Montessori at Home: The Baby’s Room

When children come into our lives, we want to make sure we offer them the very best. Yet our children develop so quickly and their needs change so dramatically!  

By having a clear, yet simple, plan we can prepare a bedroom space for our young children that not only supports optimal development but also helps us, as adults, feel prepared for each stage of development.

Clear Spaces

The child’s room should have boundaries that will help them be comfortable and thrive. One way to do this is to create a space that only has what is needed, with specific areas for each type of activity. For example, the child’s room needs to have areas for:

1. Physical care

2. Sleeping

3. Feeding (until weaned)

4. Moving

Although these spaces will shift a bit as our children develop and their needs change, we can prepare a room that is consistent yet easily adapted for each stage of development.

Above all, the child’s environment needs to be practical, beautiful, ordered, and safe, and at this stage, also needs to meet the parent’s or caregiver’s needs.

From Zero to Five Months: Birth to Weaning

Because young infants are adapting to a new world outside the womb, they need consistent points of reference to feel secure. This sense of security and consistency–with furniture, people, and daily routines–allows our newborns to feel able to explore their surroundings.

Physical Care

During these first months of the child’s life, the physical care area in the room has furniture and items for diapering and dressing. At this time the adult is the whole world for the child, so it is best for the changing table to be set up so the adult is at the baby’s feet so they can see the adult talking (describing what is happening, naming body parts, etc.). 

Sleeping 

Ideally the sleeping area has a low floor bed that provides an unobstructed view of the room and freedom of movement. Because this bed can stay consistent as our babies grow, it can help to start with a large-enough mattress (e.g. twin bed size). With room to move, babies will start to slither and eventually will be able to freely crawl into bed.

Feeding

The feeding area begins as a space designed for nursing mothers and babies to bond during breastfeeding. The space thus needs to be peaceful with a comfortable chair and a table or shelf with everything the feeding adult needs to have close at hand.

Movement

This area has three key elements: a mat, a mirror, and a low, open shelf. A hook in the ceiling above the mat can be positioned for hanging and rotating Montessori mobiles. A mirror mounted on the wall allows babies to begin to see themselves and their movements. A low, open shelf can store manipulative materials. Eventually babies will start slithering to the shelf to get these developmental aids.

From Five to Twelve Months: From Weaning to Walking

The room doesn’t need to change dramatically during this time and only needs a few, key modifications.

Feeding

The feeding area still has the adult chair for breastfeeding and snuggling, although during this time children begin the weaning process. This important separation process allows children to form their personal identity.

The weaning table and chair are important new additions to the room. This small, wooden table is very heavy and stable, with rounded edges and a beautiful place setting. In addition to a small, stable, supportive wooden chair for children just learning how to sit upright, the parent or caregiver has a stool so they can also sit and offer some of the first foods.

Movement

To help children be able to pull up and cruise, we can add a bar to the mirror and eventually remove the mat. An ottoman in the movement area can be a used for crawling around, pulling up on, and cruising around. The ottoman could be the same footstool used with the nursing chair. As children begin to cruise and walk, it’s nice to also include a lighter weight table, chair, and stool that they can push and move around themselves.

From Twelve to Thirty-Six Months: The Walking Child

Walking is an incredible accomplishment in human development. Rather than using their hands to aid in transportation, children can use them to transform their surroundings.

Sleeping Area

The bed can stay the same (or a little higher since they can now use their hands and whole body to climb onto it).

Feeding Area

At this point, the feeding area can shift completely to the family eating area. 

Physical Care Area

As children learn to walk and develop more muscle control, they will eventually shift from needing diapers to using the bathroom for toileting, or at least transitioning to standing diaper changes in the bathroom. We can thus remove the changing table and replace it with a small wardrobe with a mirror, so our children can see themselves dressing. 

Movement Area

Once children don’t need the assistance of the bar, we can remove it, as well as the mat and the mirror. It’s important to remember that children’s furniture should be proportionate to their mental and physical strength, so they are challenged, but in a way that allows for successful mastery with some effort. Above all, the furniture should be child-sized.

General Considerations

It is important to keep in mind that children have their own developmental paths. With this in mind, the above changes in the room should be done only after thorough observation of how our children are developing.

Children’s awareness of their environment begins at home, later expands to school, then to the community and local culture, and then beyond to their country and the world. The experiences children have in these environments become part of who they are, so we want to take care to prepare the best spaces possible!

If you want some inspiration, come visit our classrooms to see how we prepare environments for children’s optimal development.

