Educational/ Teaching Material
The educational/ teaching materials present in a Montessori class possess within themselves an idea or concept to be realized by the child. These concepts or ideas are not supposed to be announced by the teacher to the child, as the idea/s is implicit in the material itself. The more the child works with it, the idea inherent in the material comes off from it into the child's mind. This way the concept will stay with the child forever, as the realization of the concept is done by manipulating of the materials by the child herself.
Note: The Montessori Materials are of no or little value, unless the teachers or parents have been trained in the techniques of using and presenting them to the children.

Observation
In a Montessori class the child's work or performance is not evaluated by conducting tests or examinations. Instead the child's effort and work is respected as it is. The teacher, through extensive observation and record-keeping, plans individual projects to enable each child to learn what he needs in order to improve. Therefore, observations play an important part in the Montessori Method.

Experiential Learning
"Give the world", she said, "to the small child and to the primary children the entire universe."

Experiential learning or "going out" is an integral part of the primary(6-12 years old) class curriculum, as all the lessons you give the children in class and all their work with the books and material is incomplete unless they see it is in the real world. In going out it is the whole world that offers itself to the child. So, new interests arise and new questions are asked.

Sensitive Periods
Dr. Montessori believed that each child passes through certain periods which she referred to as "Sensitive Periods," in which he has intense interest in certain objects and experiences in his environment. It is in this period that a child most easily learns and acquires particular abilities.

She felt there were Sensitive periods for control of movement, refinement of the senses, order, numbers, reading and vocabulary development. All occur before the age of six. Once the Sensitive period had passed, the child could still learn, but not with the rapidity, ease and comprehension he has at the height of this natural curiosity.

It is this peak time in each individual child that should be utilized for the optimum growth and development "into the adult he is to become."

Exercises in Practical Life
From the very beginning, a child is aware that everyday activities and life in a community is marked by certain values and standards. Striving to take part in the communal life and become a part of this community (by of imitation and repetition). These activities allow the child to come to terms with the immediate environment. Through the exercises of practical life, the child develops motor co-ordination and refines a conscious awareness and internalisation of the immediate environment. These exercises allow the child to bring order to mental processes and for independence from adults.

Exercises of Practical Life are classified under the headings of

	Care of the Person
	Care of the Environment
	Grace and Courtesy and
	Movement

Sensorial Activity
Even without any special materials, children sort objects by size, colour or form; by weight, temperature or smell; from large to small, from light to dark, from thick to thin, or from cold to warm.

The sensorial materials offer the child the opportunity to put things in order, to structure, to classify and to categorise.

The sensorial materials are arranged according to natural laws or mathematical principles. One characteristic is isolated, while the other characteristics remain identical. Typically, they have a precisely described application and use, and a precisely limited quantity.

These materials lead to individual work, to repetition, to experimentation, and to the discovery of possibilities. The materials contain a built-in, concrete control of error. With this reliable control of error, the children learn to work independently, without fear of failure. They learn that mistakes are important for learning.

The children learn to name the concrete qualities of the materials, and to connect and transfer these to the general environment. In this way, their conscious awareness of their surroundings is increased.

These clear concepts, which can be abstracted, lay the foundation for mathematics, geometry, language, biology, art and music.

Math Materials
The preparation for mathematics lies in the exercises of practical life and in the mathematical structure of the sensorial materials. The children know geometrical forms and their names from their work with the geometrical cabinet. They have internalised the concept of drawing abstracts from concrete examples. They are familiar with comparisons, sorting, ordering, measuring and counting.

Each mathematical exercise isolates a single concept or quality. These individual terms are combined to make a larger whole, and in this way form the basis for the development of mathematical thinking in the child.

The exercises offered to the children lead to the discovery of various aspects of mathematics. They explore the decimal system at first with number up to ten, then later extending this up to a thousand. Using the materials composed of pearls, invented by Maria Montessori, the child adds, subtracts, multiplies, and divides the concrete quantities. The pearl materials range from a single unit to lines of tens, squares of hundreds, and blocks of thousands. Through the activities of putting together and taking apart, the child unconsciously comprehends the interaction between the numbers. As the exercises proceed on an increasingly abstracter continuum the child is prepared to move increasingly from performing the arithmetical functions with the concrete materials to the abstract manipulation of quantities, and a maturation of mathematical understanding.

Language Materials
Montessori's language materials carry great importance because they provide a step by step development of language for the children at the age when their urge is greatest for the development and mastery of language.

With these materials, the children experience the motor co-ordination used for writing; they discover that words are composed of sounds, which can be made visible through symbols; they find that words can have different functions and meanings, and that sentences have structure.

Through a clear, inter-related construction (from speaking to writing to reading) this work supports and encourages the child's natural impulse towards exploration and experimentation, and leads to the discovery of the possibilities and limitations of language.

"Follow the Child"
One of the most fundamental, and misunderstood, tenet of the Montessori approach is encapsulated in the phrase "Follow the child".

"Follow the child" does not mean let the child do what he wants. It is simply an acknowledgment that the child has her own pattern - that we need to take into account where the child is at, rather than impose our idea of what the child should learn now. Montessori saw the child's development as passing through four developmental phases, with a pattern of intense growth reaching a peak and then declining, within each phase.

Each of these developmental phases is marked by

	A specific developmental goal
	A readily identifiable direction to reach that goal
	Specific sensitivities that facilitate reaching that goal

Prepared Environment
In the Prepared Environment of the Montessori classroom, however, children are free to work and learn. The child engages happily in purposeful activities. Concentration, inner discipline and motivation develop naturally as the children discover and explore this carefully planned environment.

