An Overview of the Montessori Curriculum

This content provides an overview of the Montessori method including the Montessori sequence of lessons and lessons for the Montessori areas of the classroom.

Lesson areas include Practical Life, Sensorial, Math, Language, Geography, History, Art, & Peace.

Areas of Montessori:

Practical Life

The Montessori term encompasses domestic work to maintain the home and classroom environment; self-care and personal hygiene; and grace and courtesy. Practical life skills are of great interest to young children and form the basis of later abstract learning.

Sensorial

It is necessary to begin the education of the senses in the formative period if we wish to perfect this sense development with the education which is to follow.

The education of the senses should be begun methodically in infancy and should continue during the entire period of instruction which is to prepare the individual for life in society.

Math

Dr. Montessori believed that the brain is naturally drawn to precision, organize, compare, create order out of disorder, classifying and quantifying patterns and relationships.

The way Montessori approaches math begins early on in a child’s life. Dr. Montessori believed that human beings are born with a propensity to naturally be driven to calculate, reason, and create within their environments.

Language

Maria Montessori believed strongly (and scientific research backs up this belief) that a child is born with what he needs to develop language.

With that said, there are many ways adults can enrich a young child’s language development, especially by preparing the environment ripe for language learning.

Geography

There are two main geography pieces within the Montessori Early Childhood classroom: physical geography & political geography (also known as culture).

Begin with physical and then introduce political.

History

Montessori History lessons for kids emphasize duration and passage of time works. For example, telling time is part of Montessori’s history area.

Time is such an abstract, non-tangible idea even to us adults. Imagine what it is like for children who developmentally cannot even comprehend a second versus a decade.

Montessori history speaks to the duration and passage of time in the early childhood classroom.

Art

Although there is no specific Montessori writing on art in a Montessori classroom, we can only imagine the appreciation Dr. Montessori must have had for this approach to learning.

Her emphasis on order, neatness, and love of nature gives further indication that she would support artworks within a Montessori classroom. The focus is on the process and not the product.