Planting the Seed of the Pascal Mystery in the Heart of the Young Child

Written by Jennifer Ashton, Primary Directress

“it is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.” Matthew 13:32

In the Children’s House, the announcement of Our Lord’s death is always proclaimed in conjunction with His rising. We would never just say that Jesus died on the cross without also saying He rose and will come again! Even when a child comes to us and says, Jesus died on the cross, we would immediately fill in the remaining...and He is risen! We do this for two reasons, first being that death alone can be scary for a young child, but also to lift up the Pascal Mystery of death and resurrection.

The month of March has brought a seed planting work to the shelves, as we prepare for our Outdoor Garden in the spring. We are raising little perennial flowers to start indoors and will later transplant outdoors when there is no chance of frost! Raising perennial flowers from seed helps the children to further ponder the Pascal Mystery as they witness the growth of the plant and the transformation of the seed. When we plant a seed and it grows it does not just become a bigger seed! The seed changes and must “die” in order for plant to grow. We know that the death of the seed is not the end but the beginning of a new life for this flower. The further beauty of perennials, is that this flower will return to us year after year and produce an abundance of flowers in years to come. This leads us to later ponder with the children the strength that hides within the seed, and where that strength comes from.  The children joyfully respond they know this strength comes from God! We present an open ended question for them to meditate on, “if God would give a seed this kind of strength, imagine the strength that is inside of us!”

Perennial gardeners have a lovely little rhyme about planting from seed...”first year sleeps, second year creeps, third year leaps!” What I love most about this rhyme is how accurately it describes the development of the 3 to 6 year old child in the classroom. The first year they are with us, parents and teachers alike are left to ponder together the secret of childhood: all that is hidden and sleeping within, the second year we get these glimmers of what they know, what has been developed within them already and what we still need to support to aid them in fully realizing their potential. The third year brings out our great leaders and we see the children leaping into that potential! Our 3rd year children are showing all the signs of this greatness within as they are preparing to shed their seed and burst forth with beauty and grace in the garden!

As we prepare for the Easter Season, keep in mind what a rich activity gardening at home can be! It is an excellent way to bring Scripture into your every day life, a way to introduce responsibility and help prevent wastefulness and also a way to demonstrate the wondrous effects that can result from diligence and patience.

Paving the Way to Penmanship: A Montessori Approach to Handwriting

Handwriting or penmanship; no matter what you call it, it was likely an important part of your early education.  Pressured by time and content constraints, many schools have abandoned explicit handwriting instruction. This is resulting in a generation of children who do not know how to write in cursive, and who sometimes even struggle to form legible printed letters.

A number of scientific studies point to the importance of handwriting, including this one which concluded that handwriting (as opposed to typing or tracing) guides preliterate children toward developing reading skills.  

Interested in learning more about the scientific evidence that supports the importance of teaching handwriting as a skill?  Check out this article that highlights five of the important reasons we should not allow direct instruction in this area to go by the wayside.  Not only does learning handwriting early help children develop skills needed for reading, evidence suggests it makes children better writers, spellers, and leads them towards future success in academics.  Higher brain density and gray matter volume have been connected to high-quality handwriting, suggesting that frequent practice may aid in neural processing. Studies also conclude that it is critical for teachers to model the correct way to form letters, but also to utilize direct instruction.

In Montessori schools, handwriting is a critical component of children’s learning.  As with so many other skills, our curriculum takes a spiraling approach, indirectly preparing children prior to direct instruction.  Very young children develop the muscles necessary for a pincer grasp while they manipulate materials such as the knobbed cylinders, a Montessori favorite!  

There are two other important materials in the primary classroom that facilitate handwriting readiness: the metal insets and the sandpaper letters.

The metal insets are wooden trays that hold a series of stencil-like shapes.  Removable shapes are blue with a pink background. Some shapes have straight-lined sides while others are curved.  Children trace the shapes with a pencil, giving their hands a chance to practice creating a variety of lines. Increasingly challenging activities encourage children to create different patterns with colored pencils while staying inside the original traced lines.  At first glance, this may appear to be a fun art activity (which it certainly is!) but its main intention is to prepare children for their upcoming work in handwriting.

Montessori sandpaper letters take the work a step further.  Twenty-six wooden tiles are adorned with gritty, sand-textured letters of the alphabet.  Children are given lessons on how to trace these letters with their fingers and say the sound.  (As a side note, Montessori children are taught the sound of each letter in conjunction with its name, which makes much more sense for reading preparation.)  Perhaps you have observed this in a Montessori classroom; if you have not, we highly suggest coming in to watch the magic of this work in person.

Interestingly, children who attend Montessori schools are typically able to write even before they have begun to read.  Once they do begin reading, these previously developed skills allow them to seamlessly work on the various components of literacy development simultaneously.

