#: locale=en
## Tour
### Description
tour.description = Children's House Visit
### Title
tour.name = Montessori School of the Berkshrires
## Skin
### Multiline Text
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HTMLText_0AAB3502_69FF_FBB8_41D8_1D61BE094AC0.html = LISTEN - ART APPRECIATION
In addition to many opportunities for self-expression through creative art activities, we also want to provide children with the opportunity to appreciate art.
We have a set of art appreciation cards, where children begin to identify famous artworks. At first, they may just be matching images, and eventually they are starting to find pairs of artwork that are from the same artist or the same genre.
And through this, they are beginning to notice details. We talk about the artwork, and see what they notice. We explore what appeals to them.
This art appreciation is built into the classroom environment. The room has beautiful artwork on the walls and in picture frames on shelves around the room. Each item placed in the environment is done as if we are presenting it in a beautiful interactive museum.
We want everything in the classroom to appeal to children, and to be beautiful and to honor that they appreciate that beauty.
While grace and courtesy are part of the everyday experience in a Montessori classroom, there are also some activities we do very purposely and deliberately. Some of these include learning how to carry a chair carefully, or how to ask a friend to observe their work, or perhaps even the details of how to greet a guest.
There are also activities that really help children become aware of their body and their movements, so they can develop a very conscious control of their movements.
Some of the activities children love are those that involve walking on the line. We have an ellipse on the floor and we have a series of materials and movements that we introduce to help children to be able to move along that line, perhaps balancing something on their head or carrying a delicate teacup.
And some of the activities help them develop rhythm and being able to follow a beat. Above all, we want the children to be able to learn how to move with grace, which is really thoughtful and analyzed movement. Children love the challenge of being able to close a door without making a sound, and appreciate learning how to knock on a door and wait for a response.
Courtesy is really about moving beyond the self and acting from the heart. It's about being able to live in community and realize that the things we do have an impact on those around us.
Young children thrive on ritual and routine, and some of the grace and courtesy activities are as simple as making sure we are greeting children at the door in the same way -- in the same manner each morning.
Our aim is to teach by example, rather than through correction. We model positive behavior and we see the older children doing that for their younger peers. Grace and courtesy permeate the classroom environment, and really make our days function smoothly and with beauty.
The practical life area is really the heart of a Montessori primary classroom. This is where children not only learn the skills to help them successfully navigate their day, it's also where children start to develop the focus and concentration that will lead to bigger and more complex work -- not only in their formative years, but also as they mature.
The practical life area is composed of some sub areas. We have activities for caring for oneself, such as learning how to dress and undress, how to navigate buttons, how to zip.
We also have activities for caring for the environment. We start simply, such as with dusting the beautiful math beads, and then go into more complicated activities with multiple steps, like being able to scrub a table that's dirty, or wash dirty cloths.
In addition to caring for oneself and caring for the environment, we also have food preparation activities, and activities that help children learn how to move with control. They are developing fine and gross motor skills, and also learning how to be courteous when living and working in a community.
Some of the children's favorite practical life activities involve food. We do a lot of food preparation in the classroom, and the children love to be able to learn how to carefully and precisely use the tools that are required for food preparation.
When we teach food preparation activities, we really break down each step, so the child can be successful. We show how to hold a knife and how to slice. We show how to clean up and how to serve.
When we really slow down and analyze each step of the process, so as to show the child, they experience a lot of success and take great pride in being able to do the everyday activities that help us become independent.
LISTEN - GRACE & COURTESY
The sensorial area is such a rich and beautiful part of the Montessori primary classroom. It is here where children get to explore with their senses in really powerful ways. These materials isolate qualities, they isolate the sense, they are interactive, and they offer keys to the physical world.
The sensory materials support the young child's developing mind. They are learning how to classify impressions. And it's a really formative time of brain development that lays the foundation for a lifetime of order and precision, as well as logical and reasoned thinking.
The young child comes into a Montessori environment already having gathered so many impressions about the world. And using the sensorial materials allows children to classify and categorize all of these impressions that they've been taking in since birth.
