What is the Prepared Environment and How it Can Help Your Child
When you are looking into incorporating the Montessori Method into your life, creating a prepared environment is one of the most important things you’ll do. Montessori classrooms and, in truth, the philosophy, are child-centred and child lead, which is why the child’s environment needs to be tailored to them. When carefully and meticulously prepared, a good environment helps children take the lead and sets them up for success.
In the UK, the Montessori philosophy is one of the best-known alternative educational methods especially in early years education and primary school.
After years of travelling around the world, extensive research and working with disabled children, Dr Maria Montessori developed a method of education with five main principles. You can read more about that here.
What does a prepared environment feel like?
“The first aim of the prepared environment is, as far as it is possible, to render the growing child independent of the adult.”
Maria Montessori
The Secret of Childhood
The environment should promote maximum independence, freedom and exploration. It should be simple and objective. Children should be able to move freely and to choose the activities they want to work with. Things that you don’t want them to touch or play with, should be out of sight.
Create a “Yes” space.
A room they can explore as they please without constantly interrupting them with “No” or “don’t”.
A shelf they can independently reach what they need without the help of an adult.
A space with materials that have been selected with your child’s interests and developmental needs in mind.
What does a prepared environment look like?
As we said above, independence, freedom of movement and choice are crucial. But what does that mean in terms of setting up their bedroom or living room or even bathroom?
Do you have to move or get rid of some of your lovely furniture and your delicate ornaments?
In short, yes. The home needs to adjust to suit the child, not the child that needs to adjust to the home. You need to purposely rearrange your house, after your child’s birth, with their independence and freedom in mind. This means decluttering, selling beautiful but dangerous furniture, moving delicate items out of reach and making space for their activities.
Try as much as you can to encourage independence and freedom while keeping structure and order. Nurturing their minds and bodies is and will always be your main goal.
After yourself, adapting your home environment for Montessori work and living is one of the most difficult tasks you’ll face. Not only it involves planning and observation, but it’s also a continuous process that never ends! Your house will need to be constantly changing as you adapt it to different age groups, interests and developmental needs. But even if the materials and the layouts may change often, the approach will always be the same.
If you are looking to prepare the environment for your child, there are six simple principles you can follow that will guide you through the process. They are freedom, structure and order, beauty, nature and reality, social environment and intellectual environment.
FREEDOM
“No one can be free unless he is independent: therefore, the first, active manifestations of the child’s individual liberty must be so guided that through this activity he may arrive at independence.”
Maria Montessori
The Discovery of the Child
Liberty and Freedom are a fundamental part of the Montessori philosophy. Freedom of movement, freedom to interact with someone else, freedom to be alone, freedom from interference.
Freedom is letting the child’s brain take them wherever they want to go. Following and exploring their impulses helps them develop all their potential and, crucially, to experience the highest form of freedom – freedom of choice.
By preparing an environment that gives them the freedom to make their own choices independently we allow them to use their own judgement, their free will.
STRUCTURE AND ORDER
“The laws governing the universe can be made interesting and wonderful to the child, more interesting even than things in themselves, and he begins to ask: What am I? What is the task of man in this wonderful universe? Do we merely live here for ourselves, or is there something more for us to do? Why do we struggle and fight? What is good and evil? Where will it all end?”
Maria Montessori
To Educate the Human Potential
Speaking of structure and order might seem counter-intuitive when we just talked about the importance of freedom, but these actually complement and balance each other perfectly.
For children to be free, they need to understand and internalize the structure and order of the world around them.
They need to make sense of the world they live in. When there is order in their environment, they take it in – it becomes part of them.
On the other hand, a chaotic and unpredictable environment can lead to uncertainty and insecurity as the child struggles to cope with a chaotic and overwhelming world.
BEAUTY
“Beauty lies in harmony, not in contrast; and harmony is refinement; therefore, there must be a fineness of the senses if we are to appreciate harmony. The aesthetic harmony of nature is lost upon him who has coarse senses.”
