Montessori and Multi-Tasker-ing

I was trained first as a Montessori teacher and I later taught at a traditional school. I must give my Montessori training credit because I would not be half the teacher I am today with out it.

Maria Montessori believed that the best way for children to learn about a subject was to explore it through the five senses. If a child is first learning to read, a typical Montessori reading station is set up where the students can hear what SOUNDS the letters make (Montessori children learn the sound of the letter, not the name of the letter first.) There would also be flat wooden blocks where the letters that had different textures the students could feel with their hands. The students could match letters with colorful pictures, "F" for flower, for example. The possibilities are endless.

If you wanted to teach children about the different uses of garden herbs in cooking what would be more educational: lecturing your students on herbs and giving a coloring sheet of an cartoonist's depiction of what a generic herb looks like or would you rather have them plant an herb garden, talk about seeds, what seeds look like for each herb, discuss the plant life cycle, count how many seeds are planted, keep track of how many seeds take root, experiment with different types of soil and predict and calculate the progress of the herbs based on different soil types, collect the herbs, feel the herbs, smell the different herbs, draw the herbs, collect the herbs from the garden, use the herbs in cooking a small batch of soup for snack one day, teach sharing and cooperation in the meantime.

The main point of this tidbit of information is that children learn very differently from one another, and often at different rates. Montessori can provide the environment for students at different levels and with different learning styles in the same classroom.