How to Create a Montessori-Style Home School

Many people wish to avoid the high tuition cost of a Montessori education, so they seek to replicate the classroom in a Montessori-style home school. To be successful, one must first learn about the philosophy, then have the appropriate materials on hand.

Things You'll Need

• Books by Maria Montessori
• Books about Montessori
• Child-sized furniture
• Child-sized cooking and cleaning materials
• Montessori materials either purchased or created

Instructions

Familiarize Yourself with Montessori Education

1. Read up on Montessori education, using books written by Maria herself. Classics include The Montessori Method, Dr. Montessori's Own Handbook, The Discovery of the Child, and The Secret of Childhood.

2. Seek out books by more contemporary authors, as well. Great titles include Montessori From the Start: The Child At Home from Birth to Age Three by Paula Polk Lilliard and Lynn Lilliard Jessen, Montessori Today by Paula Polk Lilliard, Montessori Play and Learn by Leslie Britton, Montessori Read and Write by Leslie Britton, Montessori: A Modern Approach by Paula Polk Lilliard, Teaching Montessori in the Home: The Preschool Years by Elizabeth G. Hainstock

3. Visit Montessori websites for further information. Organizations such as the American Montessori Society are full of information for parents.

4. Take notes on what you read, and carefully plan out how you are going to set up your home, the activities, and demonstrations.

5. Inquire about Montessori training either in your area, or via correspondence.

6. Schedule visits to many Montessori classrooms, to get a feel for the layout and techniques employed.

Setting Up the Montessori Environment at Home

1. Designate an area of your house to be the Montessori classroom. This is an area in which activities are done. The kitchen is a great place for a lot of the Practical Life curriculum activities and some science. Other activities should be done in an area away from the chaotic daily activities.

2. Provide tables and chairs that are child-sized. Keep activities on low shelves, or otherwise within the child's reach. To encourage independence, the child should be able to access her own materials and move about freely.

3. Maintain a minimalist decor. Avoid over-decorating the walls with educational posters and gawdy artwork. Simple, calming colors are best, with perhaps some fine art hanging.

Tips on Practical Life

1. Provide your child with kid-sized kitchen utensils that are located within her reach. She should be learning how to prepare food to feed herself. She should be practicing pouring her own drinks. If you set up the activity for her and show her how to do it, she will be able to independently perform it.

2. Teach your child how to perform cleaning tasks around the house, and provide her with her own natural cleaning solutions and supplies. Allow her to practice when she wants.

3. Have your child practice self-help skills by leaving out a variety of extra clothes and shoes for buttoning, snapping, tying, zipping, and buckling practice. Encourage her to do it herself before going outside, when using the bathroom, etc.

4. Give her opportunities to practice her fine motor skills by squeezing modeling clay, using tweezers to pick up rice, stringing beads, sewing buttons.

Tips on Sensorial Activities

1. Provide a variety of ways to allow your child to explore his senses. The sensorial area has activities that focus on one sense at a time.

2. Create your own sound materials by using different items, such as salt, rice, beads, bells, inside opaque containers that are sealed shut. Your child can practice matching them, as well as grading them in order from loudest to softest.

3. Mount different grades of sandpaper on a sturdy backing, such as wood or poster board to allow your child to explore texture. Have him practice matching two different textures with his eyes closed, or to grade them in order of roughest to smoothest. Further practice can be done with different kinds of material.

4. Look into purchasing activities such as the Pink Tower, Brown/Broad Stair, Red Rods, Knobbed Cylinders, Knobless Cylinders, from a Montessori company. Kaybee Montessori, Neinhuis, Bruins, Montessori 'n' Such, are all reputable companies. Also check catalogs such as Discovery Toys and Deep Discount Supply for cheaper replicas. Also check local toy and education stores.

5. Print replicas of Montessori sensorial materials from websites, such as montessorimaterials.org, which is a homeschooling site dedicated to helping homeschoolers. They provide templates for the geometric cabinet and constructive triangle boxes.

