Highland Montessori School

Our holiday materials are back

It’s December, and that means cooler weather and new works on our shelves. After a month of smashing golf tees into pumpkins and learning the parts of a turkey, now we’ve moved on to cutting out snowflakes, learning the parts of a snowman and sorting wreaths and candy canes.

but… Why? Why do we regularly change the materials on our shelves that are available to students?

Our families and followers see the patterns: snowflakes and snowmen in the winter, lots of hearts in February, and flowers in the Springtime.

Of course, on the surface we are teaching the children about the seasons and holidays–this is a big part of our science and culture curriculum and not to be overlooked. But as we have mentioned here before, the changing shelf contents keep children interested. Many tasks require repetition to be mastered, and giving it a new look makes it more entertaining. Other students may be seeking a reason (the “hook”) to try new things.

Pedagogically, we want our young scholars to develop in all areas. So in an effort to keep them from getting stuck in a rut, and doing only a few activities that they like and come easily to them, we change up things from time to time. (Don’t take this wrong…. we like repetition, too!)