Children work at their own pace, finding attractive activities which are appropriate for their different stages of development. They become problem solvers, leaders, and challenge seekers with a tremendous amount of self-esteem, self-discipline and love of learning.

Children absorb from their environments everything that is part of their culture; they do this without getting tired or fatigued. Learning occurs most fundamentally as a result of interaction with the environment. The teacher is both part of this learning environment as will as the dynamic link between it and the learner.

It is through the control and engineering of the physical properties of the educational setting that the Montessori teacher may have the greatest impact on the students. Her primary mission is to create a safe, beautiful and rich environment where children can learn to master and develop their natural skills.

The three-hour work period
Since the basis of the Montessori approach is based on the observation that children learn most effectively through direct experience and the process of investigation and discovery, days are not divided into fixed time periods for each subject. Instead, the trained adult offers presentations of the materials either individually or in small groups. The children are then free to work with these materials as long and as often as necessary. The opportunities for freedom of choice, movement and communication help develop inner discipline. The child's freedom to repeat an activity develops concentration, which Dr. Montessori says is the only true foundation for education.

Work Centers/ Developmental Succession
The environment is arranged according to subject area and as per the developmental sequence of that subject area. Although, once the teacher presents the material to the children they are always free to move around the room, and to continue to work on a piece of material with no time limit.

Establishing the "point of contact"
The point of contact cannot be established with a whole class of children at once. It is essentially an individual, process and cannot be mass produced. To be done perfectly, it involves individual initiation, followed by free choice of occupations.

Let's say, once the directress as established the required rapport between the children and their environment. She presents certain Exercise of Practical Life activity (e.g. how to roll a mat). An activity that the child is so familiar with and has seen being performed several times in his previous years is suddenly struck by the precision and limitation of the movements and the movement having a definite aim. That it arouses in the child a great interest and that interest is the beginning of a great future, as and above all the activity (though the children so not realize it consciously) presents the child with a means for self - perfection.

And when the children have been given the chance to do the same activity, they will perform it silently, almost breathlessly, with immense concentration and bright shinning eyes. It is as though they were saying to themselves, "Ah, I have felt something which I have never felt before, something which corresponds to my soul. I am "appassionato" to do it again, and again."

Once a child has really concentrated on a particular occupation he undergoes a change. The more he has concentrated the greater is the change. A new kind of interest has been aroused in him; and it is like an appetite which grows by what it feeds on. This awakened child will also establish the point of contact other than the directress, to the other children in the class.

The Absorbent Mind
The Absorbent Mind-Montessori distinguished between periods of growth, where the intelligence is directed inwardly in an act of self-construction; and periods of development, where the intelligence is directed outwardly toward increasing knowledge, information, and experience in the world. The period from ages 3-6 is a period of growth. Montessori often compared the child's mind to a sponge, which "absorbs" everything in its surroundings.

Concrete to Abstract
Concrete to Abstract-The classrooms are filled with hands-on materials. Montessori believed that knowledge proceeds from the hand to the brain. Concrete materials make concepts real, and therefore easily internalized. The student works abstractly (paper and pencil) when he or she has internalized the pattern and no longer needs the material.

Whole to Part
Whole to Part-The fundamental principal for Montessori Elementary education is often referred to as "Cosmic Education." Science education starts with the "Big Bang" and moves logically to the formation of the solar system and earth's geology. Math education begins with the "Story of Math", geometry by "the star gazer's story" and language education with "The story writing" Montessori believed that the child's mind must first be satisfied by a vision of the whole, before it can satisfactorily deal with the parts.

Going Out
"Going Out"-Related to the "acquisition of culture" is the concept of "Going Out." Montessori believed that the elementary aged child was developmentally especially suited to learn from activities outside the school building, in the thick of the society, the culture, and the natural world.

Cosmic Education
Cosmic Education could be better understood in Dr. Montessori's own words.

Dr. Maria Montessori in her book 'To Educate the Human Potential' Chapter 1 'The six-year-old- confronted with the Cosmic Plan' Dr. Montessori describes it,

'Since it has been seen to be necessary to give so much to the child, let us give him a vision of the whole universe. The universe is an imposing reality, and an answer to all questions. We shall walk together on this path of life, for all things are part of the universe, and are connected with each other to form one whole unity. This idea helps the mind of the child to become fixed, to stop wandering in an aimless quest for knowledge. He is satisfied, having found the universal centre of himself with all things'

She further says,
'Human consciousness comes into the world as a flaming ball of imagination. Everything invented by man, physical and or mental, is the fruit of someone's imagination'
(To Educate the Human Potential Clio p 10)

Materials that aid independence
The materials themselves invite activity. There are bright arrays of solid geometric forms, knobbed puzzle maps, coloured beads, and various specialised rods and blocks. All the materials in a Montessori environment are designed for maximum independence in the child: Everything, including a dustpan and brush, is child sized; activities are laid out in an orderly way on easily accessible open shelves; and the design of the materials makes it easy for the child to identify, and gradually correct, any error. This last point all but eliminates the need for correction by a teacher, a feature that has become a mainstay of traditional education. Instead of an external force judging him, the child relies on the impersonal judgement that comes from his senses. The guide in the material may be mechanical (all the pieces fit together only one way), it may be visual (the eye checking groups of objects sorted by touch). Either way, by coming to rely on himself, the child develops a 'friendly feeling' towards error, setting him on a path to self-improvement.