Tips for the Language Area

1. Read to your child as much as possible. Have a variety of reading materials available at all times.

2. Prepare your child for reading by playing games such as Memory. Also practice sorting and categorizing activities.

3. Train her ear by reading rhyming stories and poetry. Play rhyming games. Play "I Spy" using beginning sounds.

4. Teach your child the sound the letters make, instead of the names of the letters. Some of the letter names start with a different sound than the letter makes. For example, a child frequently believes that the letter "y" makes a /w/ sound, because its name starts with that sound. After she is familiar with her sounds, introduce the letter names.

5. Practice sorting objects and pictures by their beginning sounds. Later also practice sorting them by their ending sounds, and by middle vowel sounds.

6. Blend the sounds together, once she is confident in her letter sounds. Practice spelling words that follow the consonant-vowel-consonant rule, such as hat, pig, dug, log, jet. Always use short vowels. Later add more consonants. Lastly introduce long vowels and various letter combinations. Find lists and printable ideas at montessorimaterials.org, jmjpublishing.com, abcteach.com, and carlscorner.com.

7. Introduce sight words at this point. Use a list of frequently used words, or the Dolch series. Sight words will also naturally occur in simple readers. Use the previously mentioned websites to also locate sight word activities.

8. The child can also start practicing putting those simple words together in phrases and sentences, using word cards, the moveable alphabet, or practicing writing.

Tips for the Math Area

1. Introduce the numerals by purchasing or creating your own sandpaper numerals. They are taught in the same fashion as the sandpaper letters, only saying the numeral name.

2. Practice counting by using tangible items, instead of trying to count on a flat card. The child will then be able to understand one-to-one correspondence and the true purpose of counting.

3. Make your own bead bars, if you don't want to purchase them. String one red bead for one, then two green, three peach/pink, four yellow, five light blue, six purple, seven white, eight brown, nine dark blue, and ten gold. Use these to practice counting and for creating quantities.

4. Teach the concept of base ten after mastering 0-10 counting. Introduce the quantities and numerals for 1, 10, 100, and 1000. 1 is one golden bead. 10 is ten beads in a bar. 100 is one hundred beads in a square. 1000 is one thousand beads in a cube. Base ten blocks are also available at teacher supply and toy stores.

5. Start creating quantities up to 100 by using your bead bars. For example, creating 54 would require 5 ten bars and 4 units.

6. Practice numeral recognition by creating a Hundred Board.

7. Use printed cards from the Large Card Layout (accessible on montessorimaterials.org) to practice large numeral recognition, and for creating quantities the child must assemble with the golden beads or base ten blocks.

8. String together bead bars into chains to practice squaring and cubing. For example, string together four of the 4 bars to create a 4 squaring chain, and sixteen of the 4 bars to create a cubing chain.

9. Introduce fractions, time, money, and measurement, as well.

Tips for Science and Social Studies

1. Emphasize nature as much as possible. Spend time outside. Care for the outdoor environment. Practice living green, recycling, and conservation. Care for indoor plants. Care for animals that represent all parts of the animal kingdom: mammal, bird, reptile, amphibian, fish.

2. Create science experiments that the child can perform on his own.

3. Spend time absorbing new cultures through music, video, art, books, and food. Visit museums to see relics from other cultures. Show respect for all people, and your child will, too.

4. Practice regularly the skills of grace and courtesy. Emphasize proper behavior and manners, both at home and in public. Use kind words regularly, and demonstrate appropriate methods of showing frustration.

Tips on Teaching the Arts

1. Allow your child free exploration of different art media. Show her how to use scissors, clay, paints, and more, but then let her create whatever she wants, instead of trying to copy your craft.

2. Expose your child to different kinds of art. Look at books from the library. Visit museums.

3. Listen to a wide variety of music. The library is a great resource. Purchase simple instruments for her to play with at home. Make your own instruments.

4. Learn different kinds of dance, either through video or by taking a class. Or just turn on the music and let her freely move around.

5. Take yoga, or invest in yoga DVDs for kids.

Tips & Warnings

• Continually educate yourself. The more you learn, the more you can share with your child.

References

• Association Montessori Internationale
• American Montessori Society
• North American Montessori Teachers' Association

Resources

• Montessori Materials
• Liveable Learning
• ABC Teach