The Montessori Prepared Environment

In Montessori, we talk a lot about the “prepared environment.” Really, though, this concept of a prepared environment isn’t limited to Montessori. In fact, from the earth’s biosphere offering an array of support for life, to the fragrant and colorful flowers existing to lure pollinators, to a woman’s uterus preparing each month for the implantation of a fertilized egg – prepared environments are all around us!

A prepared environment has three essential purposes:

1. to offer protection, 

2. to provide nourishment, and 

3. stimulate growth. 

In Montessori, a prepared environment is a place for children that is specially designed to appeal to their sensitive periods for learning, as well as their fundamental human tendencies. When designing these prepared spaces for children, we take into consideration how to ensure children feel protected and nourished, so they can reach their potential. Basically, the Montessori prepared environment is a place where children can feel at home as they develop their inner selves and outer skills.

One of the ways we offer children safe, home-like learning environments, is through our attentiveness to how the physical space is set up to meet children’s developmental needs. The classrooms have small, easy-to-move tables and chairs, as well as plenty of windows that let in bright, inviting light. Large open floor space allows children to work on the floor on rugs and move freely about the classroom. Low, open shelves display orderly arrangements of beautiful materials which invite children to engage with an array of learning activities. 

The materials on the shelves are quite aesthetically appealing and have been developed out of trial and observation in schools all over the world. The beauty of the materials and the classroom appeals to children’s development of an aesthetic sense, while the arrangement of materials from concrete to abstract provides children with a solid sense of order. 

In addition to being beautiful, the materials in the environment are real and purposeful. Containers for items even offer different textures and sensorial experiences. Because the materials are authentic, they offer children clear guidelines regarding use and misuse. Fragile items help children learn how to handle items with control and care. Plus, having access to beautiful, breakable treasures conveys an essential message of goodwill and trust.

In the beginning, adults assist children in getting their bearings in the classroom and teach the precise use of each material. The children then have the freedom to choose what they do and to focus for long periods of time. 

Although adults are not the focal point in Montessori classrooms, adults are of prime importance. While they may have an outward appearance of passivity, the adults are acutely alert to what is happening in the classroom community. In addition to this presence and awareness, adults in Montessori classrooms must prepare themselves in profound ways. They have extensive intellectual and practical training to be able to link children with different aspects of the learning environment as well as with the breadth and depth of educational materials. Because the adults model how to have a peaceful environment where everyone is respected and able to work without distraction, they also must prepare themselves on a personal and spiritual level. 

In addition to this psychological safety, Montessori prepared environments also focus on the importance and value of living things and outdoor spaces so children can keep and develop their connection to nature. Ideally, the classroom includes a garden area in which children can sow seeds, care for living things, and participate in harvesting the fruits of their work. The indoor and outdoor spaces often blend together with plants and animals as integral aspects of the classroom. In Montessori, we consider this connection to nature to be an essential part of education.

The connection to nature both in and out of doors, the arrangement of open space with child-sized furniture, the ordered and aesthetic materials, and the centrality of children with adults offering background support, all provide children with the protection and nourishment they need to develop independence and active engagement.  

Children in Montessori prepared environments love their learning spaces! Come visit our school to see how the classrooms appeal to children on so many levels as they engage with their community and construct their understanding of the world.

Discipline: The Positive Way

We are often asked about how we handle discipline in Montessori. It’s a great question because we think differently about discipline. Ultimately, we want our children to develop self-discipline and to understand how to balance being an individual within a community. We know that children need to have a sense of belonging and significance; they want to feel and be capable in the world. In the process of learning how to use their power constructively, we understand they will make mistakes along the way. 

In thinking about discipline, it can be helpful to consider how we, as adults, want to be treated when we make a mistake. If we start arriving late for work, for example, how would we want our supervisor to respond? Imagine if we were reprimanded, especially publicly. We might slink into discouragement, feel resentful, or even lash out. Or maybe our supervisor doesn’t hold us to expectations of timeliness and we eventually don’t even feel the need to get to work promptly. However, if our supervisor kindly and quietly reminds us about arrival time expectations, perhaps even checking in about what is going on in our lives, their warmth and understanding can inspire us to do better. 

Our children deserve and need the same kind of respect. They do best when they are encouraged rather than punished or pampered. Yet often we get caught in a cycle with our children. We punish or cajole. Our children rebel, maybe get back at us, or perhaps retreat. Things get worse. We may react and layout more consequences, as if making life more miserable will help our children make better choices. In reality, we are all more likely to do better if someone supports us to figure out what went wrong and how to make things right.