Dr. Maria Montessori talked about the process of categorizing and classifying impressions. It's a little bit like collecting things and throwing them into a closet, and that's what's happening for children from birth until about age three. At first, it's a bit of a hodgepodge. It's like an unorganized collection that the child has to sort through, to access what's needed.
But the sensorial materials allow the child to start to organize that closet full of impressions and create order to it, and even eventually label those different categories. It's a beautiful process and we see children start to be able to access that information with precision.
The geography area of a Montessori primary classroom is really an extension of the sensorial work that we do. The geography materials offer children an opportunity to really understand this amazing earth upon which we live.
We start with the small globes, which offer an opportunity to experience the pattern of land and water surfaces over the planet. Then we move into an understanding of continents and oceans, then into political geography, even learning the countries of different continents.
Children love this work, and they extend it in many ways, from going into more depth with learning the land and water forms of the world, to beginning to learn the flags and patterns of what the colors and symbols mean on flags.
Our focus in geography is to provide a rich and broad experience of the physical and human elements of life around the planet.
Dr. Maria Montessori referred to how humans have a mathematical mind. We love to discover patterns and calculate, and young children are doing that too. So we take advantage of their interest, their wonder about the mathematical world around them. We offer opportunities for them to really go as far as they want with their mathematical understanding.
The math materials in Montessori are just so beautiful and engaging for children -- and often for adults who visit the classrooms. There is a progression that we use for the math materials that really helps children solidify understanding in a deep way.
We first make sure that there's a very strong understanding of the quantity. Next we introduce the symbol. Then we provide opportunity for the child to make an association between the quantity and symbol. So those are put together and the relationship is established.
Then there are lots of activities for practice and repetition. And finally, there are some activities that give an opportunity for verification.
We provide children with the opportunity to move beyond just initial numeracy and start to understand our decimal system. We have beautiful golden bead materials for understanding units, tens, hundreds, and thousands, and beautiful bead materials to be able to start to understand the concept of multiples and even squaring and cubing.
Because the concepts are first presented concretely, even young children can access this amazing and complex mathematical foundation.
The math area is divided into some subsections. We have activities for understanding numbers 1 through 10, we have activities for work with the decimal system.
We have some more activities to extend their understanding into teen numbers and work with multiples, and we have a whole set of materials for exploration and memorization in addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.
We also have an area for work with fractions. And finally, we have an area that is called passage to abstraction. This is when some of the oldest children are starting to move into work like long division and compound multiplication, and they're using materials to understand this concretely before they head into the elementary program, where they start to discover the abstraction -- the way to do the work solely on paper.
Young children are exploring and absorbing language effortlessly. So we use all the opportunities we can to enrich their vocabulary in a very organized way.
We have language materials on the shelves, and we also use interactions as a way to provide a rich language experience. We may have a conversation about a picture on the wall, or we introduce parts of speech through experiential games.
While the language area can be represented by the shelves that you see, there's so much more that happens in the daily interactions in the classroom.
As the children in a Montessori primary classroom begin to read, they quickly move beyond the phonetic sounding out of a word into being able to use key phonograms that unlock the world of reading. And we provide lots of opportunities for reading practice in the context of their daily experience.
As children develop their reading skills, we start to use other materials to build upon the spoken language vocabulary that they possess. In addition, they're doing some interpretive reading, where they are starting to learn about the functions of words in a sentence, as well as how sentences work.
We are also supporting written language in two ways. We have work that's helping children strengthen their hand, so they develop the fine motor skills to be able to write with a pencil. But that takes a while. So simultaneously we are also doing work to help children be able to express themselves. This begins with sandpaper letters and understanding that each letter has a sound that goes with it.
It continues with materials like the movable alphabet to allow children to be able to start composing and sharing their ideas and stories in written form.
LISTEN - FOOD PREPARATION
Welcome to the Children's House classroom. This room is one of two spaces dedicated to our community of two-and-a-half to six-year-olds. The day features individualized instruction organized into several long cycles of activity. During this time, children can work intensively on activities that meet their developmental needs and engage their natural curiosity.
Looking around, you will see that the room is divided into distinct areas. We invite you to explore each area and learn about different aspects of the Montessori curriculum.
Young children are exploring and absorbing language effortlessly. So we use all the opportunities we can to enrich their vocabulary in a very organized way.
