Montessori Care of the Environment - Indoor Plants

Looking after indoor plants is a great way to introduce care of the environment activities to small children and toddlers. If you have indoor plants this is fantastic way to do at home. If you don't have any indoor plants perhaps it's time to pick up one or two for your child to care for and observe?

Indoor plants can be observed but also need watering, access to sunlight, often they need repotting, dusting, fertilising and care! I love to have a variety of indoor plants however even one indoor plant at the child's height can be of benefit.

A small watering can that the child can hold and walk with is useful. For a very young child a small pitcher near the plant might be easier. A cloth or sponge nearby might be needed for cleaning (or mopping up) small spills. A small spray bottle can be provided for misting plants (especially if in a terrarium) or for spraying leaves for dusting. Dusting or leaf polishing can be done with a soft brush, sponge, cloth, cotton wool or even with a purpose made wool duster. In one of the examples above a small glass bowl of water is provided for the child to moisten the cotton wool before dusting. Perhaps some small scissors can be provided if the plants have old leaves that need to be removed.

Giving the child responsibility for a plant is worth considering. An adult can supervise and help the child if the plant is being over watered, not watered enough or if it needs to be moved for more sunlight. An older child can make observations across seasons and be involved in planting, repotting or potentially propagating. I love visiting the plant nursery and this is a really fun place to take children - perhaps they can pick out a plant of their own!

Fantasy & Reality in Montessori

An immediate difference most people notice between conventional kindergartens and Montessori environments is the absence of fantasy in Montessori.

When young children are building their own models of the world based on their formative experiences, is it fair to offer them things that are inconsistent with reality? Rather than providing children with amusing but fake tools, we prefer to offer them the real thing (real mops, brooms, knives, glasses, and so on).

However, this does not mean that Montessori children are discouraged from pretend play. Very often, children enjoy experimenting in different ways: both inside the environment (with the real tools of practical life), and outdoors (with that all-time favourite - sand). But this natural inclination to pretend should not be mistaken for a love of fantasy. Dr Montessori believed that children revealed their unmet desires during pretend play -- no wonder then that children love "making" yummy food in the sand pit!

Preparing Children For Life

People often ask us why we have practical life activities in the Montessori environment. How are these related to the child's development, they wonder.

At one level, these activities are great for building fine motor skills, understanding sequential processes and developing concentration in young children. However, we must remember that practical life activities must eventually be PRACTICAL! They have to help equip children for real life.

When our 6-8 year olds stay in school overnight for sleepovers, they put all that practice in practical life activities to use. The children are responsible for planning the dinner menu (they decided on salad & sandwiches), purchasing the groceries, doing the actual cooking (with minimal adult assistance), serving dinner, and cleaning up after.

Speaking as adults, we very much enjoyed the hospitality!

Practical Life: Matching Keys with Locks

Some Montessori activities are genuinely complex, and can be very confusing for adults unaccustomed to our approach. However, some other Montessori activities are very simple to understand, but can breed endless complexity with little tweaks.

One of our favourite introductory practical life exercises is the lock-and-key set: this is a simple set of locks and keys, with children trying to match the correct pairs. Based on the child's level, the set can contain a variety of differently sized locks, or a larger number of pairs.

It is not unusual for us to see children younger than 3 working on solving this puzzle for an extended duration of time without asking for any help. It is indeed a wonderful activity for developing fine motor skills and problem-solving abilities, and very easy to replicate at home!