Click The Montessori curriculum comes together when explaining the significance of the math area in the Montessori classroom. Everyday Living, Sensorial, Language, group activities, and even snack are working to develop math skills in subtle or obvious ways. The child’s ability to make choices, order, compare, organize, concentrate, and sequence are just a few of the essential tools that must be developed. We see again in the math curriculum that each area of the room works hand in hand with the other to further all of these necessary skills developing in the child.
Numbers are a tool, and their purpose, like any other tool, is to allow us to do something with them that we couldn’t do without them. Numbers are meaningful for the rest of our lives, we will use them every day. If we rush the child too quickly into numbers, he will not be able to gradually discover for himself the need for them. He will not be able to grasp, at his own pace, the significance of the power of math. Dr. Montessori believed that we cannot push a child into learning, instead we can prepare their environment to include concepts and materials, introduce the child to them, then encourage use as the child is ready. Again, we prepare the activities, and then we wait.
While continuing to develop the materials that Maria Montessori invented, creating new materials, and putting new perspectives on old materials, we begin to understand that: instead of perfectly presenting the answers to all the child’s questions (before he even has any questions), we should be content to set up the problem, and observe his means of solving it. Have more confidence in auto-education – in the ability of the materials to teach.
Some of the skills that we introduce in the Montessori classrooms are: comparing, classifying, one-to-one association, recognizing the empty set, set breaking, reversibility of thinking, counting on from a given point, conservation of quantity, estimating, recognizing greater/lesser/equal quantities, patterning, and realizing there’s more than one way to solve problems. These are the skills we want our math areas to foster. In a Pre-primary classroom, there should be little hurry in getting to advanced decimal work or the operations. The temptation is there, since such work looks more like what we adults consider to be “mathematical”, but the child has lots to ponder before he’s ready to grasp these functions. Luckily, in Montessori, we provide the equipment and introduce children to concepts at their own pace for learning.
Activities that build on the mathematical mind are: spatial relations, puzzles, shape recognition, dimension materials, measuring, reproducing designs, combining shapes to make designated shapes, soring by attribute/creating sets, graphing, recognition of repeating patterns, sequencing, grading, symmetry, and the concept of more/less/same. Beginnings of quantification include: sorting by quantity, verbal linear counting (wrote counting, saying numbers in order) – it often precedes any true sense of quantity – number constancy, 1:1 correspondence, counting backwards, the ability to pick up the count at any given point, recognizing symbols alone, 0-9, then associating quantities with symbols 0-9. So you see, there is a tremendous amount of work to be done in the math area, but it begins with simple activities we can do every day. We can count anything, and we encourage counting to keep children involved and engaged in the world around us. For example, if you have steps in your home, you can count as you walk up or down, count how many pieces of food are on the child’s plate, taking a set number of bites, counting fingers & toes, counting shoes, people in the car, etc. There is no end to counting, literally!
As with language, going through the process is the focus in the classroom. You will not see a lot of paperwork coming home from a pre-primary Montessori school because the actual work is done with the materials, and not necessarily written down because that is a separate process and not the focus of counting or math. When children are ready to add writing into a work, they may do so, otherwise, simply using the materials is the lesson alone. Written products are not representative of real knowledge of the student. Manipulating the materials during class time is the practice that we observe, and by observing, we can gauge the child’s abilities on the given material and the knowledge they have of math concepts.
here to edit.
Numbers are a tool, and their purpose, like any other tool, is to allow us to do something with them that we couldn’t do without them. Numbers are meaningful for the rest of our lives, we will use them every day. If we rush the child too quickly into numbers, he will not be able to gradually discover for himself the need for them. He will not be able to grasp, at his own pace, the significance of the power of math. Dr. Montessori believed that we cannot push a child into learning, instead we can prepare their environment to include concepts and materials, introduce the child to them, then encourage use as the child is ready. Again, we prepare the activities, and then we wait.
While continuing to develop the materials that Maria Montessori invented, creating new materials, and putting new perspectives on old materials, we begin to understand that: instead of perfectly presenting the answers to all the child’s questions (before he even has any questions), we should be content to set up the problem, and observe his means of solving it. Have more confidence in auto-education – in the ability of the materials to teach.
Some of the skills that we introduce in the Montessori classrooms are: comparing, classifying, one-to-one association, recognizing the empty set, set breaking, reversibility of thinking, counting on from a given point, conservation of quantity, estimating, recognizing greater/lesser/equal quantities, patterning, and realizing there’s more than one way to solve problems. These are the skills we want our math areas to foster. In a Pre-primary classroom, there should be little hurry in getting to advanced decimal work or the operations. The temptation is there, since such work looks more like what we adults consider to be “mathematical”, but the child has lots to ponder before he’s ready to grasp these functions. Luckily, in Montessori, we provide the equipment and introduce children to concepts at their own pace for learning.
Activities that build on the mathematical mind are: spatial relations, puzzles, shape recognition, dimension materials, measuring, reproducing designs, combining shapes to make designated shapes, soring by attribute/creating sets, graphing, recognition of repeating patterns, sequencing, grading, symmetry, and the concept of more/less/same. Beginnings of quantification include: sorting by quantity, verbal linear counting (wrote counting, saying numbers in order) – it often precedes any true sense of quantity – number constancy, 1:1 correspondence, counting backwards, the ability to pick up the count at any given point, recognizing symbols alone, 0-9, then associating quantities with symbols 0-9. So you see, there is a tremendous amount of work to be done in the math area, but it begins with simple activities we can do every day. We can count anything, and we encourage counting to keep children involved and engaged in the world around us. For example, if you have steps in your home, you can count as you walk up or down, count how many pieces of food are on the child’s plate, taking a set number of bites, counting fingers & toes, counting shoes, people in the car, etc. There is no end to counting, literally!
As with language, going through the process is the focus in the classroom. You will not see a lot of paperwork coming home from a pre-primary Montessori school because the actual work is done with the materials, and not necessarily written down because that is a separate process and not the focus of counting or math. When children are ready to add writing into a work, they may do so, otherwise, simply using the materials is the lesson alone. Written products are not representative of real knowledge of the student. Manipulating the materials during class time is the practice that we observe, and by observing, we can gauge the child’s abilities on the given material and the knowledge they have of math concepts.
here to edit.
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