We have language materials on the shelves, and we also use interactions as a way to provide a rich language experience. We may have a conversation about a picture on the wall, or we introduce parts of speech through experiential games.
While the language area can be represented by the shelves that you see, there's so much more that happens in the daily interactions in the classroom.
As the children in a Montessori primary classroom begin to read, they quickly move beyond the phonetic sounding out of a word into being able to use key phonograms that unlock the world of reading. And we provide lots of opportunities for reading practice in the context of their daily experience.
As children develop their reading skills, we start to use other materials to build upon the spoken language vocabulary that they possess. In addition, they're doing some interpretive reading, where they are starting to learn about the functions of words in a sentence, as well as how sentences work.
We are also supporting written language in two ways. We have work that's helping children strengthen their hand, so they develop the fine motor skills to be able to write with a pencil. But that takes a while. So simultaneously we are also doing work to help children be able to express themselves. This begins with sandpaper letters and understanding that each letter has a sound that goes with it.
It continues with materials like the movable alphabet to allow children to be able to start composing and sharing their ideas and stories in written form.
Dr. Maria Montessori referred to how humans have a mathematical mind. We love to discover patterns and calculate, and young children are doing that too.
So we take advantage of their interest, their wonder about the mathematical world around them. We offer opportunities for them to really go as far as they want with their mathematical understanding.
The math materials in Montessori are just so beautiful and engaging for children -- and often for adults who visit the classrooms. There is a progression that we use for the math materials that really helps children solidify understanding in a deep way.
We first make sure that there's a very strong understanding of the quantity. Next we introduce the symbol. Then we provide opportunity for the child to make an association between the quantity and symbol. So those are put together and the relationship is established.
Then there are lots of activities for practice and repetition. And finally, there are some activities that give an opportunity for verification.
We provide children with the opportunity to move beyond just initial numeracy and start to understand our decimal system. We have beautiful golden bead materials for understanding units, tens, hundreds, and thousands, and beautiful bead materials to be able to start to understand the concept of multiples and even squaring and cubing.
Because the concepts are first presented concretely, even young children can access this amazing and complex mathematical foundation.
The math area is divided into some subsections. We have activities for understanding numbers 1 through 10, we have activities for work with the decimal system.
We have some more activities to extend their understanding into teen numbers and work with multiples, and we have a whole set of materials for exploration and memorization in addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.
We also have an area for work with fractions. And finally, we have an area that is called passage to abstraction. This is when some of the oldest children are starting to move into work like long division and compound multiplication, and they're using materials to understand this concretely before they head into the elementary program, where they start to discover the abstraction -- the way to do the work solely on paper.
Color Coding
The math materials in Montessori are beautiful, and also use color coding as a way for the child to have multiple avenues to make neurological connections. Thus, a color is associated with a quantity and numeral, which allows the child's brain to make quick connections -- those synapses get fired in different ways and provide the child with a strong grounding to really understand what's happening mathematically.
Golden Beads
Work with the golden bead materials is something that the children just treasure. These are beautiful glass materials, and they provide a very concrete representation of the quantities of units, tens, hundreds, and thousands. Once children understand and grasp the sheer magnitude of 1000 glass beads in the thousand cube, they are so excited to associate the numeral -- the written form of 1000 -- with that quantity. And we play all sorts of games to really solidify this association.
Once the children have that established, we begin to move into operations with the decimal system. So we start to do addition and subtraction and multiplication and division with quantities in the thousands. And the children have so much fun with these games.
They quickly become very adept at understanding what the operations mean and are not deterred by the fact that they are working with large numbers. In fact, they are overjoyed by the fact that they are working with large numbers.
In addition to many opportunities for self-expression through creative art activities, we also want to provide children with the opportunity to appreciate art.
We have a set of art appreciation cards, where children begin to identify famous artworks. At first, they may just be matching images, and eventually they are starting to find pairs of artwork that are from the same artist or the same genre.
And through this, they are beginning to notice details. We talk about the artwork, and see what they notice. We explore what appeals to them.
This art appreciation is built into the classroom environment. The room has beautiful artwork on the walls and in picture frames on shelves around the room. Each item placed in the environment is done as if we are presenting it in a beautiful interactive museum.
