Sundrop Montessori refers to a chain of schools across Charleston. The one that I visited was located in North Charleston and held both a Toddler classroom (18 months to 2 years) and a Primary Classroom (ages 3-6), covering the span of development that Montessori discusses in The Absorbent Mind.
It has been intriguing to see how each Montessori school I have seen imparts a different initial impression. Whereas Montessori Fountainhead felt like a home from childhood, East Cooper a peaceful workspace, Sundrop Montessori felt like a daycare center—relaxed, unstructured, and safe. While Sundrop Montessori contained fewer materials, having been recently established at the North Charleston location, the classrooms held the most space of the three, and the class size was the largest I’d seen so far, with 30 students in the Primary classroom.
I began my observation in the infant and toddler classroom, where about seven children were free to pick various sensory materials off of the shelf—I noted one girl playing with the “locks”, a material of various locks and hinges for the child to undo and redo, thus building practical fine motor skills. Many children wanted a book read aloud to them, and I was happy to oblige. One two-year old girl sat at a table with a foam pegboard for the duration of my forty-minute observation—a length of time that, for an early childhood lesson, would be deemed developmentally inappropriate even in kindergarten. I can see exemplified by this observation Montessori’s idea of “normalization”—the idea that concentration produces discipline, self-regulation, and absorption or commitment to a task until the individual is satisfied in its completion. In these forty minutes, then, the child has not only developed physical skills or visual discrimination abilities, but has also developed independence in choosing a task of interest. The teacher, meanwhile, was instructing another student in use of the color tiles. This is generally taught through the “Three Period Lesson”, which involves: 1. Introduction to the topic (“This is green.”), 2. Orientation of the student to the topic (“Can you point to green?”), and 3. Testing the student’s recognition (moving the color tiles and switching their order, the teacher will ask, “Can you move the green here?”). The teacher used very few words in her instruction, another important component to Montessori lessons. Both teachers in the infant classroom referred to all projects as “work”, thus maintaining the consistency of the curriculum. They swooped in to teach children how to properly replace materials and care for the work around them—for example, requesting that a child replace the work mat they kicked, or finish one work before beginning a new one. Although it was challenging to keep the toddlers quiet in the Montessori room, I could see how the teachers used instruction to build skills that would be necessary in the primary classroom. When the infants left for some time in the school’s garden, I moved to the primary classroom for the latter half of my observation.
The primary classroom, in contrast to the infant room, was much larger. The space was organized efficiently, with the exception of a snack area that was perhaps a bit small. Children were spread around the room, as they were at East Cooper Montessori, and absorbed in their work. Materials were arranged with specific locations and purposes—while observing two children engaged in pretend play with dinosaurs, the teacher stopped by and requested that the children sort the dinosaurs and “continue the work” designed with those materials. I found this interesting, because pretend play is normally encouraged at all times in child development.
The students paused their work for a circle time, leaving a nametag by whatever activity they had left. As the teacher passed around a snack, the students discussed the calendar, the weather, the days of the week, and the continents on a map. They sang a good morning song using sign language as well. Two circle times—an older group and a younger group—occurred in different areas of the classroom, with little opportunity for the students to transition between groups. Aspects of circle time incorporated Spanish vocabulary as well.
The students who I spoke with were eager to share their work. Two students, a boy and a girl of different ages, were constructing a string bead chain, counting their beads up to the 500’s using number tags. Another student, engaged with a mathematical task, informed me that he liked “the easy work” at this school. A young girl showed me a clothing board she had completed, saying, “Do you like my work? It looks like me.” While I am uncertain how the cloth ‘looked like her’, I felt this was an example of the overall level of investment in work and connection to school felt by every student I observed. Sundrop Montessori was another case of observation where I left the school feeling peaceful, focused, and ready to begin with the rest of my day. I am truly a fan of the Montessori system, and cannot wait to continue to visit more schools in the future.
It has been intriguing to see how each Montessori school I have seen imparts a different initial impression. Whereas Montessori Fountainhead felt like a home from childhood, East Cooper a peaceful workspace, Sundrop Montessori felt like a daycare center—relaxed, unstructured, and safe. While Sundrop Montessori contained fewer materials, having been recently established at the North Charleston location, the classrooms held the most space of the three, and the class size was the largest I’d seen so far, with 30 students in the Primary classroom.
I began my observation in the infant and toddler classroom, where about seven children were free to pick various sensory materials off of the shelf—I noted one girl playing with the “locks”, a material of various locks and hinges for the child to undo and redo, thus building practical fine motor skills. Many children wanted a book read aloud to them, and I was happy to oblige. One two-year old girl sat at a table with a foam pegboard for the duration of my forty-minute observation—a length of time that, for an early childhood lesson, would be deemed developmentally inappropriate even in kindergarten. I can see exemplified by this observation Montessori’s idea of “normalization”—the idea that concentration produces discipline, self-regulation, and absorption or commitment to a task until the individual is satisfied in its completion. In these forty minutes, then, the child has not only developed physical skills or visual discrimination abilities, but has also developed independence in choosing a task of interest. The teacher, meanwhile, was instructing another student in use of the color tiles. This is generally taught through the “Three Period Lesson”, which involves: 1. Introduction to the topic (“This is green.”), 2. Orientation of the student to the topic (“Can you point to green?”), and 3. Testing the student’s recognition (moving the color tiles and switching their order, the teacher will ask, “Can you move the green here?”). The teacher used very few words in her instruction, another important component to Montessori lessons. Both teachers in the infant classroom referred to all projects as “work”, thus maintaining the consistency of the curriculum. They swooped in to teach children how to properly replace materials and care for the work around them—for example, requesting that a child replace the work mat they kicked, or finish one work before beginning a new one. Although it was challenging to keep the toddlers quiet in the Montessori room, I could see how the teachers used instruction to build skills that would be necessary in the primary classroom. When the infants left for some time in the school’s garden, I moved to the primary classroom for the latter half of my observation.
The primary classroom, in contrast to the infant room, was much larger. The space was organized efficiently, with the exception of a snack area that was perhaps a bit small. Children were spread around the room, as they were at East Cooper Montessori, and absorbed in their work. Materials were arranged with specific locations and purposes—while observing two children engaged in pretend play with dinosaurs, the teacher stopped by and requested that the children sort the dinosaurs and “continue the work” designed with those materials. I found this interesting, because pretend play is normally encouraged at all times in child development.
The students paused their work for a circle time, leaving a nametag by whatever activity they had left. As the teacher passed around a snack, the students discussed the calendar, the weather, the days of the week, and the continents on a map. They sang a good morning song using sign language as well. Two circle times—an older group and a younger group—occurred in different areas of the classroom, with little opportunity for the students to transition between groups. Aspects of circle time incorporated Spanish vocabulary as well.
The students who I spoke with were eager to share their work. Two students, a boy and a girl of different ages, were constructing a string bead chain, counting their beads up to the 500’s using number tags. Another student, engaged with a mathematical task, informed me that he liked “the easy work” at this school. A young girl showed me a clothing board she had completed, saying, “Do you like my work? It looks like me.” While I am uncertain how the cloth ‘looked like her’, I felt this was an example of the overall level of investment in work and connection to school felt by every student I observed. Sundrop Montessori was another case of observation where I left the school feeling peaceful, focused, and ready to begin with the rest of my day. I am truly a fan of the Montessori system, and cannot wait to continue to visit more schools in the future.
