What are Montessori kindergarten classes?

Question

My sons kindergarten class enrollment was to small so they combined classes. Now he is in a Montessori kindergarten class. What is the difference?

Answer 1

Kindergarten (German, literally means "children's garden") is a form of education for young children which serves as a transition from home to the commencement of more formal schooling. Children are taught to develop basic skills through creative play and social interaction. In most countries kindergarten is part of the preschool system. In parts of the United States, Canada and Australia (NSW, TA'S and the ACT) kindergarten is the word used to describe the first year of compulsory education. In British English, nursery or playgroup is the usual term for preschool education, and "kindergarten" is rarely used. Children usually attend kindergarten any time between the ages of three and seven depending on the local custom.

Children attend kindergarten to learn to communicate, play, and interact with others appropriately. A teacher provides various materials and activities to motivate these children to learn the language and vocabulary of reading, mathematics, science, and computers, as well as that of music, art, and social behaviors. For children who previously have spent most of their time at home, kindergarten may serve the purpose of helping them adjust to being apart from their parents without anxiety. They are usually exposed to their first idea of friendship while they play and interact with other children on a regular basis. Kindergarten may also allow mothers, fathers, or other caregivers to go back to part-time or full-time employment.

Answer 2

same thing. probably better. montoserri system is far gentler on kids. plus the language standards are higher.

Answer 3

The Montessori classrooms are divided up into different age groups.  Since your son is in a Kindergarten class, there is a good chance he is in the 3-6 age classroom. Although there are programs in Montessori for infant all the way up through high school, I'll answer with 3-6 and try to give you a good, broad picture of the rest of the educational system as well.

Maria Montessori was actually a medical doctor who later became in charge of a small day care area where she wanted to see if her ideas on education that she formed while working with mentally retarded children would work on children that generally had no known medical issues that would inhibit their learning. This is important because, being a doctor and scientist, the Montessori method is a very scientific method of education.  The teachers are more like scientists trained to observe and set up an environment.

What Maria Montessori did was observe children. She set up an environment where children were free to explore. Through the practical life materials, they began to develop life skills of how to care for themselves. They began to develop their senses through the sensorial materials. They began building their concentration to fascinating levels. They began taking on an inner discipline that confused teachers who came in to try to give them rewards, to children very uninterested in medals, candy, and other such external rewards. Everyone was amazed at how easily these children learned to read and write, do math, and treat each other with respect. They did it all while loving it as well, which is even more amazing.

It wasn't long before Montessori schools branched out into what are traditionally thought of as more academic areas. In the 3-6 curriculum, there are 6 overall areas:

--Practical Life: This area is designed to help students develop a care for themselves, the environment, and each other. Children learn how to do things from pouring and scooping, using various kitchen utensils, washing dishes, shining objects, scrubbing tables, and cleaning up. They also learn how to dress themselves, tie their shoes, wash their hands, and other various self-care needs. They learn these through a wide variety of materials and activities.

While caring for yourself and your environment is an important part of Montessori Practical Life education in these years, it also prepares the child for so much more. The activities build a child's concentration as well as being designed in many cases to prepare the child for writing. For the first three years of life, children absorb a sense of order in their environment. They learn how to act a certain way naturally by absorbing it. These ages, from 3-6, the children are learning how to both build their own order and discover, understand, and refine the order they already know. So it's typical for you to see a child spend a half hour working on one practical life activity with a strong concentration and attention to detail. Language preparation comes in many forms in the practical life area. The setup is from left to right, top to bottom, as much as possible. Many of the fine motor skills being used involve a pencil grip and help the child develop that grip to be able to later use a pencil more easily.

--Sensorial: All learning first comes to us through the senses. By isolating something we are trying to teach the child, the child can more easily focus on it. For example, we do not teach colors by having the child think of everything that is blue - blue jeans, the sky, iceburgs, a picture of a blue cartoon elephant hanging on a wall. We teach them by using color tablets. The color tablets are all exactly the same except for one thing - their color in the middle. This helps take away the confusion for the child and helps them to focus on specifically what blue is. We also feel it is important to be exact with children and provide them with correct information. We do not call an oval an "egg shape." An egg isn't even in the shape of an oval - it's in the shape of an ovoid. Children learn much more quickly if you're exact and accurate with them, since it takes away so much of the confusion. The sensorial area also falls over into the math area quite regularly. The red rods in the sensorial area are a direct link to the segmented rods in math that teach 1-10. The pink tower has a connection to units and thousands that the child learns later in the 3-6 curriculum. Even the trinomial cube will be used in the elementary years to figure out complex mathmatical formulas.

--Cultural: This includes both the studies of the world and various cultures. Montessori children come out of a 3-6 environment not only understanding the concept of a continent, country, and state, but also the names of many countries around the world. I had one student that fell in love with the Montessori maps and decided to learn all the countries of the world by the time he was finished with Kindergarten. More power to him. He came pretty close, but just had fun doing it and it was easy for him, so why stand in his way?

More importantly, the goal is to get an understanding that there are various cultures and these cultures have a lot to offer us. When a student is doing the map of Asia, pictures, stories, facts about different Asian countries, and a variety of learning opportunities open up to give the child a real sense of the world and how it is different - even within the same area.

--Science: Children at this age are very detail oriented. They know what a bird is. Now they want to know the various body part of a bird. They want to know the life cycle of different animals. They begin to really look at the parts of a plant and wonder, "What are those long things coming out of the middle of a flower?" The science curriculum takes the opportunity for the child's natural questioning and draws a fascinating curriculum for the 3-6 age range. What I really enjoy about this area is this is where I learn the most. Children ask questions I cannot answer, so I have to find it out. Or we might be studying something I know nothing about, so I have to learn as well. When the teacher is learning, the children really see that and get excited about learning too.

