Children's House Classroom
Kohanek, Jessica
An Essay of a Montessori Early Childhood Concept
The First Plane of Development; Age 3-6
Summer, 2013
Maira Montessori spent her later life studying the human being beginning at birth. She has said that a person reaches maturity at age 24 after going through four stages of life. She named this the “Four Stages of Development” or “The constructive rhythm of life.” The first stage of development is a person with the age of 0-6, called infancy. The second stage is a 6-12 year old, called childhood. Adolescence is from 12-18, and is the third stage of development. Finally, 18+ are people who have reached maturity in the fourth stage of development. In this paper, I will be discussing the first plane of development from the age of 3 to 6, a child with a conscious absorbent mind.
“Even though in a child of 3, his mind has reached a stage of saturation, there is still development taking place in his life. His mind contains a wealth of information, which needs to be classified and categorized. There is need for the child to become conscious of the things the child's mind has absorbed.” (Maria Montessori, Four Stages of Development, by Indira Eisenberg) A child at the age of 3 is ready to be put in the world to engage with other children and experience things through their senses. A 3 year old is not able to sit for a long period of time while listening to a teacher, and Maria Montessori saw this. Therefore, she developed a series of materials in which the child can learn about what is real around them through touch, seeing, smelling, tasting and hearing. Since she could not take the children into the world around them on a daily basis, she brought the world to them in the Children’s House. Here, everything in the child’s environment was made for them and what they needed to learn. This prepared environment created a place of learning and a place where the child could develop confidence and a sense of achievement. Taking into
An Essay of a Montessori Early Childhood Concept
The First Plane of Development; Age 3-6
Summer, 2013
Maira Montessori spent her later life studying the human being beginning at birth. She has said that a person reaches maturity at age 24 after going through four stages of life. She named this the “Four Stages of Development” or “The constructive rhythm of life.” The first stage of development is a person with the age of 0-6, called infancy. The second stage is a 6-12 year old, called childhood. Adolescence is from 12-18, and is the third stage of development. Finally, 18+ are people who have reached maturity in the fourth stage of development. In this paper, I will be discussing the first plane of development from the age of 3 to 6, a child with a conscious absorbent mind.
“Even though in a child of 3, his mind has reached a stage of saturation, there is still development taking place in his life. His mind contains a wealth of information, which needs to be classified and categorized. There is need for the child to become conscious of the things the child's mind has absorbed.” (Maria Montessori, Four Stages of Development, by Indira Eisenberg) A child at the age of 3 is ready to be put in the world to engage with other children and experience things through their senses. A 3 year old is not able to sit for a long period of time while listening to a teacher, and Maria Montessori saw this. Therefore, she developed a series of materials in which the child can learn about what is real around them through touch, seeing, smelling, tasting and hearing. Since she could not take the children into the world around them on a daily basis, she brought the world to them in the Children’s House. Here, everything in the child’s environment was made for them and what they needed to learn. This prepared environment created a place of learning and a place where the child could develop confidence and a sense of achievement. Taking into