The practice of Positive Discipline aligns well with Montessori philosophy and helps us shift from being punitive or reward-based to being kind and firm at the same time. Positive Discipline is a respectful approach that acknowledges that when children feel worse, they do worse, and when children feel better, they do better.

To balance being kind and firm at the same time, while also ensuring that we are supporting our children in healthy ways, we can listen to what we sound like when we communicate with children. Are we issuing directives or asking for cooperation? Are we forging relationships or cutting off connections? Are we brashly belittling or kindly reminding? 

One way to become more aware of talking with our children rather than to our children is to practice the Positive Discipline principle of connection before correction. Connection before correction means that we focus on creating closeness and trust instead of distance and hostility. If we notice a child has left their coat on the floor, it’s most effective to first connect with them in a loving way before reminding them to clean up after themselves. 

Basic brain science explains why this is the case. Scolding, nagging, lecturing, blaming, shaming, yelling – all cause the recipient’s brain to shift into “flight, fright, or freeze” mode. Children (and adults, too) function best when they feel safe, trusted, and accepted. 

Connection before correction can be as simple as first getting to a child’s eye level and smiling before addressing the need at hand. Or perhaps it’s saying, “I love you, and the answer is no.” 

Other ways of making a connection include active listening, spending special time together, validating feelings, asking questions, and giving hugs. Effective connections are made when everyone involved feels significance and belonging. 

When children feel a connection, their sense of belonging and significance increases. Often this connection is enough to stop misbehavior and facilitate cooperation. The real bonus is that when we take the time to first connect rather than correct, we actually end up feeling better ourselves. Everyone benefits. 

Positive discipline practices are an essential component of how Montessori communities function so effectively. We would love for you to come to visit our school and see how we are kind and firm at the same time, how we practice connection before correction, and how we see mistakes as opportunities to learn. Schedule a tour to learn more!

Roles & Goals: The Montessori Guide

Our society knows teachers. Teachers give information. Teachers provide an education. Teachers instruct. 

In a Montessori classroom, however, the role of the adult is rather nuanced. The adult is there to facilitate, suggest, model, and observe. The materials teach. The adults advise.

Those of us accustomed to traditional models of education may find this odd or even worrisome. How can we expect our children to learn if the teachers don’t teach?  

Traditional vs. Montessori

Because the Montessori model is quite different from traditional education, the adults responsible for providing a Montessori experience have very different responsibilities, skills, and abilities than those of teachers in a traditional method. 

Historically children have been seen as blank slates or empty vessels that just need to be filled with information or knowledge. The teacher’s role has been to fill the vessel, to teach. Because the teacher passes information, correction, and validation to the student, the teacher is the material for learning. 

Rather than seeing children as empty vessels, Montessori teachers see a bundle of potential just waiting to be realized. As such, the focus is on discovering these hidden potentials in children and supporting their development. This happens most effectively when children are actively engaged in their learning process. 

In the traditional model, a teacher needs a number of tricks, including a system of rewards and punishments, to keep children focused on learning. But this framework of grades and evaluations isn’t actually necessary for children to learn.

In Montessori, we see the deep intellectual, social, and emotional engagement that happens when children get to learn through their own activities. Children get to use a variety of hands-on materials to explore, discover, and internalize key concepts and skills. Montessori teachers introduce how to learn from the materials in the classroom. As a bonus, because children are active participants in their own learning, they don’t have to sit passively while remaining focused on the teacher’s activity.

Roles & Goals

So, if a traditional model demands that the teacher’s presence is active and the student’s presence is passive, what does it look like in a Montessori classroom? When you look in a Montessori classroom, at first it may be hard to find the adults because the role of the Montessori teacher should be (or appear to be) a passive one. You may see an adult observing the room or particular children, inviting a child to a small group or one-on-one lesson, or sitting with children who are using the learning materials. 

Sometimes it can be clear that the adult is presenting a lesson. In these moments, the adults do look a lot like teachers, just working with a small group rather than the whole class. Yet during these brief presentations, the goal is rarely to dispense information. Montessori teachers don’t want to teach the trick for compound multiplication, the names of all the countries in South America, the characteristics of mammals, or the function of a verb in a sentence. Rather, the goal is to give the children just enough of the lesson to pique their interest or capture their imagination. We want them to return to the learning materials again and again so that they discover the mathematical proof, scientific concept, geographical boundary, historical connection, or grammatical rule on their own.

