In-Home Montessori, part III

Stop number three on our tour of in-home Montessori programs brings us to Roots Toddler Community. A relatively new program, Roots is based out of founder Erin Brown Heyes’ NE Portland home.  On the day I went to visit, there were around 8 little ones there, a few out sick and one taking a nap.

The children were just getting settled into their morning work period, which is a core component of all Montessori programs.  Rather than a structured play time, a two or three hour block of time is opened up every day for independent exploration of the various materials in the environment.  Lessons, or presentations, are given to individuals (or small groups as they get older), and then the children are free to explore the material as long as they like.  This freedom to explore, to make ones own choice, unhindered by adult schedules or expectations, allows children to experience what the psychologist Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi calls “flow”:

a state of concentration or complete absorption with the activity at hand and the situation. The idea of flow is identical to the feeling of being in the zone or in the groove. The flow state is an optimal state of intrinsic motivation, where the person is fully immersed in what he or she is doing.

I think adults don’t expect children to be able to experience this deep concentration.  Our images of children involve chaotic little bodies rushing around, loudly, unable to sit still for any length of time.  My observations at Roots, other schools, and my own elementary class, prove otherwise.  Among the activities I observed in my hour-long observation:

A young toddler deciding she wanted to slice a banana and serve it to her friends.  She got the tray from the shelf, asked for the banana, peeled and sliced it herself, arranged the pieces on a tray, and invited her friends at her table to share the snack with her.  When she was finished, she put the banana peel in the compost, returned the tray to the shelf, and got a cloth to clean the table.  Oh, and she pushed her chair in, to signify that she was done working with that space and it was now available for another person.

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Another young toddler was completely engrossed in a book for the first 20 minutes I was there.  He paid no attention to the story being told nearby, the girl painting at the easel, the group of children eating snack, or the child seated at the table next to him working on a puzzle.

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This little boy was receiving a lesson on how to wash the leaves of the plant.  The guide carefully showed him how to carry the plant to his table.  He got the plant washing tray from the shelf, went to fill up his water pitcher, got extra cleaning rags when he spilled some of the water…and then proceeded to gently wipe the leaves of the plant with a moistened cotton ball.  It wasn’t a perfect job…but the joy of work is in the process, not the outcome, and to watch him carefully learn how to take care of the living things in his environment was a joy.

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A young girl, about 18 months, deciding she wanted to move her chair to another table.  She very carefully tried to lift the chair, realized it was too heavy, and then proceeded to spend the next several minutes experimenting with the most effective way to move the chair to the spot she wanted.  An adult observed her, showed her how to hold the chair, but that wasn’t working for her…and in the end, she found her own way.

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All of these examples are just a reminder to me that when we create an environment that is truly designed with the child in mind, they are capable of incredible things!  It would have been so easy to just pick the chair up for that little girl and move it for her…but by having furniture that is child-sized, and the attitude that “friendliness with error” is a healthy and empowering experience, she was able to find her own way.

And just because I can’t ever got enough of a beautiful Montessori environment, here are a few other photos from my observation.

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