Maria Montessori, Gerald Lee Gutek (2004)
“The Montessori Method: The Origins of an Educational Innovation : Including an Abridged and Annotated Edition of Maria Montessori’s The Montessori Method”
A Montessori environment is a combination of art and science. Whether at school or at home the environment should be inviting and attractive.
Simplicity and harmony are key. Montessori spaces should be as much as possible neutral, calm areas, uncluttered and well–maintained.
When possible, choose soothing colours, soft materials and include natural light and plants. This will provide peace and tranquillity to both children and adults, allowing everyone to relax and focus while encouraging learning.
NATURE AND REALITY
“There must be provision for the child to have contact with nature, to understand and appreciate the order, the harmony and the beauty in nature (…) so that the child may better understand and participate in the marvellous things which civilisation creates.”
Maria Montessori
The Secret of Childhood
Dr Maria Montessori had great respect and appreciation for Nature. During her experiments, she observed how much children thrived by being in and exploring the natural world. In her words, “a child, who more than anyone else is a spontaneous observer of nature, certainly needs to have at his disposal material upon which he can work.”
Today, we are beginning to open our eyes to her teachings again. Children should not be indoors all day. They need the opportunity to observe, explore and learn from nature.
So, unless there’s a storm, take your child out! Let them feel the grass between their toes and the rain in their faces. Let them stop to admire that leaf, to pick up that stick, to splash in that puddle.
This is also why a Montessori prepared environment at school and at home includes Natural elements as much as possible. When possible, select natural learning, building and decorating materials like wood, metal, cotton or glass rather than synthetic materials. But whatever material or furniture you have for the child, the most important thing is that it’s size appropriate. You want to encourage them to be able to work, eat or play independently without having to ask an adult for help. Child sized (but real!) chairs, tables, cutlery, low hanging coat-hangers or gardening tools are some examples of easy things you can provide that will make a big difference.
SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT
“There is in the child an absorbent sensitivity towards whatever is in his surroundings. And it is by beholding and absorbing the environment that one becomes adapted to it. This faculty reveals a subconscious power that is only found in the child (…)
Maria Montessori
The Absorbent Mind
A Montessori environment promotes freedom of interaction as a way to help children with their social development. One of the ways in which this is encouraged in Montessori schools is by having mixed age groups. This gives the older children an opportunity to help and model for the younger ones and gives the younger ones an opportunity to observe and learn from them.
As they develop, children will become more socially and emotionally resilient and their relationships are strengthened as a result of that. Being able to interact with others allows children to develop their social skills as well as empathy and compassion.
INTELLECTUAL ENVIRONMENT
“The reaction of the children may be described as a “burst of independence” of all unnecessary assistance that suppresses their activity and prevents them from demonstrating their own capacities. It is just these “independent” children of ours who learn to write at the age of four and a half years, who learn to read spontaneously, and who amaze everyone by their progress in arithmetic. These children seem to be precocious in their intellectual development and they demonstrate that while working harder than other children they do so without tiring themselves. These children reveal to us the most vital need of their development, saying: ‘Help me to do it alone!’”
Maria Montessori
From Childhood to Adolescence
The intellectual environment is the end result of the above five principles. The idea is not to focus on just developing your child’s intellect but to help them develop as a whole. The beauty of Montessori is how it looks at all the different aspects of your child’s development.
By creating a space where children feel not just safe but also supported, you’ll be helping them develop both their intellect and their personalities.
As their focus increases, so will their curiosity and interest in learning. Following your child, having developmentally appropriate and nature inspired materials available to them, in a beautiful and inviting setting, giving them freedom along with structure and order will all work together to nurture their creativity, independence, confidence, intellect and sense of self.
Final thoughts
You’ll find all of these principles in use if or when you visit a Montessori school, but you can also implement them at home. We spent a lot of time and effort in our own house preparing it for N. For everything you do, the best reward will be watching your little one taking advantage of it and improving coordination, concentration and independence.
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