Montessori Research & Development Teacher's Manuals

If you've never browsed the materials at Montessori Research & Development, press pause on reading this article and go there to see their products. They offer high-quality teachers' manuals, curriculum materials, and books pertaining to Montessori teaching method.



Thus far, I've discovered that there is one thing that even surpasses the excellence of their products: their customer service. Albeit, I only dealt with one of their representatives, but I was extremely impressed with how accommodating she was, going far away and beyond the call of duty.


The best example of this had to do with shipping to Canada. International buyers beware: contact the company directly via e-mail or phone when placing your order because their on-line shipping calculator is utterly daft. When I tried to place my order through their online check-out, the price of shipping was greater than the cost of my entire shopping cart! It was clear that something just wasn't right, so I e-mailed the company and found out that shipping to Canada had a flat rate of $32.85 per box (that being the least expensive option). Since my order didn't fill the box completely, their representative and I fiddled around with the contents, adding and subtracting manuals until the box was as full as it could get!



In the end I bought the following Early Childhood teachers' manuals:

• LANGUAGE ARTS MANUAL VOL. II
• MATHEMATICS VOLUME 1
• SENSORIAL MANUAL
• SENSORIAL MATERIAL VARIATIONS AND EXTENSIONS
• SENSORIAL EXTENSIONS FOR THE BEAD CABINET
• ZOOLOGY MANUAL

What actually arrived in the box included the above manuals, plus CONTINENTS, FLAG PARTS, and PICTURE MATCHING- ORCHESTRA INSTRUMENTS. Naturally I was impressed and very pleased.

In addition to my order directly through Montessori Research & Development, I have purchased several of their items used from other Montessori parents. These items were:

• GEOGRAPHY MANUAL
• PHONIC WORD LISTS
• SINGLE WORD BOOKLETS (please note: The booklets at this link are the blue series booklets; the booklets I bought are the pink series booklets. I couldn't find them on the Montessori Research & Development website, but this gives the general idea. If you are looking for details on the pink series booklets, please contact Montessori Research & Development directly as I'm sure they will be helpful in this regard)
• INITIAL SOUND PICTURE CARDS
• PHONIC PICTURES WITH WORD LABELS

Of all the products I have from Montessori Research & Development none of them have been less than excellent quality. The manuals are available either bound or in loose leaf. I opted for the bound when buying them directly, but the Geography Manual came in loose leaf. There are advantages to having the loose leaf: once you've hole-punched it and put it in a binder you can add in regular loose leaf pages between lessons to add your own notes. Having the manuals bound means that there's no chance of pages disappearing into the fourth dimension, which would be entirely too likely in my case! At any rate, I have no problem with writing directly in the manuals, since they are mine and now that baby #2 is on the way, I'll be re-using them rather than selling them.

The lessons themselves are generally short, clear, and rather easy. Naturally the manuals assume full access to Montessori materials, so I try to keep reading a few lessons ahead so I know what will need to be made. Thus far, I am making the most use out of the Mathematics, Language Arts, and Sensorial manuals, though I am branching further into Geography and am planning out materials for Zoology. Until then we're continuing with human anatomy - more on that later.

Initially I had thought the cost of manuals at Montessori Research & Development were too high (at least for my budget), but as I searched for other teachers' manuals I began to realise just how reasonable their prices were. For example, the Mathematics manual was $30.00 American. Even after having placed my order I still thought that particular manual expensive - until I received the parcel! Then, as I hauled out the Mathematics manual, which proved to be much heavier and was indeed much larger than any of the other manuals, I understood the higher cost. In fact, the Mathematics manual will not only be used during the preschool years but the lessons run for children from age 3 to age 8! In my opinion, that's value.

In trying to decide which manuals to order, I found reading the table of contents very helpful. They are available for almost every teachers' manual on the website and can be invaluable when trying to decide which level of Language Arts will be best for your child.

