Montessori Preschool Plans

After my last facebook post I got a few comments and questions so I thought I'd let you all know what we're up to. For about a year now I've been researching, planning, window shopping and saving tax return money, and since Seth is just about to turn three at the start of a new school year this seems like a good time to get things in motion. We are coming to the point of actually purchasing a classroom package and teaching manuals and beginning to homeschool Montessori style, at least for preschool.

As a bit of background, Joel and I both attended Montessori(ish) schools as children. I went to three different schools Pre-2nd and Joel did Pre/K. In fact, we went to the same Pre/K school, though I attended morning Kindergarten while Joel had afternoon preschool, so we didn't ever gaze into each other's eyes while pouring beans or harmonize during The Continents Song or anything romantic like that. Although we could now I suppose, since we both still remember the song. Anyway, we both have Montessori experience from the student's perspective and believe it served as a good academic foundation.

Though I don't agree completely with everything Maria Montessori believed (she was a strong humanist, therefore her conclusions and applications were made with an evolutionary world view) her teaching methods were based on scientific observation and have been supported by recent research. Since I don't have any Montessori experience as a teacher, only as a student, I have done a lot of reading about it. I've been impressed with the amount of objectivity that she maintained in observing human behavior and how she was able to create theory based on a successful methodolgy rather than methodology on untried theory. What I find interesting is that she used her insight into childhood development as supporting evidence of her humanist view point. In reality, she was merely observing and working with human nature and the results equally support a Divine Creator point of view. In itself Montessori's work doesn't really give evidence for either, it just shows human nature for what it is and how it works, so you draw your own conclusions.

The Montessori method of teaching is based on active learning and uses of a lot of specialized manipulatives. So when we purchase a classroom package of Montessori materials, we won't be getting a stack of workbooks (though the teaching manuals will take up a shelf), we'll be getting a huge set of physical activities that need to be stored and made available as developmentally appropriate. An example of another person's Montessori homeschool classroom can be found here. Scroll down to view the pictures of their classroom and you can see why I might be concerned about space. We haven't completely decided where to set things up at our house. For now Seth won't be using everything, and hopefully by next year we'll be thinking about moving on to a house more suitable for homeschooling. Unless something changes, we're planning to continue homeschooling in grades 1-12 with a Classical Education philosophy, probably overlapping with Montessori.

So far we've been making do with homemade activities and educational toys, mostly Melissa and Doug brand. Seth gave beads another try this morning. He actually focused on them for quite a while and tried different activities after I showed him other possibilities beyond rolling them off the table to see how they bounced. I had put them away for a while because he mostly liked to roll or throw them rather than stack them on the spindles or thread them on string. Today I found out that he now enjoys threading beads, but only one at a time and only as long as the bead comes off at the other end. I tried tying one bead on the end so that he could string a series without them falling off, but that only agitated him. As soon as the hostage beads were freed, life was good again and he continued to thread each one all the way across, one at a time. Silly me. Threading beads is a process, not a product. Why would you gum up the works by allowing them to stack up like that?

While we are optimistic about the future, currently most activities still devolve into destruction or noisemaking. Anything slightly round must be made to roll across the dining room floor and hit the baseboard with adequate volume and denting. Anything with wheels must fly off of a table and crash with a satisfying amount of breakage. Seth is fascinated with visible examples of entropy and encourages it with every ounce of his being. He is a boy.