Grammar Materials - By Maria Montessori

From Volume 2 of The Advanced Montessori Method: The Montessori Elementary Material:

The study of grammar has finally been arranged in a methodical series of exercises and the material has been prepared after careful and rigid experiment.

Those who read this method will get a clear idea of the teacher's task.

• She has a material ready for use. 

• She need not bother to compose a single sentence nor to consult a single program. 

• The objects at her disposal contain all that is necessary. 

• She need know simply where they are and how they are to be used. 

The lessons which she must give are so simple, and require so few words, that they become lessons rather of gestures and action than of words. 

She goes on to describe the joyful experience that grammar exercises become.

Is not this a common mistake?

Apply this idea to what you know of Montessori, to what you know of the children you have, to what you know of life in general.

A great deal of time and intellectual effort are wasted in the world because what is false seems great and what is true seems slight. 

The Discovery of the Child By Maria Montessori Chapter 14

Cursive or Print - 4

When choosing between print or cursive at any age, consider Montessori's own words in response to a popular method at her time of teaching capital print letters first:

This method for teaching one how to write illustrates the tortuous ways we follow in teaching because of our tendency to complicate matters. It resembles the tendency that we have to put a high value only on complicated things. ... Will not a child have to make an effort to forget printed, in order to learn cursive letters? And would it not be simpler to begin with the latter?

The Discovery of the Child by Dr. Maria Montessori, chapter 14

Education and Peace

("super" in the following quote refers to something higher than it was - supernature is that nature which has been raised from its created state to a higher purpose --- see other Nuggets on Cosmic Task)

It is quite evident that man has a mission. He has extracted hidden wealth and marvelous energies from the bowels of the earth, and he has created a superworld, or, more precisely, a supernature. As he has constructed this supernature little by little, man has also perfected himself and made the natural man he was into a supernatural man. Nature is a domain that has existed for centuries, and supernature is yet another domain, which man has gradually constructed. 

Contemporary man no longer lives within nature, but within supernature. An animal can procure its food directly from the earth, but man is dependent on other men. How man men labor so that the bread we eat may reach our mouths! And fruit that comes to us from a faraway place may represent a vast organization of men, a formidable and strict organization that holds human society together. 

We must be aware of this organization if we are to evaluate properly certain widespread ideas that find expression in a number of slogans: "Let us return to nature." "Let us become one with nature."

The life that some call "artificial" is mankind's supernatural life. Our way of life is not artificial, but rather the product of labor. If we did not make such a distinction, we might be inclined to say that even the way of life of certain animals is artificial -- that of bees, who "artificially" produce honey, for instance. Man is a great work, capable of creating a supernature through his labors.  

But we might now ask ourselves: if animals labor so joyously, why do men not also take delight in their work? 

SOURCE: Education and Peace Dr. Maria Montessori, translated by Helen R. Lane; Part 2, 5th Lecture