Early Childhood Montessori Assistant Training Course

Prior to learning about the expectations for becoming a Montessori assistant in the classroom, it is important to have a basic understanding of what goes on in a classroom, the curriculum areas, and the basic philosophy of Montessori education.  In this video we will hear from former Montessori students about their experiences in the classroom.

Children strive to become independent. Montessori helps children to learn self care from hand washing, pouring, making a snack, cleaning up after yourself, and learning how to tie shoes and put on their coats.  This is the core of the Practical Life curriculum.

Montessori believed children learn using all their senses.  The Sensorial curriculum has many materials that help children sharpen their senses.  Comparing and matching sound cylinders, learning the basic senses of taste, hearing the different tones of bells and learning the sense of touch through feeling rough and smooth and others.

Language in a Montessori classroom begins by learning the sounds of letters, rather than the alphabet.  Tactile materials including the "sandpaper letters", the moveable alphabet, and grammar symbols help students learn language through increasingly abstract concepts.

The Math curriculum uses concrete materials that allow children to feel numbers through color coded beads.  There is the single bead, the ten bar, the hundred square and the thousand cube.  Many other materials, including the Number Rods, The Spindle Box, The Ten Board, and the Hundred Board and others are used to help children teach themselves the concepts of mathematics.

In the Cultural curriculum, students learn a variety of maps through puzzles.  They learn the flags of the world.  They learn basic art history, the anatomy of a frog and the parts of a flower.