Montisorri for high energy, extroverted, 3 year olds who love singing

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I had two kids kn two different montessori schools and ai thimk this is really tough. During the work cycle, they are expected to work. My extrovert was bouncing around looking at others’ work and asking them about it and it was viewed as disruptive—quiet cooperative work is often encouraged but not the social butterfly. Also, official Montessori teaching discourages pretend play. So if they take the little cylinders and pretend they are a little family, they will be told they are misusing the materials.

Exactly why I can’t stand Montessori for preschool and K. Get the cork out and let kids be kids. No one cares about your antiquated materials, pink towers or using them perfectly each time.

And exactly why we Montessori families self-select. My kids like the opportunity to concentrate, work independently or in small groups, using simple physical manipulatives and not so much jumping around shouting the lyrics from Disney movies and flitting from one activity to another every ten seconds with glitter and costumes all over the place.

Wow, you sound insufferable

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nope don’t do it, especially if it’s traditional Montessori. It will crush him. I found that Montessori doesn’t work for high spirited kids with a lot of energy. They make it seem like something is wrong with your kid. If you are seeking a play based center that utilizes some aspects of Montessori education you might be okay. Speaking from experience of a daughter who fit the mold at one and a son who I pulled out. It was the first preschool where I ever witnessed a three year old get kicked out for crying too much and another four year old who left because of stress (he was having stomach pains and headaches) It was much too demanding and academic for toddlers.

Yes, my DS is in first year of Montessori and has suffered several anxiety based issues since at school: nightmares about school, teeth grinding and stomach issues. We left in January.

How terrible. Has it gotten better since you left?

[Anonymous]

It depends on the school and the teachers. I have two high energy twin boys, now 8. When they were 2-4, we had them in a Montessori school. In our school the children had a 2.5 day Montessori class. During that class, the basic rule was there were six stations. Each student had to complete one project from each station every day. The first order was to select a project, take it back to your workspace and learn the lesson. After you completed the lesson, you could do what you want with the project, including pretend play, as long as you were quiet and not disruptive to the other kids. Between projects you had freedom as long as you were not distracting to the other kids. My one son would fly through about 18 projects in 2.5 hours. He did the lesson and moved on. But between the projects, he often wandered around the room (think one of Billy's wanderings from the old "Family Circus" cartoons). He made trips to the window to look out and trips to the snack table, then would walk a circle around another child's work space. Then head back to pick another project. And so on. The other son would take 6-7 projects. He would do the lesson, then he would sit for another 15 minutes playing with the project, much to his pretend play's delight, trying to figure out every last thing you could do with it. So in the "H" bin, he would take the horse out and make it gallop around the house, jump over it, jump on top, etc. If he started to get loud, they would gently remind him to play quietly. And when he ran out of things to do, he put the project back and got the next one. In fact, the reason that we picked Montessori was that the teaching was self-guided and the children decided how much or little time to work on projects and also decided which ones to do. Twin B hated the play-based daycare when he was playing with a toy and was told to put things away for circle time. Or he was working on a worksheet and decided he wanted to draw something else on the back of the paper and then was interrupted because the group was going out to the playground. Etc. He wanted and fought for control of his life (where he could). He loved Montessori because he did have control over how the 2.5 hours went by and he was more interested in learning while there. Twin A also loved Montessori because he was quick and in regular playbased daycare, he would finish ahead of the other kids and then have to sit around and wait while the teachers covered the lesson for others. He'd get bored and would be chided for not behaving in circle time as he got bored. He loved the self-pacing so that he could finish and move on. That also kept him more motivated to learn. In both of our twins, the self-guided timing and control of their own learning path was a key to what made it work and what they loved.