A couple of the wonderful consequences of having concrete teachers' manuals are that I can spend a lot less time online trying to find out what the appropriate next lesson will be after Ella absorbs the current lesson, and that I can carefully pick which materials I will most want to have at hand.

For example, the breadth of use of the Montessori bead material for mathematics in the Mathematics manual made it abundantly clear that having real beads as opposed to images of beads or stick-lengths coloured to represent the bead material would be worth the cost, time, and effort of getting real beads and making all the math materials. Having looked over the lessons I can see that they will get a lot of use and will be used for a lengthy period of time - at least into middle elementary.

Essentially, having the actual manuals makes it much easier to prepare lessons, figure out what is worth making (or buying, as the case may be), streamline your resources, and minimize the hassle of printing up hundreds of lessons from online and then having to sort and order them. The manuals make Montessori homeschooling easier - both for you and for your child. That is really worth it!

Please note that the photographs displayed in this review are copyrighted to Montessori Research & Development and each is linked to it's original source on their website. (At least I hope they are - I tried to link them properly!)

Questions and comments on this post are welcome and further discussion as a result will probably end up happening in the "comments" section. If they are too numerous and/or require more depth of discussion, I'll post a sequel to this blog with more details.

Happy Teaching!

Land, Water, Air Presentation & Cardinal Directions - Physical Geography and Preliminary Geology, Ecology, and Cartography

Here is the second elaboration on my Classroom Changes. (To see what my classroom was like, go to my older posts, in particular My Montessori Classroom and Materials.)

There are two steps to introduce the idea of geography, maps, and globes. The first is learning the four cardinal points: north, south, east, and west. The second is the "Land, Water, Air Presentation."

To introduce the idea of cardinal points (please note: you are introducing the idea, not necessarily the term - until your child is ready to understand a collective word, just call the cardinal points the "directions" or "four directions") you will need to set up a routine for a number of days that will expand beyond any regular "classroom hours" you may have.

Take a couple of dowels or sturdy sticks and draw/colour/print two pictures similar to these: Rising Sun
and Setting Sun

I'd recommend putting the pictures in page protectors, to keep any rain or dew from harming them for a few days.

For several mornings and evenings, you and your child get to go outside to examine the position of the sun.

On the first morning, you take the sign for sunrise with you, and place it in the direction of the sunrise. On the first evening, you take the sign for sunset with you, and place it in the direction of the sunset.

To be able to push the dowels or sticks down somewhat in the dirt, it would be better to do this on a lawn or in a garden, not on a driveway or in other compacted dirt.

On subsequent days, you will go out as you did the first day, and you will ask your child, "Is our sign for the rising sun still in the right place, or should we move it?" Unless you have significantly changed what time you go out, the sign should still be in the right place. Repeat this process in the evening with the sign for the setting sun.

After a few days, you can invite your child to establish that the sun always rises from one direction, and always sets in the opposite direction. After this has been established (remember, a child may wish to do this experiment many times more than you think is necessary in order to establish that yes, indeed the sun always comes up and goes down in the same places), then you can move on to giving names to these directions.

So, on the following day, you can begin the Three Period Lesson on cardinal points. As the sun is rising, point towards it and say, "The direction where the sun rises is called "east." That evening, point towards the sunset and say, "The direction where the sun sets is called "west."

For the next few days, both in the morning and in the evening, as well as any time you're walking outside and happen to pass your signs, ask your child, "What direction is this?" (pointing one way), and "What direction is that?" (pointing the other way).

It is important to do this even when the sun is neither rising or setting, as your child will need to learn that east is still east, even when the sun is not rising; and that west is west, even when the sun is not setting. The directions refer to where the sun has risen and where it will rise in subsequent mornings, and to where the sun has set and where it will set in subsequent evenings.

[A note to those who live in or close to the polar regions: Obviously this exercise cannot work if you are currently dealing with nearly 24 hours without sunlight or almost 24 hours with sunlight! So, if you live in Norilsk, Russia; Resolute, Nunavut, or in South George and the South Sandwich Islands try to do this exercise when you are close to 12 hours each of daylight and night. Lessons on the earth's tilt and the circumnavigation of the sun can wait for a bit!]