Teachers vs. Guides

Because this goal and the role of the adult are so different, we often refer to our teachers as guides. This change in terminology shifts our thinking. Montessori teachers don’t lead a class from the front of the room. Our guides provide paths for children to learn that the quantity of 10 feels bigger than the quantity of two, that nouns name things, that equivalent fractions really fit into the equal space, or that 82 actually forms a square! 

Montessori guides are acutely aware of how to support children on these varied and delightful paths of progress. Like the rudder of a ship, our guides allow children to embark on a journey of discovery while offering adjustments and changes to the course as needed. The result? Children flourish as active, creative, curious thinkers.

We’d love to have you come to visit our classrooms to experience how we guide children in this remarkable world, encourage active engagement, and support a life-long love of learning.

Time for Togetherness

During the holiday season, we can unintentionally become a bit edgy or stressed. Routines change. We might travel or have out-of-town guests. While our children may feel excited about the holidays, they also can feel the changes in family routines or shifts in family dynamics. 

If we are getting together with extended family or friends—no matter how loving, patient, and well-meaning—having additional people mixed into the scene, especially during the holiday season, can add additional layers of stress. Often our children absorb this unspoken stress and their behavior may shift as a result.

Perhaps we see more meltdowns, an uptick in neediness, an increase in whining, more resistance, or a surge in sibling conflict. If our children start to show attention-getting behavior, we can remember that they are sending an important message about unmet needs. It’s like they are waving a red flag to indicate we should shift our focus!

Step 1: Connection

The first step is connection. Children want to feel a sense of significance and belonging. So even a few minutes of loving attention can refuel children who are feeling disconnected. Depending upon their age, this could mean snuggling together on the couch, collaborating on coloring a picture, taking the dog for a walk together, or shooting hoops. The most important thing is that the focus is on being together without distractions. 

Step 2: Preparation

Once we’ve established that connection and our children feel secure and satisfied, we can discuss changes that occur during the holidays. Will bedtimes be different? What will shift about meals together? What kinds of activities will likely happen?

In preparing ourselves and our children for time with extended family and friends or changes to expect during the holidays, we can consciously reflect together about what routines will shift, what traditions we want to honor, and what joys and challenges the time may bring. 

Our children like to be prepared and have a sense of what to expect. Involving them in the discussion, planning, and preparation can alleviate not only their anxiety but also our own angst. 

Mapping out the days on a family calendar provides a visual guide for the changes in routine. A whiteboard works well, easily allowing for modifications if the plans become overwhelming. Take time to have conversations about what activities are most enjoyable for everyone. Then cut back on those that are not essential. 

Step 3: Mindful Involvement

When we are in the midst of being amongst friends and extended family, the experience of collecting snippets and stories of favorite holiday experiences can be a bonding experience for everyone. Part of the ritual of coming back together around the holidays can include sharing, and even documenting, different memories of past times together. This kind of sharing offers everyone a way to reorient and reunite. The recollections can even be collected in a kind of family memory book that can be pulled out when everyone gets back together again. 

Children and relatives also want to help. Intentionally enlisting extended family to support children’s involvement can create a win-win for everyone. Some possible collaborative activities include food preparation (scrubbing potatoes, mixing dough, tearing lettuce for a salad), making simple decorations, setting the table, folding the laundry, and even dusting and tidying. We all feel more settled when we feel useful and engaged.

This holiday season we have an opportunity to consciously create new rituals and opportunities for our children, our friends, and our extended families. Rather than rely upon old patterns perhaps learned from previous generations, let’s plan our time of togetherness and mindfully prepare ourselves and our children.

Power & Potential: The Sensitive Periods

Have you ever noticed how sensitive young children can be to changes in routine? Even the slightest schedule adjustment can throw things off. On the positive side, young children also have an incredible ability to internalize the order of their daily activities. They intuitively know when something is supposed to happen during a regular day.

It’s also pretty amazing how quickly young children absorb the intricacies of language, how they progress so seamlessly from sitting to crawling to walking to running, or how they can be so focused on tiny details and objects. 

During these times in their lives, children seem to be compelled by an irresistible force. Think of the little one who wants to climb up the steps again and again. We can try to stop them, but they are undeterred! And despite the great effort involved, the activity almost seems effortless to them. 

In Montessori, we pay close attention to these periods of time when children show intense focus on mastering a new skill, creating deep understanding, or refining their abilities. We call these times “sensitive periods.”  

