase, with no attempt at pencil skills.  In older kid phonics, if I'm working on one phoneme, I do my best to exclude all others from the practice words.  For lots of the manipulatives, the activity itself provides the instant feedback, but if not, I mark the underside so they can check themselves without my help.