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Frequently Asked Questions
The Montessori Method and Stone Prairie Montessori
What Is A Montessori Education?
The Montessori approach to education follows
the needs of the child at each stage of development. Its goal is to help each child reach full potential in all
areas of life.
It was Dr. Maria Montessori's belief that if we prepare an environment that is rich in activities
that involve the child in his own education, where the child is free to concentrate uninterrupted, he will have a deep
satisfaction in a skill mastered or refined, leading to a natural compassion for others and the environment.
Montessori
philosophy recognizes that all learning starts before birth and has distinct phases of development.
The most critical
time for self-formation is the period from 0 - 6 years of age. At this level, the Montessori materials follow the child's
natural need to learn in a sensorial way. As the child progresses, abstract concepts are introduced. The child at this stage
possesses sensitivity and mental powers for absorbing and learning from his environment that are unlike those of an adult
both in quality and capacity.
Children are to be respected as different from afults and as individuals who are
different from one another.
The child has a deep love and need for purposeful work. She works, however, not as
an adult profit or completion of a task, but for the sake the activity itself. It is this activity which accomplishes for
her her most important goal: the development of herself - her mental, physical, and psychological powers.
Is It For All Children?
The Montessori system has been used successfully with children from
birth to eighteen from all socioeconomic levels, representing those in regular classes as well as gifted, developmentally
disabled, emotionally disturbed, physically handicapped.
Is The Child Free To Do Whatever
He Chooses?
The child is free to move about the classroom at will, talk to other children, and to work with
any materials whose purpose he understands. The teacher presents lessons to an individual or small group in a consistent
and highly structured manner. The child is then free to repeat the lessons as often as he chooses. He is not free to interrupt
another child's work or abuse the classroom environment in any way.
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