I have had many people ask how they can incorporate Montessori into the work they have to do at home with their elementary-aged children.

First, I have to state my sometimes unpopular opinion. Montessori Elementary cannot be accomplished at home in its most authentic form. It requires a prepared environment with other children, ideally a class of 24-32 children with an appropriately trained teacher, and a complete set of materials. However, this is not to say that you cannot successfully implement homeschooling following Montessori principles – you absolutely can.

I know there will be people who adamantly disagree with my opinion that it can’t be done, and that’s totally cool. However, when considering the developmental characteristics of the 6-12-year-old child and that the method was designed to be implemented in an environment with the above requirements, you would be hard-pressed to achieve an authentic experience outside the classroom.

So how can you use Montessori philosophy to enrich your homeschooling environment? I have outlined different elements of the Montessori Elementary classroom below and discussed how you could use them at home. This discussion is just bare-bones, and I plan on doing more in-depth posts on these topics if interest arises.

Working with Elementary Children

A considerable part of my work in my elementary classroom is helping the kiddos learn how to be productive. We discuss what productivity means, how to choose robust work options, manage and balance their time, stay on track with their goals, and balance their work between subjects. This work is done individually and consists of about 50% of what I do with my students.

Your Tools:

Your planning-

Have a loose plan of what you’d like to get done in a month and spread that out over the four weeks. I wouldn’t worry about following the plan strictly. Flexibility to follow your child’s lead makes life about a million times easier. If they show interest in angles that day, but it wasn’t in the plan for another two weeks, adjust. It’s worth it to ride that wave of curiosity and interest. Kids do want to learn inherently. They are curious and excited to discover things. Following those organic paths will make the work more exciting and relevant to your child. By the way, things always take longer than you think, and being over-planned is better than being under-planned.

How to get them hooked-

Kids LOVE stories! Storytelling is woven in to just about every lesson in the Montessori Elementary classroom. This is especially so in history presentations. We don’t worry about the dates of when things happened. We work to ignite the child’s imagination and to tell them things that they tend to naturally be interested in.  Just find out what they are into and go from there. Do they like helicopters? Tell them a story about Leonardo da Vinci and how he designed one hundreds of years ago. He also developed plans for a robot!

Be kind to yourself-

You are going to be busy and working hard. It’s important to be kind to yourself. Suppose you planned a lesson, and at the moment, you do NOT want to do it. Don’t do it. Find a way to be ok and positive about it on another day because forcing it when you aren’t into it makes it much harder, and they will feel that. If your kid is into it and you aren’t, do your best to rally. Follow that wave! Also, if you mess up a lesson and it doesn’t go the way you had hoped, just tell them. “Wow, that really didn’t go the way I had hoped, sorry about that,” and represent on another day. 

Below are topics that have always been popular in my class. Use some of these to inspire a story for your child. 

Animals

Space

Titanic

Ancient Egypt

Volcanoes

How the universe started

Evolution of life on earth

Big numbers

Mysteries

Writing Plays

Tools for you and your kiddo:

Weekly conferences with your kiddo-

Each week, schedule a time with your kiddo (over hot cocoa, perhaps?) to talk about what you have planned for them and what they might like to do. Be sure to include what you can of their requests. This is a great time to go over things they feel good about, things they want another lesson on, lessons they want to get, the next week, how last week went, etc. Check out this blog post if you’d like to learn more.

They can have a work journal-

They (or you, in the beginning) can write the date each day and what they do. On Mondays (or whenever your weekly conference is), you can put notes and whatever plan you both come up with in the journal. In the beginning, you may need to plan what items will be done on what days. Eventually, as your child works with you at home, they can choose when to do what. As they work throughout the week, you can refer to those meeting notes and plan if needed. It also helps keep a good record of your meetings. 

Note: What this looks like will be different for each child. Follow your child and meet them where they are. If they don’t need you to assign things because they are able to self guide their day, don’t do it. 

Lesson list-

I have a laminated Lesson Sheet that has a column for each subject. As students receive lessons, I write down the lesson’s name in the corresponding column with a sharpie. This way, when choosing the work they’d like to do, they have a master list of things they can choose from. It is also helpful to have during the weekly meeting. Then, when they are not in a lesson, they can use that sheet to choose something they’d like to do.

Most important thing? You are a partner with your child in their learning. Mutual respect is vital. Listen to them and take their input, and you will form a beautiful working relationship with your child.