What are Sensitive Periods?

To paint the picture of sensitive periods, Dr. Maria Montessori used the example of newly hatched caterpillars. These young caterpillars hatch from eggs in protected nooks but are drawn toward the light where they can eat soft, young leaves at the ends of branches. The young caterpillars aren’t aware of the fact that going toward light will provide them with a food source. Rather, they are responding to a biological impetus. Once that need is satisfied, the caterpillars no longer have the desire to move toward bright light. That sensitive period is over and they shift into the next stage of their development.

Like the young caterpillars, young children in a sensitive period become incredibly absorbed with acquiring or mastering a new skill and hone in on the activity that aids their development. Neurologically, this is the time when groups of neurons become more active than others and establish key neural networks in children’s developing brains. These windows of opportunity are transitory and marked by children’s passionate focus on mastering a skill or characteristic.  

In Montessori we focus on four main sensitive periods:

• Order

• Language

• Refinement of the Senses

• Movement

Sensitive Period for Order

The sensitive period for order is most intense from birth to three years of age, although it does continue through age six. When children are under the influence of the sensitive period for order, we see their intense interest in the order of things, both in routines (time, order of events in day, etc.) and in their environment. Young children can show great distress if this order changes. 

As adults, we can appreciate that order makes our lives easier; planning our meals and picking out clothes ahead of time makes our week flow more smoothly. Organization and order are a convenience and make us more efficient. But young children need orderly environments in a different way. The order in their surroundings or routines becomes the basis for their relationship with the world. If that foundation of order is changing all the time, it’s like trying to build a house on a shifting foundation. Lots of changes in the environment or schedule cause children to have to constantly adapt, which diverts their energy away from other necessary forms of their development. When children have a predictable and ordered environment, they feel secure, trust their environment, and establish an internal order.

Sensitive Period for Language

Children are effortlessly absorbing language from birth. The first three years of life are focused on the development of spoken language and the last three years are focused on the expansion and refinement of language, including writing and reading. During this sensitive period, children are learning the intricacies of the language spoken around them. They hear sounds and begin to try to imitate them. They hear the rhythm of phrases and sentences. They begin to internalize the nuances of grammar. 

Because children are absorbing all aspects of language, they need rich language experiences. Thus, we want to provide lots and lots of vocabulary by naming real things in the environment and engaging in meaningful conversation, even with our infants!

Sensitive Period for Refinement of the Senses

Young children are learning about their world through sensory experiences. The sensitive period for refinement of sensory perceptions starts at birth and begins to fade around four and a half.

This sensitive period does not make children’s eyes see better, ears hear better, or tongue taste better, but it does help children distinguish between finer and finer differences. Children who have access to sensorially rich environments can begin to refine their senses, have clearer perceptions, and be able to organize and classify their impressions. Neurologically, this sensitive period is when children are creating neural networks that help them interpret their environment through visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, and tactile perceptions. An enriched experience gives children the opportunity to develop powers of sensory discrimination, like perfect pitch, that will last throughout a lifetime.

Sensitive Period for Movement

Movement is how children come into contact with their environment, express their developing personality, and develop their independence. So much movement development happens from birth, and then, from about ages two and a half to four, children focus on refining their movements.

Children in this sensitive period benefit from having their movements directed toward some purposeful aim. For example, children want to imitate and participate in daily life, like cooking and preparing food. As parents, we often give our children play kitchens. With no other options, children will play with the pretend kitchen for a while, but this doesn’t satisfy them for long. They are much happier preparing real food for themselves and those around them. Meaningful activity, like food preparation, helps children refine their movement, adapt to their culture, and contribute to their community in a purposeful way. 

Power & Potential

Although “sensitive periods” refer to the particular times when children are most open to developing a particular skill or trait, the name is a profound reminder. We need to be sensitive–treading mindfully and with great care–to the power and potential of these periods of development. 

During the sensitive periods, children develop the skills and characteristics of order, language, refinement of the senses, and development and refinement of movement without apparent effort. Once the sensitive periods have faded, children can still achieve and develop certain characteristics, but they have to do so using work and effort. Plus, the skill or characteristic isn’t as fully integrated and absorbed. Think about how hard it is to learn a second language as an adult! 

Most delightfully, when children are in a sensitive period and their needs are met, they experience deep inner joy and a sense of satisfaction. We invite you to schedule a tour so you can see this joy and satisfaction in action!