Learning About the Montessori Method & the 5 Areas of the Prepared Montessori Classroom

At Village Montessori & Preparatory School in Fort Mill, SC, we are more than a childcare or preschool.  We are an actively engaged Montessori School that supports families and children looking for a dynamic, safe, well-rounded education for their children that teaches independence and school readiness.

Below we have shared how the Montessori Method and the 5 Areas of the Prepared Classroom at Village Montessori & Preparatory School enable independent work and exploration. You will see how these works are designed in each of the 5 core areas of the classroom and our approach to Balanced Literacy. 

THE MONTESSORI METHOD

​Maria Montessori’s entire approach is rooted in holism – focused as much on the immaterial (matters of the heart, psyche and spirit) as the material (learning by manipulating works with the five senses and developing motor skills). Just as man is not one-dimensional, but is made up of immaterial aspects and physical material.

The Montessori Method offers a true “whole child” approach to development: cognitive, spiritual, social, emotional and physical.

This method enables children of mixed age groups to explore a myriad of materials with differing levels of difficulty and learn as they are naturally inclined. It also fosters a child’s leadership and followership skills. Older children solidify their understanding of material they have mastered as they help younger children with their work and younger children have a heightened desire to complete a work if an older child is assisting.

5 AREAS OF THE PREPARED ENVIRONMENT

​Classrooms at Village Montessori contain Montessori materials prepared on child-sized shelves and displayed in 5 Key Areas of The Classroom: Practical Life, Sensorial, Mathematics, Culture and Science, and Language Arts.

Although the areas and work within the areas build upon one another, no subject is taught in isolation. The whole classroom is accessible to the children at all times and once a child receives a presentation on a particular work, he or she is welcome to choose the work independently going forward.

PRACTICAL LIFE

​The purpose of the practical life area is two-fold: The activities are to assist the child in developing social skills and personal independence. Children will learn to respect and to take care of themselves and their environment, and to respect others. The second purpose is to develop the child’s gross and fine motor movement that will provide the foundation for every other facet of the learning environment.

All Practical Life Activities are uniquely purposeful and calming, and may appear simple and repetitive. However, if you were to observe a child as they perform such activities, you would notice a high level of concentration; a developing sense of order (putting materials back where they belong); pride in their work; taking responsibility for any necessary cleaning; and increasing sense of independence.

Activities may include watering and caring for flowers and plants, cleaning up one's work space, putting away their Montessori work as it was originally found, caring for their own belongings in the classroom, learning to care for classroom spaces, etc.

Practical Life Activities are designed to encourage competencies in the following categories: Preliminary Activities; Care and Respect for Self; Care and Respect for the Environment; Social Grace and Courtesy; Fine Motor Skills; and Life Skills.

SENSORIAL DEVELOPMENT

Sensorial training provides a basis for learning in an orderly manner, which prepares children’s minds for mathematics. The materials refine the senses and develop cognitive skills such as thinking, judging, associating, and comparing.

Activities include visual discrimination by size, color, shape, etc., discrimination by audibility, smell, texture and heat conducting properties, pattern recognition and sequencing.

MATHEMATICS

The Practical Life and Sensorial materials in the classroom prepare a child’s mind for Mathematics. Practical Life work offers sequence, and practice with processes. It appeals to a child’s intellect because it has a purpose and a child completes it with order and precision.

Sensorial work is done with exactness. It engages a child’s mind to classify experience and this classifying (using the five senses to discriminate by dimension, weight, smell, etc.) enables a child to draw conclusions. Further, sensorial work lays the foundation for math by preparing the mind for the study of sequence and progression.

Math is taught in this order: numbers through ten, the decimal system, counting beyond ten, memorizing the arithmetic tables, passage to abstraction (working with more symbols on paper and with less of the concrete math material) and fractions. There is overlap amongst the last groups of lessons.

LANGUAGE ARTS

​The first eight years of a child’s life are the critical years for literacy development. Exposing children to a literacy-rich environment begins with reading aloud. Reading aloud to children, especially with enthusiasm and inflection of the voice, facilitates children’s readiness for formal reading instruction in four areas: oral, cognitive skills, concepts of printed words, and phonetic awareness.

A Montessori language arts program combines phonics with a whole language curriculum. Phonics is defined as a method of teaching children to read, write and pronounce words by learning the phonetic value of letters, letter groups and syllables. Whole language indicates that children will learn to read and write by being immersed into a world of spoken and written words.

We utilize the Balanced Literacy reading program to compliment the Montessori materials, which contains both approaches. In addition to reading activities like reading aloud, our students have the opportunity to foster language arts skills through public speaking, show and share, telling a story about pictures and experiences, seeing printed labels, tracing, coloring and writing.

CULTURE & SCIENCE

​It is important for young children to learn about history, their environment, nature and science to help them understand their place in the world and spark their curiosity in the world itself. As in all areas of the Montessori classroom, Culture and Science materials and concepts are presented in the most natural, life-like or realistic way possible.

For example, we will place real caterpillar eggs with food in a butterfly cage to observe the lifecycle of the butterfly in addition to reading about it and discussing the stages as a group. Materials include topics about Geography, Introduction to History, Introduction to Botany, Introduction to Zoology, and Introduction to Science.

To learn more about our Prepared Classrooms and Montessori Curriculum, we invite you to Schedule a Tour to visit our Fort Mill, SC location. We would love the opportunity to show you our school in motion!