When your child has become able to indicate east and west without help (using the signs as a reference), you can continue on to north and south. If your child knows the difference between left and right, wonderful! If not, you will need to help him/her to direct the hand that he/she writes with to the correct direction.

Have your child stand between the two signs and reach out his arms so that the left goes toward the east and the right towards the west. Then say something like, "When you stand with your left hand pointing to the east and your right hand pointing to the west, your face is looking south." Then get your child to turn all the way around and say, "When you turn all the way around so that your right hand is pointing towards the east and your left hand is pointing towards the west, your face is looking north."

From now on, as you pass your signs, you will want to ask not only "Which way is east/west?" but also "Which way is north?" and "Which way is south?"

The second step to introducing geography, maps, and globes, is the "Land, Water, Air Presentation." For this you will need three bowls, a small pitcher of water, blue food colouring, a clump of dirt, and something that can hold air, such as a plastic bag with no holes, a balloon, or some other inflatable item.

This is my little set-up:

Essentially, you present these three items as the non-living things of which the earth is made up , and then have your child understand their locations in relations to one another.

Hold up the first bowl and ask, "What is in here?" Let your child try to explain in his/her own words. Eventually you can add, "Yes, this is land, and it is also sometimes called soil/dirt/mud/etc.," using the terms your child used. Then ask, "Where can we find land?" After your child has listed a number of places where he/she can find land, say, "You know what, all of those places are right, because land is everywhere!" If you child says something like, "but there isn't any land in the house," you respond, "Maybe not in the house, but what's under the house? Land!"

Talk about all the things that men have made that land can be found under, such as buildings, roads, concrete paths, etc. If at any point your child mentions rocks in comparison with land, explain that rocks are part of land, the hardest part! And that when the rocks get crushed up, they look just like the rest of land. When your child has established in her mind that land is everywhere, and beneath everything, then you can move on to the next bowl.

Out of your small pitcher, either get your child to pour some of the water that has been dyed blue into the bowl, or if you know this will make a big mess, then you do so. Ask, "What is in this bowl?" Let your child explain and when he is finished say something like, "Yes, this is water. It is one of the other things that earth is made out of. Where can we find water?"

Give your child time to think and talk about where he has seen water, or where he knows he can find water. Although she may say something like, "in the bathtub" or "in the sink's faucet," then ask, "But where does that water come from?" Try to guide him toward natural sources of water, like the ocean, lakes, rivers, streams, wells, etc. After you have talked about lots of places to find water, ask, "And what is underneath the water?" Your child may have realised, after the land presentation, that land would also be under the water, but if not, talk about how if you go all the way to the bottom of any body of water, even in the deepest spot, you will find land!

After your child and you have discussed water enough, lift up the next container and ask, "What is in this bowl?" You're very likely to get the answer "Nothing," or "It's empty!" Then say, "Yes, it does look empty, but that doesn't mean that there is nothing in it! There is something in it, something that you can't see! There's air!" Give your child time to ponder this then ask, "What is air?"

If you have done any anatomy/biology and your child knows what lungs do, this is an excellent time to tie those lessons in with this by pointing out that air is what we breathe, and if we didn't have air to breathe we couldn't live.

Then blow some air into whatever inflatable object you have at hand and ask, "What am I putting inside this ______ to make it get bigger?" Then turn the object towards your child and let the air out so it gently blows on your child's face, hand, arm, or another body part. Make sure the place you choose isn't one that will frighten them! Ask, "Did you feel that? What was it?" Let her try to explain and then say, "Yes, that's what air feels like when it moves. Can you think of other examples of air moving?" If your child doesn't come up with something, guide them towards such things as wind, windmills, seeing leaves flying through the air, listening to the lungs with a stethoscope, or any other example that would be relevant to your child.

