Montessori Glossary

Montessori Glossary

The Prepared Environment The Prepared Environment—Unlike traditional education, where there is primarily a two part structure (Teacher/Student), Montessori classrooms have three equal parts (Teacher/Student/Environment). A Montessori teacher has the responsibility of preparing the classroom environment with appealing hands-on materials so that the environment also becomes the child's "teacher." A classroom that has all the materials for every lesson that a child in that classroom will need for that day. The lessons, (Which are often called jobs  or works because we teach our students that everybody has a job, and at this moment in their lives their most important job is to learn.),  with all the materials that they will need for that lesson are neatly organized in a box, basket or tray  and placed so that the children can easily access and work with them.

Concrete to Abstract Concrete to Abstract—The classrooms are filled with hands-on materials. Montessori believed that knowledge proceeds from the hand to the brain. Students tend to be more relaxed and settled when they are placing colored pegs on a board, (square root) or scrubbing a table (Children's House practical life activity). Concrete materials make concepts real, and therefore easily internalized. The student works abstractly (paper and pencil) when he or she has internalized the pattern and no longer needs the material.

Sensitive Periods Sensitive Periods—The Montessori pedagogy is based on a relationship between the readiness or "sensitivity" of the learner and the specifically designed hands-on material. Montessori sensitive periods (for language, for order, for imagination, for abstraction) are linked to what we often think of as developmental education. Children learn better and more when the lesson matches their interest, when the teacher individualizes, and refrains from interfering with children who are concentrating. A special time in a child's life when he easily learns a particular skill if he is allowed to practice it exhaustively during this time. She referred to it as, ". . . a passing impulse or potency." Her theory of sensitive periods is now confirmed by scientists and even the popular culture, with Time magazine calling it "Windows of Opportunity

Normalization Normalization—Normalization is the Montessori term for a healthy, well-adjusted child who learns effectively in any situation. Being in a Montessori environment for a period of years brings about normalization, no matter how challenging the home environment.

The Absorbent Mind The Absorbent Mind—Montessori distinguished between periods of growth, where the intelligence is directed inwardly in an act of self-construction; and periods of development, where the intelligence is directed outwardly toward increasing knowledge, information, and experience in the world. The period from ages 3-6 is a period of growth. Montessori often compared the child’s mind to a sponge, which "absorbs" everything in its surroundings.