Once children enter the elementary years in a Montessori school, they are required to write throughout the day.  Typically, children work throughout the three-hour work period in the morning on a largely independent basis, unless they are receiving a direct, small-group lesson from the guide.  During this independent work they record parts of what they do in notebooks. For example, if a child uses a card material to learn about the internal body functions of a fish (how they perform the tasks of respiration, circulation, movement, and so on), they will record at least part of this work in their notebook.  For example: “Circulation. Fish have two chambers in their hearts.” This writing continues throughout the day and is directly connected to other content children are learning.

Some classrooms include direct handwriting practice even in the elementary years.  This is typically something for children to copy in their notebooks, such as a poem or a paragraph about something they recently had a lesson on.

One final and very important reason to teach handwriting: when children learn how to form beautiful letters early on, they are better able to focus on a myriad of other things.  For example, when writing a story, they can actually think about their story ideas instead of belaboring over how to write a ‘q’.  

Interested in learning more?  As mentioned earlier, we encourage you to come visit the school and observe in one of our classrooms.  Doing so is common practice in Montessori schools, is unobtrusive to the children, and can provide excellent insight for those who are looking to learn more about this unique educational approach.

2 Types of Assessment: Which One Do Montessori Schools Favor?

Assessment is a topic often discussed in the many corners of the education world.  Whether a child is enrolled in their local public school, an independent school, or is homeschooled, assessment will most likely play a role in that experience.  To what extent it plays varies greatly, however, as does the prevalence of the different styles of assessment.

Parents often have strong feelings about assessment, although their perspectives can vary greatly.  Many are frustrated by the now-common high-stakes testing, the amount of time testing can take, and the young age at which formal assessments are now taking place.  Others, with their child’s future firmly in the forefront of their mind, want to be sure there are assessments in place that will clearly identify their child’s strengths and weaknesses.

So why do we assess in the first place?

One important reason is to measure learning.  Another is to (theoretically) encourage success.

We pose the following questions:  How do we define success? What exactly is it that we value and want to encourage in our children?  What kinds of time restraints should (or should not) be placed on children as they progress through the learning of various skills?  Should learning be measured in a standardized and linear fashion?

The following types of assessment are regularly used in educational settings.  We describe each one and take a look at how Montessori does (or does not) implement them.

Formative Assessment

Formative assessment can be classified by the following characteristics:

• It is generally done while the student is learning.

• It is either unobtrusive or minimally intrusive to student work. 

• It is almost never graded.

• It allows teachers to shift their approach mid-lesson.

Summative Assessment

Summative assessment is quite different.  It can be classified by these characteristics:

• It is done periodically to determine whether a student has mastered a skill/skills.

• Learning and instruction must stop and time must be set aside to administer assessment.

• Grades/scores are typically assigned.

• It serves to categorize students and define success/failure.

Just by reading through the characteristics you will likely draw your own conclusions as to which style is more helpful to both students and teachers.

Keep in mind that in Montessori schools, we believe the following basic principles:

1. Learning is not linear.  There are general developmental phases that children pass through, but we recognize that there is great variation among individuals.  This variation is honored and even celebrated. One of the greatest benefits of our three year cycles is that teachers have that much time to work with children and guide them toward various goals.  Most teachers understand that a child may progress in reading for 6 months while their math skills plateau, but that could easily switch in time. Not feeling the pressure of having a child for one year only allows us to support natural learning and growth, and to let children learn according to more normal timelines.

2. We believe that children do not need to compete with one another, but rather draw on internal motivation to better themselves.  Grades lead to such competition. All people have areas of strength and areas that we may have to work harder at.  When children begin comparing themselves to one another, many will be left with completely unnecessary feelings of inadequacy.  Such dips in self-confidence can take a serious toll on children in the long term.    

3. To expand upon point number three, we do not utilize external rewards.  We find them ineffective and would rather guide children toward trusting their own process.  There is significant scientific research that backs this approach. More on that here: 

   https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-baby-scientist/201806/motivating-children-without-rewards

4. We provide learning materials that allow children to assess themselves.  Most Montessori materials are autodidactic, that is the children learn the skill just from using them.  If there is a series of different sized pegs with corresponding holes to place them in, there is only one way to complete the activity correctly.  When a child is working independently with such a material and the last peg does not fit into the last remaining hole, they know a mistake has been made along the way and they can work toward correcting it.

5. Scientific observation is the most effective method for teachers to learn about students’ understanding.  Dr. Montessori based her entire set of teaching methods on what she had observed about children’s learning over a span of 40+ years.  Her constant observations allowed her to make changes in the environment and her approach. We believe this form of assessment to be the most effective tool we have.  Montessori guides observe the children to determine what changes need to be made in their instruction in order to meet academic goals, but we also observe how the environment serves the children so that it can act as another tool to support learning.

What it boils down to is that we hope to teach children how to learn, not how to get a good grade.  We want them to be enamored with the world and find a deep and authentic desire to learn as much as they can about it.  We do not wish to interrupt their learning with tests that do not actually serve them in the long run; rather we believe that the summative assessment approach of highly trained and skilled educators is the best way to support growth.