Then ask, "Where is air?" As your child lists places where air is, you can eventually point out, "Air is everywhere! Almost like land. Land is underneath everything, but air is over, in, and around everything, on top of the land and on top of the water!

You may need to present this lesson several times before your child fully comprehends it, which is perfectly normal. As he understands more, you should have to say less and less until he is able to explain the lesson to you without much help or guidance!

Leave the presentation items out for your child to use or examine at will. If she shows interest in going through the lesson again, then do so, encouraging her to take over teaching what she already knows.

Classroom Changes

****Happy Birthday, Mum!****

That's the blog equivalent of when overwhelmed and overexcited folks get on television and wave at the camera saying, "Hello Mum!"

As per the title, I've done a lot of changing around in our room since I last posted photographs, so here's what our classroom looks like now:

As you can see, we've added quite a few new materials in various subjects. And, if you're doing Montessori at home, as am I, learn from my strategical errors: Don't put more than two new materials/subjects out at the same time! I made too many changes too quickly, and for a while Ella just wanted to bounce from one thing to the next because it was all so new and exciting. Now I know better. If you only change or add one thing at a time (or maybe two, depending on how long you have as "school hours" a day), that will give the child more time to explore each new thing, without trying hard to get to everything at the same time!

I don't have time to detail all the new items and their presentations tonight. Suffice it to say, I've got close-ups of all the new stuff and will be writing about their use (both in theory and in practice) in the near future.

If you have a particular subject/material that is relevant and you would like to hear more about that one as soon as possible, let me know, and I'll blog on it first. Here's a list of what's new:

• Kumon workbooks (arts and crafts/math/writing)
• Clock with movable arms (preliminary history/telling time)
• Knobbed Cylinders Blocks 1 & 2 (sensorial)
• Land, water, air presentation (preliminary physical geography)
• Hammering (practical life)
• Seasons puzzle (preliminary history/telling time/preliminary ecology/preliminary biology)
• "Mighty Mind" (mathematics/logic/geometry)
• Letter boxes (language arts/reading/writing/spelling)
• Library corner (language arts/interdisciplinary)

As you can see, there's lots of interesting stuff coming up. The only problem is, I barely know where to begin!

So, You Want to Teach Geography?

Make it fun!!!

I said I'd talk a little about how I teach geography, and so I shall. But let me say first that I am not a trained Montessori teacher. I'm just a Mum who has done a lot of reading and research. Furthermore, I have not (as yet) received any "official" Montessori teaching guides (although I do have the Montessori Research and Development Early Childhood Geography Manual on the way - yippee!!!), but I know the the basics of the Montessori method, so I've applied them as much as possible to what I'm teaching. So what I write you can take as a guide, but certainly not as an authoritative approach!

Thus far I only have the World Continents puzzle map and the Canada puzzle map, but I'm eyeing the Planets and North America puzzle maps with longing!

And I'm so happy to be living in New Brunswick, where the public library system is excellent, making inter-library loans fast and easy! Through my local library I found the National Geographic "Our World" which is a fantastic beginner atlas (Canadians, make sure you get the Updated Edition so that you get a two-page spread of Canada and its provinces, otherwise you'll just get the U.S. and its states!); it was so wonderful, I went and bought it myself!

Rather than having a labeled or unlabeled control map, I made my own "control" by tracing each puzzle piece on black bristol board and cutting them out. I printed the name of each continent on a piece of cardstock (a very handy item to have around) using a very simple font (my preference is "Century Gothic" in bold). Then I glued the bristol board pieces to the corresponding piece of card stock at (approximately) the same angle as it appears on the map. I slipped these into page protectors to make for easy storage as well as keeping them in good condition.

Now, I had it easy when it came to geography. Firstly, I love geography. I can play with a globe for ages, even at my advanced age! And second (and more importantly) Ella is fascinated by maps! Since about a year or so ago, once she understood what a map was, she's really enjoyed looking at them, following the lines on them, and "explaining" them to others ("See Grampie, we hiked from here to here..."). When we go hiking, she loves to see where we've gone, and where we are going to. And when she first got the atlas (which was a while ago) she wanted me to identify places that she'd heard of, like "Uganda" and "Calgary"!

