The Third Year

Imagine a 3 year old child, learning the ways of the classroom, learning to manipulate objects with his hands: folding paper, sewing, holding a pencil. By the second year, this child may learn an important work in the classroom: making a book. The book is made by folding a few pages of paper, punching holes with a pushpin along the spine and sewing it together. Oftentimes, these books are used to write down numbers or words from a word family (cat, sat, bat, etc.).

In the third year, the children are able to take the work of “making a book” and turn it into a project of their own creation. The child walks around the classroom, organizing the materials she may need and the information in her head. She puts together the book, thinking about the number of pages she needs as well as the sequence of her story. The result? A book that makes its way onto the bookshelf, for others to take out and look at. In this case, it is a flip book, with small flaps on every page that hide pictures behind it. Before putting it on the shelf, she may show it at circle, lay down some ground rules “This is a one person work” or “Please be gentle with the pages”. The end results is a project that shows independence, confidence and initiative: traits that we value in our Kindergartners. While working on this project, she may not have gotten a formal lesson from the teachers for 1-2 days. But after she is done, she is ready to tackle a new challenging work, as a result of her success of her independent project.

In another classroom, the teachers may see a flurry of “treasure maps”, very intricate drawings with volcanos and other dangers, a dotted line showing the way, and of course an “X” at the end. There is a lot of time spent on these maps and many pages of paper spent. What if these are children that need to be practicing their writing? A common way of guiding this interest in maps is for the teacher to encourage an individual (or group) map of the classroom or our outdoors. There are a few lessons on orientation, labeling and maybe measuring. Then the children usually set forth, drawing, and labeling our sink and our shelves. One year, two children actually spent time counting the tiles in various areas of our building, asking for graph paper to make things very accurate.

Perhaps my own favorite example of a Kindergarten project happened quite spontaneously. A child found an intact nest outside and decided to bring it in. We all wondered what type of bird made it and whether the bird didn’t need it anymore. A group of Kindergarteners decided that it was a Robin’s nest and wanted to keep it on our science shelf. They went further and wanted to make some eggs out of clay to put in there. They asked me to get the book of birds out to see the exact shade of blue that was needed and mixed blue and white clay to make the eggs. The project took a life of its own with a mother bird being made at the end. I did nudge them to write labels for the different parts of the display. It probably wasn’t their favorite part, but it did get everyone writing words.

During the third (Kindergarten) year at the Montessori, each child is moved along academically, as they are in the prior years as well. There are many works that go well into the first grade curriculum that they children can work on and receive lessons on if they are ready. Many other children stay firmly within the Kindergarten curriculum and master what is needed to make them ready for 1st grade. However, in addition to the structured works and lessons that we have in the classroom, the children are given the opportunity to create, design, organize information, in a way that is of interest to them and that is meaningful to them. Our hope is that the children leave our space with their curiosity to learn about the world and with the tools needed to find and use that information.