Montessori education is designed around the materials and the ability to follow the child. This means providing the child with the right materials at the time for what they are interested in.
Yet, the environment is not static. Changes are made to reflect the season, to try to regenerate interest in a material that is not being used. Changes are often made to reflect current holidays or teaching themes.
The more connections that you can make between current knowledge and new knowledge there will be a higher possibility of longer term retention. (It was only recently that I actually learned the dimensions of the knobless cylinders, but I was willing to guess they were in metric units!)
If we ARE teaching to current holidays, perhaps it is the ideal time to incorporate the geographic history and related significant figures over time. If we ARE teaching about the rain forest, perhaps we should also teach about the people in the rain forest- not just the animals. If we ARE teaching about dinosaurs, perhaps we should look up significant locations of fossil remains and teach about geography.
What would you change about the curriculum if you could start from scratch?
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