We want everything in the classroom to appeal to children, and to be beautiful and to honor that they appreciate that beauty.
While grace and courtesy are part of the everyday experience in a Montessori classroom, there are also some activities we do very purposely and deliberately. Some of these include learning how to carry a chair carefully, or how to ask a friend to observe their work, or perhaps even the details of how to greet a guest.
There are also activities that really help children become aware of their body and their movements, so they can develop a very conscious control of their movements.
Some of the activities children love are those that involve walking on the line. We have an ellipse on the floor and we have a series of materials and movements that we introduce to help children to be able to move along that line, perhaps balancing something on their head or carrying a delicate teacup.
And some of the activities help them develop rhythm and being able to follow a beat. Above all, we want the children to be able to learn how to move with grace, which is really thoughtful and analyzed movement. Children love the challenge of being able to close a door without making a sound, and appreciate learning how to knock on a door and wait for a response.
Courtesy is really about moving beyond the self and acting from the heart. It's about being able to live in community and realize that the things we do have an impact on those around us.
Young children thrive on ritual and routine, and some of the grace and courtesy activities are as simple as making sure we are greeting children at the door in the same way -- in the same manner each morning.
Our aim is to teach by example, rather than through correction. We model positive behavior and we see the older children doing that for their younger peers. Grace and courtesy permeate the classroom environment, and really make our days function smoothly and with beauty.
The sensorial area is such a rich and beautiful part of the Montessori primary classroom. It is here where children get to explore with their senses in really powerful ways. These materials isolate qualities, they isolate the sense, they are interactive, and they offer keys to the physical world.
The sensory materials support the young child's developing mind. They are learning how to classify impressions. And it's a really formative time of brain development that lays the foundation for a lifetime of order and precision, as well as logical and reasoned thinking.
The young child comes into a Montessori environment already having gathered so many impressions about the world. And using the sensorial materials allows children to classify and categorize all of these impressions that they've been taking in since birth.
Dr. Maria Montessori talked about the process of categorizing and classifying impressions. It's a little bit like collecting things and throwing them into a closet, and that's what's happening for children from birth until about age three. At first, it's a bit of a hodgepodge. It's like an unorganized collection that the child has to sort through, to access what's needed.
But the sensorial materials allow the child to start to organize that closet full of impressions and create order to it, and even eventually label those different categories. It's a beautiful process and we see children start to be able to access that information with precision.
The geography area of a Montessori primary classroom is really an extension of the sensorial work that we do. The geography materials offer children an opportunity to really understand this amazing earth upon which we live.
We start with the small globes, which offer an opportunity to experience the pattern of land and water surfaces over the planet. Then we move into an understanding of continents and oceans, then into political geography, even learning the countries of different continents.
Children love this work, and they extend it in many ways, from going into more depth with learning the land and water forms of the world, to beginning to learn the flags and patterns of what the colors and symbols mean on flags.
Our focus in geography is to provide a rich and broad experience of the physical and human elements of life around the planet.
The practical life area is really the heart of a Montessori primary classroom. This is where children not only learn the skills to help them successfully navigate their day, it's also where children start to develop the focus and concentration that will lead to bigger and more complex work -- not only in their formative years, but also as they mature.
The practical life area is composed of some sub areas. We have activities for caring for oneself, such as learning how to dress and undress, how to navigate buttons, how to zip.
We also have activities for caring for the environment. We start simply, such as with dusting the beautiful math beads, and then go into more complicated activities with multiple steps, like being able to scrub a table that's dirty, or wash dirty cloths.
In addition to caring for oneself and caring for the environment, we also have food preparation activities, and activities that help children learn how to move with control. They are developing fine and gross motor skills, and also learning how to be courteous when living and working in a community.
Some of the children's favorite practical life activities involve food. We do a lot of food preparation in the classroom, and the children love to be able to learn how to carefully and precisely use the tools that are required for food preparation.
When we teach food preparation activities, we really break down each step, so the child can be successful. We show how to hold a knife and how to slice. We show how to clean up and how to serve.
When we really slow down and analyze each step of the process, so as to show the child, they experience a lot of success and take great pride in being able to do the everyday activities that help us become independent.
