It has been a long while since I brought you a new offering, but the drought is over! Today, we are unbelievably excited to release The Marvels of Montessori Math series. This is a body of work that we hope will infuse new energy into math instruction in Montessori classrooms everywhere!
“If it ain’t broke…”
You might well ask why we need new math lessons. Montessori math materials are arguably the most coherent, cohesive, and complete didactic tools available! The answer lies in what we expect of the children.
Over the past couple of decades, math standards have broadened from strictly computational math to include more and more applications. These topics were once taught only as enrichment (like probability) or introduced as a specialized topic in middle school or high school (like ratio/proportion and statistics).
During this time, I watched Montessorians struggle to teach standards that were not covered by their teacher training program. They turned to resources like textbooks, online worksheets, or Kahn Academy, successfully teaching the required content abstractly. But the unintended consequence of this was shifting the focus of both children and adults from process to product. Yes, children could learn to methodically produce a box-and-whisker plot for a given data string. But it took a great deal of repetition to internalize the method because the learning was shallow. New concepts lacked a concrete foundation and context. And learning lacked the joy of discovery that is integral to Montessori Math.
“It’s like trying to fit 10 gallons into a 5-gallon bucket…”
As this unfolded, I watched this new required content force out many of the classic Montessori upper elementary lessons like squaring/square roots, cubing/cube roots, and alternate base systems. These incredible, beautiful lessons that extend children’s understanding of multiplication, the decimal system, and area and volume to dizzying new heights and profound depths were disappearing, replaced by worksheets.
Does this all ring true? Have you been harboring a suspicion that there ought to be a better way?
Seeds Germinate
Three years ago, my TEP asked me to take on Math II instruction. I decided it was time for my seeds of discontent to germinate and bear fruit; it was time to “materialize” the new required content. As I rewrote the math album (3 times) I had 4 goals:
- discover ways for children to experience the new standards concretely using traditional Montessori materials
- supplement Montessori materials only when strictly needed, using inexpensive, readily available items.
- write lesson sequences that intentionally bridge from concrete experience to abstraction
- tighten up the classic Montessori upper elementary lessons that I received years ago (squaring, cubing, and alternate base systems) to ensure better isolation of difficulty, stronger links to prior learning, and better indirect preparation for abstraction.
The result is The Marvels of Montessori Math.
What’s in it for me?
This new album has virtually everything a well-equipped classroom needs to teach both the classic Montessori lessons AND the new math standards:
- lessons with explicit instructions for every step and ample full-color illustrations for each process
- extensions and variations for many lessons for children who want more
- print-ready material-making masters for tickets needed in the lessons
- print-ready displays illustrating key concepts (photos of applications, graphs, etc.)
- follow-up activities for each lesson with corresponding Controls of Error
- indexing to CCSS standards, where appropriate
- discussion of applicable neuroscience concepts to better explain why a particular strategy is most effective
What if I don’t want an entirely new album?
If you are happy with the album you received in training and just want to supplement it with one or more of the newer standards, you can order just the topics you want. If you just want a tighter, fresher approach to the Montessori Math-II classics, that is also possible. Each topic of the album is available as a separate monograph (single-topic writing). You can tailor this to meet your specific needs and desires.
Please go to this page for details. Scroll down below the cart to see a a sequence of magnifying glasses that will take you to a product description and a Sneak-a-Peek button. You will also see our introductory pricing: up to 25% off. (Pricing is guaranteed through December 31, 2020).
Whether you peek at the full album (The Marvels of Montessori Math) or an individual monograph (a single section of the album) you will see the table of contents and, in most cases, some background on the topic and a representative lesson. If, after you sneak some peeks, you want help deciding what to order, please write to me at lockhartlearning@gmail.com.
In the meantime, let me extend my heartfelt wishes for a fruitful conclusion to this semester and express my deep gratitude for your support of Lockhart Learning! As always, if you would like to nominate a future material or blog topic, please be in touch.
Image by beate bachmann from Pixabay