"When the child goes out, it is the world itself that offers itself to him. Let us take the child out to show him real things instead of making objects which represent ideas and closing them up in cupboards.”
DR. MARIA MONTESSORI
The children in the Montessori classroom love their work. The materials are meant and designed to be enticing; it's meant to be touched and manipulated. Everything in the Montessori classroom is real. We use real choppers, pitchers, fabric and wash bins. The material is all real and it's all purposeful.
Children this age are absorbing more information during this time in their life unlike any other. Maria Montessori discovered children do not dive into fantasy and imagination until the second plane of development, beginning at around age 6 or 7. If we aim to teach them about the real world and its workings, we must have real things for them to touch, manipulate and maneuver. Many adults are astounded to see Montessori children that are baking real bread, washing real dishes and chopping real apples. The children are quite capable of all this. They only need to be shown the motions and allowed to practice by doing. Practice and repetition leads to mastery. Allowing them to work with real items and tools only leads to mastery of real work and knowledge of our world. Let your child learn about the real world by doing and exploring with real things. You'll be amazed at what they are capable of!