Language: The language curriculum involves everything from vocabulary development to writing to reading. Children learn their basic letter sounds through the use of sandpaper letters, where the letters are cut from sandpaper and glued to a wooden board. As the child traces the letter, they get a real image for how the letter feels. They can also feel if a mistake was made because of the different feel of the sandpaper from the board. They begin making words before they can read words with the movable alphabet. It's fun to watch children spell out a word, but not be able to read it. Quite interesting, too.

--Math: The math area is the area most people find the most fascinating. Children go from a very concrete understanding of math to a more abstract concept. Children in a Montessori classroom know the difference between 1, 10, 100, and 1000 because they have felt it countless times. They felt it originally in the pink tower and later in the math materials. It includes things such as addition and subtraction of 4 digit numbers, basic multiplication and division, and the understanding of various mathmatical concepts such as odd and even.

The learning goals of Montessori are quite different than that of traditional education. By not having set goals that have to be met, the child is free to explore these materials and activities when he or she is ready. As a result, we get the maximum results the child can produce rather than something set by a syllabus. If we were to say that Montessori does have goals, it would be to develop a person who:

--Has a lifelong love of learning

--Has a more empathetic view to the world

--Is self-motivated

--Is able to form answers and analyse situations on his or her own rather than relying on someone else, such as a teacher.

--Has internalized discipline

--Understands that no matter what they do, they are an important part of society

With that comes a very individual respect for each child by the teacher. The teacher sees them not as either children that can follow the rules or can't follow the rules. The teacher sees them as a developing person who has great potential that should be fostered.

A few other resources for you.  First off is a great discussion group of Montessori teachers and parents.  You may find other great information there.  It can be found at this site:

http://mothering.com/discussions/forumdi...

I am a regular on there and my answer to your question is actually a "Sticky" subject I just copied and pasted from that site (I posted the same thing back in April)

I would also take a look at http://youtube.com Go on there and type in Montessori and there will be several videos, some descriptions and some actual videos of classrooms in action.  You can learn a lot of valuable information there.

Here are 2 good videos to get you started:

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=sPgtl5f54x...  (A Montessori school in Thailand)

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=Obo95qqoj1...  (Planting the Seeds of Learning, a video put out by the Montessori Foundation)

Hope that helps!

Matt

Answer 4

Montessori education is based on the belief that children are individuals with their own strengths, needs, likes and learning styles. To used the latest educational catch phrases, Montessori education is “multi-modality, differentiated instruction.”

In more everyday terms, Montessorians disagree with the idea that all children learn in the exact same way at the exact same time of their life. They believe that a good teacher doesn’t say, “It is the 4th day, of the 3rd month, of second grade, so open your math book to page 49 and…” Instead we observe each child and ask ourselves, “What does this child understand? What is the next concept this child needs to learn? In which way does this child learn? (Are they observers? Talkers? Someone who needs to physically experience things? Do colors make things more clear? How about singing a song about the concept, will that help this particular child learn?...) What things interest this child so that I can use his/her natural interests and abilities to teach this concept that they need to know?

To achieve this a Montessori classroom is not filled solely with text books, writing paper and pencils. Instead it is filled with many materials that teach a range of levels and concepts all set up so that at a moment's notice a teacher can reach for a material and teach a student or students the concept they need to know. Or students can reach for the same material and use it in the way that they were taught so that they can practice a concept that they are working on.

Obviously, a Montessori classroom will not look like a normal classroom. Rarely, if ever, will you find the whole class sitting with their books out looking at the teacher show them how to fill in a worksheet. Instead you will see children, some in groups, some by themselves, working on different concepts, and the teacher sitting with a small group of children, usually on the floor around a mat.

Some people talk about the lack of “structure” in a Montessori Classroom. They hear the word “freedom” and think “chaos” or “free for all”. They seem to think that if all children are not doing the exact same thing at the exact same time that they can’t possibly be working, or that they will be working only on the things that they want and their education will be lopsided. Yet, if the teacher is organized this does not happen. Children will be given a work plan or a contract and will need to complete an array of educational activities just like in a more traditional classroom. The main difference being that the activities will be at each child’s “maximum plane of development”, will be presented and practiced in a way that the child understands, and the child will have the freedom to choose which he/she does first.

Other people talk about Montessori children being able to do whatever they want. This is a misunderstanding of the word "choice" Montessori children do have the choice as to which they do first, reading or math. They do have the choice as to which material they will use to complete the lesson, but playing all day, only working in one area, hurting children, themselves or the environment are NEVER choices. Either are eating candy all day, or and so on (All things people have posed in the past about Montessori schools.)

In the past few years there have been more and more studies published comparing Montessori Education and traditional education. Contrary to what some people state, Montessori children DO NOT have problems in social situations, in fact, ALL studies show just the opposite, Montessori children are ahead of their peers when it comes to social interactions.

The most comprehensive longitude research on Montessori Education in comparison to traditional education was published last year by a psychology professor at the University of Virginia, Dr. Angeline Lillard.. Her recent article was so well researched and documented, that it is the only educational article ever to be published in a scientific magazine.

Her findings and other studies’ report that Montessori students have:

*more interest in learning,

*more self disciplined

* have a greater understanding of truth and fairness

*more creativity, especially in their writing

*are more independence

*a better understanding of concepts from grammar and story structure to mathematical operations, algebra and geometry

*have a deep understanding of and how geography, history, social studies, and science are all related.

For more information check out Angeline Lillard Ph.D's book Montessori: The Science Behind the Genius