Originally designed in part by Maria Montessori and adapted from teachers Jean Itard and Édouard Séguin, Montessori materials are a set of educational tools that address the different stages of a child’s development in order to promote independent learning and growth. They are characterized by their concrete nature, quality, aesthetics, and ability to isolate a single challenge at a time, allowing children to focus on specific learning tasks.
In a Montessori educational daycare classroom, the use of Montessori materials creates a constant buzz of activity, encouraging walking, pulling, carrying, pouring, and more. By handling the materials themselves, the children learn through discovery rather than through a teacher’s lecture, giving them a special sense of personal satisfaction. For example, in a Montessori daycare classroom, a numerical unit is something a child can hold in their hand rather than just a written number and a verb is something they can act out, not just a written word.
What are Montessori materials?
The tools that make up Montessori materials are usually made of durable, brightly- colored wood to attract the attention of children as young as preschool age. These tools are as close as possible to real objects so that children feel involved in the activity they are doing and thus develop a sense of responsibility. The materials are presented in a carefully designed and prepared environment with the aim of encouraging exploration and discovery as well as order and concentration, all done with the aim of promoting independent learning according to the Montessori method.
When creating your own home play area, you may want to use materials adapted to the Montessori method. This will not only reinforce how they learn at school, but will create a sense of continuity in the home, providing your child with the tools they need to develop essential cognitive and motor skills. You will find all our tips for creating an attractive Montessori play area in this article on our blog.
Types of Montessori materials
At the Montessori School of Montreal, Montessori materials are classified from preschool onwards into five main categories that correspond to different areas of learning: Practical Life, Sensorial, Mathematics, Language, and Culture.
Practical Life:
Practical life activities are designed to help your child develop fine motor skills, autonomy, and independence while having fun mimicking everyday tasks. By observing their family members in action, young children will seek to imitate adults and participate in everyday tasks.
Learning may vary depending on each child’s unique home environment, but activities like pouring water with a small pitcher, carrying a tray, folding a towel, or even performing more complex tasks such as serving tea, always attract children’s attention!
In a Montessori educational setting, these are some of the first activities children are exposed to when they discover their new environment.
Sensorial:
Sensorial activities are designed to help children refine the five senses— touch, hearing, sight, smell, and taste—through exploration and direct experience.
By handling objects designed for their small hands, children will learn to distinguish differences in weight, texture, colour, and shape. By developing their cognitive thinking, they acquire fundamental skills for future learning.
This sensorial work provides them with a solid foundation for future learning and sets the stage for a seamless transition towards more advanced concepts such as mathematics and geometry.
Mathématiques:
Present from birth, mathematical potential is the ability to abstract, reason, imagine, calculate, measure, and specify. Montessori mathematics materials offer a concrete and individualized approach that helps children understand mathematical concepts in a progressive and sensory way. Using appropriate tools that link the concrete recognition of numbers to the abstract concept of quantity, children are gradually introduced to abstraction through a program that prepares them for primary school.
By manipulating these materials, children can touch, see, and explore numbers and understand the meaning of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. This method reinforces understanding of quantities and introduces calculations gradually, which is ideal for learning as early as age three.
Language:
The Montessori School of Montreal preschool offers bilingual learning (French and English) as well as an introduction to a third language, Spanish, through play. Because children’s brains are like sponges at this age, they have the ability to naturally absorb the sounds and words of several languages, making it an ideal time to broaden their language skills.
Practical life exercises (like exercises involving pouring liquids) and sensory materials (cylindrical blocks, geometry cabinet) are an indirect way to prepare children for pre-writing by exercising their fine motor skills. Rough letters, metal inserts, and the movable alphabet directly contribute to the development of writing and letter tracing.
This approach guides children to recognize sounds (phonemes), associate them with their written form (graphemes), and then make the connection between the two intuitively. Some children learn to read by simple repetition through the use of a movable alphabet, while others benefit from specific lessons and materials to encourage them to take steps toward reading.
I invite you to check out the various language activities offered at our Montessori School of Montreal.
Culture:
The Montessori “culture” materials include a multitude of tools and activities to spark children’s curiosity and broaden their understanding of the world. Globes, maps, pictures of plants, art objects, and musical instruments become the gateways to geography, history, science, botany, zoology, art, and music.
For example, geographical puzzles help children learn about the different continents, countries, and provinces of Canada. As part of the learning process, a continent and a country are targeted so that children can discover the culture and elements of specific importance to that place!
These activities draw on practical life and sensory experiences to introduce children to the cultures and traditions of the world while also helping them discover key concepts: the shape of the earth and the seas, the different continents and countries, flags, and the essential nature of various plants and animals.
The program emphasizes the interconnectedness of all life on earth where children can learn about habitats and ecosystems, understand their connections to others and to themselves, and realize the importance of preserving life on earth. Please don’t hesitate to contact us to learn more about the Montessori daycare at the Montreal Montessori School Center.
Where can you find Montessori materials?
Many physical and online stores specialize in selling Montessori materials. It is also possible to find used Montessori materials or make them yourself.
The importance of Montessori materials in Montessori preschools
Montessori materials are essential for implementing the Montessori method of education. It allows children to learn at their own pace, experiment for themselves and develop their independence. The materials are designed to stimulate children’s interest, motivate them to learn and explore, and give them the tools they need to build their own knowledge.
Read our article to discover in detail the educational benefits of a Montessori daycare center.