So, we'd been looking at it for some time, and she had been getting used to the ideas of maps and directions ("left, right, up, and down," as we haven't begun "north, south, east, and west"), when one day, while in town, her father needed directions on how to get somewhere. Now my husband is an extremely intelligent man, and if you want to discuss the intricacies of some abstract, complex theological subject, he's your man, but if you want directions, DON'T ask him! He is forever getting lost, and it's not uncommon for him to ask "Where are we?" when driving along. I'm usually the navigator and the driver, which doesn't bother me in the least. So I grabbed a piece of paper and pen and started to make him a little map. Ella, who was just getting out of her car seat to head with me to the library, climbed forward pointed at the little drawing and said, "Look Daddy! Mummy drewd a map of Nort America!"

A BRIEF EXPLANATION OF THE THREE PERIOD LESSON
Much of Montessori's method was built around the idea of the three period lesson. Each period represented a different level of learning, moving from directed learning to independent learning. The first period includes the teacher/parent introducing the material. The form in which they (typically) present the information is in a simple, straightforward statement, doing the lesson as they hope the child will learn to do it. So the teacher would say, "This is ______." The child may repeat the statement.

The second period is when the child has learned to identify those thing defined in the first period. In this period, the teacher/parent will be asking a question such as, "Where is _____?" or "What is ______?" or "Which one is _______?" And the child can then point and respond verbally, "This is ____."

The third period is the beginning of independent learning. This is when the child, with little to no direction from the parent/teacher applies the knowledge him/herself, doing as the teacher did in the first lesson. To start this period, rather than asking "What is _____?" the teacher/parent would rephrase the question to "What is this?" or "Where is this?"

Ultimately, the teacher will not have to ask any questions, because the child has learned the material already, they can do it on their own and can begin to explore with the material, discovering other things they can do with it (such as putting the puzzle map together as a jigsaw rather than in the wooden puzzle frame, or trying a new way of organising the red rods, perhaps in one long line rather than one above the other).

PRESENTATION - FIRST PERIOD
So, Ella already had some understanding of maps and map usage when I got the puzzle maps. And I went with simplicity when it came to presenting them to her. I sat out the puzzle, and fanned the control sheets out from the map in a semi-circle. Then I sat down and slowly and deliberately took out one of the puzzle pieces and ran it over the control sheets until I came to the correct sheet. I placed the puzzle piece carefully over the shadow and then ran my finger along the word beneath while I said, "This is North America," so she would get the idea that the letters below read "North America." I did this with every continent/piece, and then I did it again in reverse, essentially putting the puzzle back together.

SECOND PERIOD
I invited Ella to do the puzzle with me. I had her sit on my lap and I would say, "Show me North America" and she would try to choose that particular puzzle piece. If she didn't get it right, I would invite her to find the control page that the puzzle piece fit on, and when she did, I'd say, "You found Asia!" while underlining the place name with my finger on the control. Then I would repeat "Show me North America" and let her try again.

If she got it right, I would say, "See if you can match it to the shadow," indicating the control sheets. When she found it and had set the puzzle piece over the shadow correctly, I'd say, "That's right! You did find North America!" again, while underlining the words "North America" with my finger as I said the name.

We repeated the second period over a number of days, letting her get used to the placement of each continent, and when she was getting the idea with relative ease (though still not always doing it perfectly), we moved on to the third period.

THIRD PERIOD
This is the period of independent work, with as little parent/teacher direction as possible. I will help her by carrying over the map puzzle (it's a bit heavy and awkward for her yet), but she can do the rest pretty much by herself. If she gets the name of the continent wrong (naturally, she can get it properly placed on the shadow) I will guide her again by saying, "This is North America" and underline the word.