Welcome to the Children's House classroom. This room is one of two spaces dedicated to our community of two-and-a-half to six-year-olds. The day features individualized instruction organized into several long cycles of activity. During this time, children can work intensively on activities that meet their developmental needs and engage their natural curiosity.
Looking around, you will see that the room is divided into distinct areas. We invite you to explore each area and learn about different aspects of the Montessori curriculum.
LISTEN -
ART APPRECIATION
LISTEN -
GRACE & COURTESY
One of our practical life activities is cloth washing. While we don't need to necessarily use a scrub board to wash our cloths, the process is more about giving the child an opportunity to have an impact on their environment. They see that there are some dirty cloths in the laundry basket, and they can wash them.
But even more than that, it gives the child an opportunity to increase their self-control and self-discipline. Can they pour the water into the basin without making a drop -- without spilling it? Can they get enough soap on the scrub board to be able to get the cloth clean? And at the end, do they wring out the cloth enough so that it doesn't drip? Do they clean up the material so that it's beautiful for the next person who wants to use it?
And in this whole process, there are a number of steps the child is following to make sure that they have success with the work. This builds up their intelligence and their memory, tools that will be very important as they move on to other work.
When children begin to use the bells in the classroom, they're just so delighted by the opportunity to create music. At first, we teach how to use the bells carefully, how to strike the bell delicately to produce a nice tone, how to use the damper to stop the sound. Then we move on to being able to match a pitch or being able to grade the bells so that we can play up and down the bells to make sure that they are in harmony.
Eventually, children begin to learn how to compose their own music, and we even have materials for being able to notate that music.
The Montessori materials offer a built-in control of error. The children don't need to check with an adult to figure out if they've done something correctly -- they can check themselves. And this opens up a whole new path for the child being able to recognize that they are owners and drivers of their learning and education.
We want children to realize that mistakes are opportunities to learn, and some of the most rich growth can come out of figuring out where your mistake lies and how to fix it.
Work with the golden bead materials is something that the children just treasure. These are beautiful glass materials, and they provide a very concrete representation of the quantities of units, tens, hundreds, and thousands. Once children understand and grasp the sheer magnitude of 1000 glass beads in the thousand cube, they are so excited to associate the numeral -- the written form of 1000 -- with that quantity. And we play all sorts of games to really solidify this association.
Once the children have that established, we begin to move into operations with the decimal system. So we start to do addition and subtraction and multiplication and division with quantities in the thousands. And the children have so much fun with these games.
They quickly become very adept at understanding what the operations mean and are not deterred by the fact that they are working with large numbers. In fact, they are overjoyed by the fact that they are working with large numbers.
The math materials in Montessori are beautiful, and also use color coding as a way for the child to have multiple avenues to make neurological connections. Thus, a color is associated with a quantity and numeral, which allows the child's brain to make quick connections -- those synapses get fired in different ways and provide the child with a strong grounding to really understand what's happening mathematically.
Young children love to repeat their activities. When they get to practice again and again, perhaps polishing wood or polishing silver, they see that each time they're getting that silver pitcher just a little bit more shiny and a little bit more beautiful, and they can see the results of their work.
After lots of work with identifying sounds in words, and making the association of the sound to the letter and the formation of that letter, we move children into work with the movable alphabet -- and they love the movable alphabet.
We have many movable alphabets available in the classroom, because they are like pencil and paper for children who are ready to compose but who aren't yet writing.
When children use the movable alphabet, we can observe their phonetic understanding. We can see where they're puzzling through which letters form particular sounds as they start to isolate those sounds out from a word. If we see a child is struggling with identifying particular sounds, the Montessori guide can then come back and reteach or revisit a concept.
Children love to get out the movable alphabet and start to compose and share their stories.
You'll notice that the room is really set up for children. The artwork is at a child's line of sight, the sinks are accessible. Any supplies that the children need, they can access. This not only encourages the children's independence and helps them become really capable young people, but it also means that they can navigate their space with a sense of ownership and responsibility.
You'll notice that we have lots of plants for the children to tend to. We have animals, so the children can learn how to take care of other living things. We also have many fragile items. We purposely have these items for the children to learn how to master their movements and to use things with care.