5 Important Ways You Can Help Your Preschooler Succeed

Daycare may be the first experience with school, but education begins at birth. Children begin life with no inherent knowledge of the world, and parents are the first source of information they have. In order for your child to develop into a competent individual, it is important that you take an early interest in her success.

1. Learning Begins At Home

Parents spend a lot more time with their children than their Montessori daycare teachers. This makes it very important that parents take an active role in assisting their kids on the path to success. One important way you can do this is by creating a prepared environment in your home that is designed expressly for the child. The parental role extends much further than this, but a prepared environment is an excellent place to begin.

2. Inclusion is Important

It is important that kids are given the opportunity to become big helpers as soon as they are old enough to do so. Simple chores like helping feed the family pet, setting the table or picking up after themselves help instill children with a sense of inclusion, and that builds their self-confidence. Inclusion leads to higher self-esteem, and that can-do attitude helps them in all aspects of early development.

3. Routines Build Self-Esteem

Simple routines do not have to include household chores. Setting out their daily wardrobe and brushing their teeth are personal routines that build self-esteem as well. Furthermore, setting up routines conforms to a child’s need for order and consistency in their lives.

4. Sleep Schedules

Maria Montessori recognized that a regular sleep schedule is vital to early childhood development. In addition to the comfort of a set schedule, getting plenty of rest boosts children’s ability to concentrate, helps them retain what they learn during the day, and reduces unwanted behavior in school and at home.

5. Talk It Out

Children are small versions of adults and have the same desire to be accepted as anyone else. By talking to children about their day and helping them express things that excite or disturb them, you give them a sense of being a member of the group. Observing how children respond to stimuli is a cornerstone of the Montessori Method, often leading to new insights concerning your child’s development.

You are the most important role model your daycare children will ever have. When you show an interest in helping her succeed, you are also demonstrating to her that she is important to you. The more you help her develop and learn, the faster she will develop the skills necessary to take on leadership roles as she progresses.

How Do Authentic Montessori Schools Teach Daycare Kids About Gratitude?

Children like to be liked, and learning about Grace and courtesy assists them in gaining the admiration of others. Grace and courtesy are cornerstones of the Montessori Method and are not so much taught as practiced as a matter of course. This process begins in Montessori infant care and continues for as long as children attend authentic Montessori schools.

Basic Courtesy

Learning to say please and thank you are common first steps in teaching children the effects of grace and courtesy. First, daycare children discover that asking politely gets better results than making demands. As they develop, they begin to understand that showing kindness to others gives them a good feeling about themselves. Over time, the use of courtesy becomes automatic and children use it without giving the idea any thought.

Assisting Others

Once children have adjusted to the idea of being courteous and the good feelings it bestows, they enter a helpful stage when they seek opportunities to provide aid and comfort to those around them. When they see a classmate or friend struggling with some activity that they feel comfortable with themselves, they will readily offer their assistance. This leads to gaining more appreciation and acceptance and encourages their interest in the next step, volunteering.

Volunteering

Unlike assistance, volunteering is the act of seeking out opportunities to be useful to others, and in the community at large. Since community involvement is an important part of Montessori education, they will be given ideas and opportunities to volunteer for things like picking up litter. And since nature is also fundamental to Montessori, kids will often look for ways to benefit the environment through volunteer efforts of their own.

Daily Journals

Keeping journals is beneficial in several ways, including the ability to relive instances of courtesy and grace. Obviously, journal keeping is beyond the ability of daycare children, but talking about being kind to others can begin then and will evolve into keeping a written record when they have achieved the necessary academic skills.

Being grateful is part of the Montessori Method, not a specific lesson that children are taught. It reinforces a child’s natural tendency to be helpful and is reinforced by the good feeling they experience while doing so.

4 Ways You Can Help Your Child Transition from Preschool to Elementary School

Beginning elementary school is a huge accomplishment for little kids, and sometimes the idea is daunting. As parents, the task of helping children make the transition is important in order to prevent unnecessary anxiety. To that end, here are 4 great tips that will make moving up the big kids’ classroom a little easier to accept.

1. Take Your Child For A Tour

Instilling a sense of anticipation is a great way to take some of the stress out of transitioning to Montessori elementary school. You can do this by taking your child for a tour of the new school or getting acquainted with new teachers if she will be attending the same location. Keep in mind that things have changed in the post-pandemic world, and schedule your visit with the staff before you arrive.

2. Keeping Up With Friends

It is easier to make the transition into elementary school when there is a tangible goal in doing so. Children, like their parents, are social creatures, and knowing they will be attending classes with an established group of friends is reassuring. This also fits into a child’s preference for consistency, because maintaining contact with people they know makes the transition more like a continuation than being thrust into something new.

3. Practice Before School Begins

An elementary school works quite a bit differently than preschool, and transitioning without acclimation can be a stressful experience. You can help overcome that by practicing going to school before it actually starts. This includes the (hopefully) well-established morning routines, then looking at the kind of subjects and learning materials the kids will be using in the classroom.

4. Becoming Big Kids

Small children have spent their entire lives watching older, more advanced people going about their “Big people” purposes. Transitioning into elementary education is a major step in children becoming big kids too. Even though Montessori’s mixed-age groups have already given children a taste of being among the oldest in the class, the new classroom is a more tangible type of being older because it encompasses a new set of circumstances and responsibilities.

Helping your kids adjust to elementary school gives them more confidence. It means they can play a larger role in events at home, learn more detailed practical tasks, and discover the answer to mysteries that have intrigued them for a long time. Even children who are slower to adapt will adjust more readily if they are prepared when the big day comes.

4 Reasons That Teaching Preschoolers About Calendars is Important

Many experts say that learning about calendars in preschool is not the correct way to learn. The argument is that young children cannot grasp abstract concepts such as the days of the week, and trying to teach them too soon will confuse them. On the other hand, Maria Montessori observed that children learn more readily when they are young, and fully supported learning about calendars. In fact, a perpetual calendar– one that can be used indefinitely– is commonly found in Montessori classrooms and is often introduced as a preschool activity that allows children to manipulate the calendar as they learn.

1. Routines and Schedules

The minds of Montessori preschool children can be compared to dry sponges that eagerly absorb knowledge about the world and how they relate to it. At the same time, kids perform better when they have set routines and schedules to help them mark the progress of their days. By including basic information about calendars as part of their daily education, parents and teachers provide children with a missing tool for tracking their existing routines. Learning about calendars at an early age is often easier for preschool children than it would be a few years later.

2. Relatable Connections

Simple calendars can be used to know the day of the week or simple things like keeping up with seasonal changes. One way to help preschoolers with this is to have children keep a journal that includes the date and day of the week. Even though these delineations have little or no meaning at the beginning of preschool, they will become less abstract and more tangible as children begin to see the patterns connected to different days. Once they grasp these connections, kids will start to associate more readily with first the weekly days and then the monthly weeks. 

3. Math and Language

Calendars are excellent for learning to count because every calendar has a predetermined number of elements that can be expressed with numbers. Additionally, calendars help children expand their vocabulary by teaching them new words like the name of the days of the week, the names of months, and more. Calendars also show how items like days can be grouped together into sets that can contain a specific number of items.

4. Preparing for the Future

Calendars will become more important as children get older, and absorbing the basics at an early stage provides a practical framework for future advancements. Calendars help create schedules, and hold the clue to finding out when special events take place, including birthdays, favorite holidays, and more.