It hasn't taken her long to become fascinated even by the words. She will run her finger along beneath the word, just as I do, and say the letters aloud. She'll usually say something like this: "This is Asia," (she places the puzzle piece, then begins to run her fingers slowly along the word), "A - S - I - A, dat spells Asia!" So not only is she learning geography, but she is also learning spelling and reading!

Above, you can see Ella placing the piece for "South America" on the control page.

New Montessori Activities

I'm constantly adding and adapting the activities Ella does for school. Here's some of the newer stuff...

This is a practical-life activity. Essentially, she's learning to use tongs to transfer an item (in this case rocks!) from place to place. She soon figured out that she could get more if she sort of "scooped" up as many as she could before closing the tongs together.


This is a colour-sorting activity, which could fall in the category of "sensorial" or "finger dexterity."

For a long time Ella's favourite colour was blue (it's now green), and she still always begins with blue if green isn't an option.

I'm not 100% sure yet, but I suspect that my greatest challenge is going to be making mathematics fun and interesting. We've used the small number rods (pictures previously, but not in use), but in order for Ella to do it, I need to be completely with her, helping, showing, and creating games in order to keep her even semi-interested. Since until now that has been our only math-oriented activity, I've added my version of the spindle box. It was very easy to make. I got a few long, thin dowels and had Dad cut them into 5-inch lengths (45 spindles are needed for the activity), and sanded them. Then, using a "snap together" desk organiser that I got at the Dollarama ($1 for three parts, I needed ten, so I bought 4 - anyone need 2???), which didn't snap together very well! So I glued them together in two sets of five (easier to move, and takes less space), and using a thick permanent marker, I made the numbers 0 through 9 at the ends of each section. She's either not "up" to doing it on her own, or is not able to maintain interest in it on her own yet, though. So we're doing it as a game and we take turns putting the correct number of spindles in each section. I try to be sure that I alternate between doing the even and odd numbers.

She does really well until about 5 or 6, and then (quite honestly) I think she gets bored and doesn't bother really trying to do it correctly anymore. Math just doesn't have the fascination for her that other subjects seem to. I can't really blame her; neither of her parents were fond of math either!

WARNING - NUDITY AHEAD!!!

That is to say, our anatomy lesson - which (strangely enough, lol...) is anatomically correct! (To see the "nudity" you may have to look closely).

I got this anatomy layer-puzzle at one of my favourite toy stores, Hot Toads! (you can peek at my links, if you want to see other great stuff). I never have enough money when I go there. They are primarily an online store, but they do have a small store in Oromocto, New Brunswick, and the owner really knows his stuff. It's put out by Beleduc-Hape Toys.

This was an excellent activity. The bottom layer is the skeleton, then organs and systems, musculature, skin/nude, then dressed. As she did the puzzle, we talked about what the different parts were called and what they were for in a fairly informal manner. She did catch a lot, because I over heard her explaining to her grandmother that the skeleton was bones inside you and those are you "hard parts"!

Perhaps our favourite subject of all - geography! We're doing world continents. Ella adores maps and globes, and I've always like geography and cultural studies. I've made some "Antarctica" cards that we play with, and we're still planning an "Antarctic Expedition," which will take place in a snowy, barren location (maybe our back yard!). I had been hoping to do it tomorrow, but the weather might be against us. Freezing rain - yep, okay, they've got THAT in Antarctica, but by noon it's supposed to be just plain rain, and that will be wet and miserable. I need a cold day for it, not a wet one!

Ella had a surprise visitor - Nanie! Mum, being off from school (yea March Break!), came down to see Ella at her school, and to play. Every time Ella takes a piece out of the puzzle and lays it on its corresponding "shadow" above the written name of the continent, she'll say, "This is _____" (fill in the blank with whatever continent it is). She doesn't get them all right yet, but when she's stumped, she looks up at me and says, "I can't bemember this one!" and I'll tell her. She'll then repeat the name and continue. When re-assembling the puzzle, she also says each name.

She was so proud of herself - she got them all out, on the right shadows, and said all their names correctly when showing Nanie! Nanie (being a typical grandmother) was pretty proud too!