Our kids were there from 8:30-6:00 every day due to our work schedules. They had Montessori class from 8:30-11:00 each day. Then they had playground time, lunch time, went inside for open daycare time with another break for outdoor time weather permitting. Outside of the Montessori class, it was much like a play based daycare, as long as they were using inside voices inside and not being disruptive, they had lots of active time, were allowed to yell out on the playground and had freedom of play in the daycare setting. While some don't like the quiet learning zone in the Montessori classroom, it was good for us. It taught our children that there is a time and place for things. They got their energy out and play out during the other 7 hours during the day, but learned that different behavior was expected in the Montessori class. This was good as it meant that when we went out to eat, we could teach them that dining in a restaurant was like Montessori class, that certain behavior was expected, they had to be quieter and more well behaved and not disruptive. They learned that there was a time and place for different behaviors and indoor behavior was different from outdoor behavior. It did not stifle their creativity or imagination. And it did not squash their energy or dampen their spirits. They still had an outlet for that, it just wasn't in the first 2.5 hours of the day. And they were still worn out from active play by the end of the day so that we didn't have them bouncing off the walls at home after preschool.

It was great for us. We noticed that when our kids went to public elementary that a lot of the learned behavior started going out the window as they learned to adapt to their friends and peers and there was more acting out when taken out of the Montessori environment. We adapted as a family, but it was easier to teach them disciplined behavior and different behaviors in different settings from our Montessori school.

[Anonymous]

PP, you lost me when you essentially said one of your kids didn't fit into play-based preschool (not daycare, despite what you repeatedly said) because he's smart.

Also, circle time is all of 15 minutes. You act as though it's the whole day. It's not a problem to ask kids to sit still for 15 minutes while they do some circle time activities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PP, you lost me when you essentially said one of your kids didn't fit into play-based preschool (not daycare, despite what you repeatedly said) because he's smart.

Also, circle time is all of 15 minutes. You act as though it's the whole day. It's not a problem to ask kids to sit still for 15 minutes while they do some circle time activities.

I actually agree with PP. My daughter was too “smart” for play-based preschool as well. She knew everything they were teaching (shapes, colors, animals, numbers, letters - we didn’t drill her but she slurped them up from books and songs) so she got annoyed having to repeat them and being herded around. She’s much happier in Montessori where she can progress at her own speed. Only trouble is now we have to keep sending to private school to let her progress!

My feeling is play-based is similar to public school, for the lowest common denominator (the masses).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PP, you lost me when you essentially said one of your kids didn't fit into play-based preschool (not daycare, despite what you repeatedly said) because he's smart.

Also, circle time is all of 15 minutes. You act as though it's the whole day. It's not a problem to ask kids to sit still for 15 minutes while they do some circle time activities.

Sorry, I didn't see the response.

I didn't say he didn't fit because he was smart. He didn't fit because he was fast. He would go through the lesson and he would want to do something else, but he had to sit with the group while they continued with the project. Like one time they were making letters out of clay. He did several letters while some of the kids were working on the first one. He was done and wanted to do something else, but the teachers kept him at the table and essentially wanted him to sit there waiting for the other kids. It wasn't so much that he was smart--he was doing the same letters as the other kids, but he just finished the project faster than other kids. And then got bored.

For the other twin, the issue of circle time was an example. The problem was that this twin hated to be interrupted and wanted to finish what he was doing before moving on, but in the play-based school, they had all the kids doing the same thing.

In both of their cases, we went to Montessori because it was self-guided learning. The style of learning where the student has control over how long and how much to work with any project suited both of our high energy kids. The one that was fast, was able to do more projects and was given freedom between projects to wander the room or go to the snack table, even look out the window, etc as long as he didn't distract the other students and as long as he got one project from each learning section completed during the session. He was able to control what he did instead of having to follow a curriculum and schedule that suited other students, but didn't suit him. And the second twin was likewise able to control his own time and didn't have to have the schedule dictated to him.

Montessori works well for children of many types who want to control their own learning process. On the other hand, children who need more structure and guidance will not do nearly as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The dynamic in a Montessori classroom is as diverse as children and teachers are. One classroom will be wiggly allowing for activity of the children who need it while another will be structured yet warm since some children thrive in that time of environment. It really varies, even from year to year.

Plus 1 !!!

— Montessori teacher and K parent

[Anonymous]

Don't do it. Montessori is not for your son. Ours is nothing like your but we could not see our son among the zombies the kids were. They looked like they were drugged the whole 30 minutes. There was o running, no talking, no playing, no smiling going on. It was surreal.