Montessori Has Changed My 3-Year-Old

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This year my 3-year-old has started going to a Montessori Pre-school/Elementary School. We have the amazing privilege to send him to a Montessori school that is committed to serving the community so there is no tuition!

“Never help a child with a task at which he feels he can succeed” -Maria Montessori

What is Montessori

This is not the topic of this post, so I will keep this brief. I do have another that discusses what Montessori is that you should check out! I will probably be posting more about Montessori learning later because I am learning so much and really getting to see the benefits. Montessori is a method of education that focuses very heavily on teaching students practical skills to encourage independence in children. The classrooms are all very “homey” looking to make a very comfortable learning environment. Everything is the right size and level for students to take care of their needs and get anything that they need to accomplish their daily tasks.

I had originally wanted to homeschool and still thought that it just would never be possible financially. Montessori seemed to be styled very similarly to how I would have taught my children at home-lots of independence, high expectations, self-paced learning.

The more I have learned about Montessori while deciding to send Theron to preschool, the more I have fallen in love with it! In fact, once I am officially a stay-at-home mom I have a goal of making our playroom more of a Montessori-inspired space and incorporating some of the practices from school into our daily life. I even think that I will keep him in it instead of homeschooling! We’ll see.

If you are interested in learning more about Montessori you can visit American Montessori Society’s website HERE

“The greatest sign of success for a teacher… is to be able to say, ‘The children are now working as if I did not exist.'” -Maria Montessori

Changes

In the two short months he has been at school, I have seen so many changes in Theron. I am continually looking at my boy and thinking, “Who is this kid? How did he get so big? When did he learn to do that?!”

I could probably list pages full of all the little things I’ve seen and all the things that have amazed me about this amazing stage in life. Many are changes that I would have seen just from him being three, but I feel like being at school, and more specifically in the Montessori setting, has magnified these amazing life skills! 

Independence

I put independence as number 1. This is simply because, WOW. I have always encouraged my son to do things on his own if he is able. I give him opportunities to try things on his own regularly. But all mom’s know, sometimes it is just easier to get it done!

One of the top priorities of a Montessori classroom is to build practical life skills and independence. The students prepare their own snacks and wash their own dishes afterward. They are encouraged to do everything on their own as much as they are capable. Within a couple of WEEKS I saw a change in his attitude toward completing any task. No longer is it an immediate, “Need Heeeelllllpppp….” then crying when I say he should try it by himself. Now he wants to do everything himself!

Sharing

This one I think just comes from being in a school setting period. My son has been in daycare since he was about 1 year old, so he’s been around other kids. The structure in school is just a lot more rigid. We always have encouraged him to share with his friends and share with his sister, and he’s USUALLY pretty good about it. We do have to tell him though. Lately I have seen him initiate the action when his sister waddles up to him while he’s playing. He will say “Hi, Harper! ‘Onna Play?” then “Harper turn, Theron turn, Harper turn, Theron turn.” Seriously, so precious.

Picking up after himself (correctly!)

The Montessori structure is very self-led. This doesn’t happen in a day. The students are first shown very explicitly how everything should be done- EXACTLY where things go and how they look there. Montessori guides them a lot at first. But then the students are have freedom to choose their task they will work on (within given parameters, of course) and work on it, explore, discover… then when they are done with that activity they must put it back on the shelf, where they found it, exactly how they found it and move on to the next task.

This is now how he plays at home. I let him play. He will go to his Play-Doh drawer take out one or two colors, play quietly for awhile, experiment with the play dough, make different shapes, etc. for like 30 minutes to an hour! I mean that’s a long time for a 3-year-old to sit quietly by himself playing with Play-Doh. He then puts it away and moves on to his next toy or activity! What? I have been trying to teach him this since he was old enough to pick up his toys! OKAY, that’s only been like a year-but still, his teacher has him for a few weeks and he’s got it down?

Mindfulness of his surroundings

This one sort of goes along with picking up after himself. This mindfulness, though, is more that he notices things are out of place or not right. When he sees something on the floor at the store, he picks it up and finds where it goes on the shelf. He notices me set trash next to me on the counter while I’m preparing his snack and before I get a chance to throw it away he takes it to the trash. It’s even more than just wanting to help. This has always happened. If I said “Theron will you throw this away?” He would have been happy to do it. What is different now is just the task-oriented, “this needs to be done so I’m taking care of it” kind of attitude.

Confidence-He can even recognize and (sort of) write his name!

Theron has always been a pretty quiet kid. He has a small voice and he won’t usually talk to people until he’s been around them for a long time. At home it’s non-stop chatter, but when he’s around others, people think he can’t talk. In the 2 years he was with his daycare teacher he BARELY said one word to her! She just kind of had to guess when to send him potty.

Now I have seen so much more confidence in him. He has a voice and he tells me so much more! His confidence in his skills has greatly increased. He will find letters and shapes everywhere and shout them out to whoever is around.

I guess what I’m saying here is I am very pleased with our decision. Since I am a teacher I can’t help but compare how things work there compared to my school. Granted, the parents of the students in Theron’s school have to apply to get in, and behavior issues like what I have to manage in my school are not tolerated for very long. I am sure this definitely helps learning happen more effectively as well as the Montessori method. But when I taught summer school it was a mix of students from different schools in our district and whenever there was a student that I thought “Whoa… he’s like light years ahead of where everyone else is at this grade level” they ended up being from the Montessori school that my son attends now.

I look forward to learning more about it and seeing how Theron grows this year and the coming years!

**UPDATE** Check out how we are starting to incorporate Montessori principles in our home HERE!

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