Montessori Curriculum Areas

Practical Life
Practical Life (or daily life) exercises teach children skills to care for the environment (e.g. pouring and cleaning activities), develop independence through learning to care for themselves (e.g. dressing and grooming), and learn to manipulate things in their environment (e.g. opening jars, peeling carrots, sorting objects). These formative activities for adapting to the environment aid the child's inner construction of discipline, organization, independence, and self-esteem through inspiration and concentration. (from Montessori: A Modern Approach, p 71)

Sensorial
The intellect does not work in isolation. Children connect through the five senses to the inner life through the process of abstraction - deriving intangible essences from the material world. This curriculum area is designed to assist children in making abstractions more easily and accurately through comparisons and classifications. By focusing childrens' minds on qualities (i.e. color, shape, measurement, etc), order and system is brought to the random impressions of childhood. (from Maria Montessori: Her Life and Work, p 158-168)

Mathematics
All areas of the Montessori curriculum assist children to discover the abstract through concrete materials, called 'materialized abstractions' by Maria Montessori. The mathematics curriculum demonstrates the value of the Montessori philosophy and principles in focusing on the principle of isolating difficulty, indirect preparation, and sequenced presentations of manipulative materials, rather than the memorization of tables of numbers. Through this process, children construct their own knowledge with the discovery of mathematics as a result. (from Maria Montessori: Her Life and Work, p 166, and Montesori Controversy, p 114-5)

Language
Indirect preparation is perhaps most difficult to appreciate in the development of language. Language is acquired through work accomplished in sensitive periods, through an innate drive for development, through the incessant repetition of an interest, etc. Because of parental pressures and opinions about when a child should learn to read and write, children's language is not often given the chance to develop at its own pace. Allowed the opportunity, children 'explode' with words (around the age of two), 'explode' into spoken sentences, 'explode' into reading and writing.

Cultural
In the end, a Montessori education is about awakening the 'soul' of the child. This spirit is awakened through a love of life and learning that arises from the process of discovery laid out on these pages. Sensorial exercises prepare the hand for writing but also for drawing and painting. The prepared environment exposes the child to color, form, and beauty. Subsequently the child develops awareness, aesthetic sense, and artistic appreciation. From these come increased creativity and freedom of experssion.