Are children able to learn in a mixed-age environment
?
In Montessori, children of different ages learn together in the same classroom. This promotes collaboration, social skills, empathy, and the sharing of knowledge. Older children become mentors to younger ones, fostering a sense of community and mutual respect.
Smelling bottles are standard material in the Sensorial area of a Montessori classroom. The smelling bottles are a part of the early childhood Montessori Sensorial lesson sequence, focusing on the olfactory sense.
Children and adults alike can have fun with the smelling jars, and they’re easily adaptable for different spices and leaves. The purpose is for the child to develop their sense of smell. The process is simple – the child sniffs their way through the bottles trying to match two identical scents.
Making the smelling bottles is pretty straightforward and can be done with items we already have around our school compound – betel leaves, pandan leaves, curry leaves, and kaffir leaves.
“Movement, or physical activity, is thus an essential factor in intellectual growth, which depends upon the impressions received from outside.
Through movement, we come in contact with external reality, and it is through these contacts, we eventually acquire even abstract ideas.” ~ Maria Montessori
“There is not just a need for happier schools, schools where the children are free to do as they like or schools where they use certain materials: education today needs reform. If education is to prepare man for the present and the immediate future, he will need a new orientation towards the environment. ” – Maria Montessori
The constructive triangles are used to demonstrate that all geometric plane figures can be constructed from triangles. The triangles are called ‘constructive’ because they construct other rectilinear shapes. These materials provide a foundation for concepts of equivalency, similarity, and congruency.
It’s polygons for Sensorial! Can you recall how much time it took for you to remember and understand the name of polygons? Through materialized concepts, children can understand these abstract concepts.
