Resources

Websites and PDF Resources

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Oregon’s Unmet Childcare Needs

PDF
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Learning & The Brain

SITE
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The Riley Institute at Furman University

SITE
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Early Childhood Education: Quality and Access Pay Off

PDF
❺

Montessori Preschool Elevates and Equalizes Child Outcomes: A Longitudinal Study

PDF
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Four Big Benefits of Investing in Early Childhood Development

PDF
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Promoting Skills | Archbridge Institute

PDF
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Montessori: The Science Behind the Genius (book)

SITE
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Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain

Site

AEME Montessori Classroom Learning Slides

What is Practical Life?

  • The everyday routines and practices of life
  • A chance for the child to explore their natural curiosities
  • Care of self
  • Care of the environment
  • Grace and courtesy
  • Developing the Mathematical Mind

“Help me to help myself!”

 Children thrive when freely given the opportunity to care for themselves.

In community, children learn to love and care for their environment.

Environment, activity, and motor function.

  • watering plants
  • scrubbing
  • using a mortar and pestle
  • washing clothes
  • washing the leaves of plants

Grace and Courtesy

Respecting and looking out for the community, Grace & Courtesy are lessons in social skills, cooperation, and healthy boundaries.

Developing the Mathematical Mind

  • Logical movements and sequences
  • Refinement of movements through repetition
  • Control of error

Mathematics

In Montessori, mathematics lessons are more than numbers on paper

Beautiful, interactive objects help teach through shapes, colors …

… and physical examples of more advanced concepts.

Size, weight, and color help children to see and feel quantities alongside written numbers

As concepts grow from simple to complex, the child transitions from concrete objects …

… to more abstract materials

Sensorial

Children use their senses to meet the world around them.

The sensorial materials in the Montessori classroom help the child become aware of details.

Materials show the child one quality at a time, such as color, size, shape, texture, weight, and sound

In community, children learn to love and care for their environment, like watering plants …

Activities with sensorial materials help the child to understand what they are perceiving.

Sensorial materials allow children to categorize and to relate new information to what they already know.

As the child progresses through the sensorial lessons, the teacher introduces new words to name what he is experiencing.

Colors.

Shapes.

Words of Comparison

  • large, medium, small 
  • long, longer, longest
  • rough and smooth
  • heavy and light

All the vocabulary used to describe the world

Language

At 3 years old, most children have many words that they use with their families.

When the child begins school we continue using those same words from home, adding new ones from classroom lessons.

Oral language is the beginning

We read books and sing songs to play with words.

Once a child has enough words to communicate well, we practice hearing the sounds that make up those words

Sound to Letters

Using their ears, they listen to each sound, and then say them separately.

Then the symbol for each letter sound is introduced with the Sandpaper Letters.

Tracing to Writing

The teacher shows the child how to trace the letter, and says the sound that it represents. 

The child practices tracing and saying the sound of each letter.

Once she is familiar with the shape and sound, she can practice writing the letter on her own.

The Alphabet

As children learn the sounds of the letters, they can begin to make their own words with the movable alphabet.

They build words using phonetic sounds, so their spelling can be different than what adults are used to.

Reading

As the child learns to write the words they are inspired to, they discover they can read their own words, and that others can read them too.

This grows into reading.