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Learning occurs in three basic stages. Montessori's theory describes these stages as ABSORBING, CONNECTING, and CONSCIOUS APPLICATION.
The first stage is Absorbing, via the absorbent mind, impressions of various separate components that will later be joined. The child absorbs certain component phenonomena , and, if complete, creates a motivation for learning. Whatever is being absorbed, because it is being processed through that inherited inner structure in the back of the child's mind, the child senses a motivation to strengthen these associations.
The second stage of learning is Connecting. It consists of repeatedly acting out connections between the absorbed phenonomena, which usually involves physical activity. Through repetition, the child explores and establishes all the different ways that components fit together. In order to make the connections, such as between a verbal sound and a letter of the alphabet, the child must clearly perceive what is being connected. This stage of learning solidly binds, through repeated and carefully controlled activity, certain previously absorbed information, thereby drawing clear distinctions around them, resulting in a unified concept.
The third stage of learning is CONSCIOUS Application. The object of this stage is to make the concept meaningful for the child, by giving it a purpose in the child's daily life, and a relationship to other concepts that the child has learned.
The child's new powers of concentration support the first stage of learning, absorbing. Repetition and striving for control, which are characteristics of the sensitive period for coordination, help drive the second stage, connecting. Purposeful activity, guided by the will, becomes the basis for the third stage, conscious application. Together, these enable the child to perform "learning by connecting" - the three stage process which is the early basic knowledge and understanding.
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The THREE PERIODS of MONTESSORI Work:
PERIOD ONE - Early practical activities, introductory sensorial, culture, and language activities.
PRACTICAL - pouring beans or beads, opening/closing containers, buttoning, buckling, carrying and laying mat, early grace and courtesy manners, carrying tray, moving a chair, climbing / descending stairs, walking on a line, folding, hanging.
SENSORIAL - cylinder blocks, pink tower, color tablets, presentation of geometric, sensitizing fingers to touch, stereognostic presentation.
LANGUAGE - classified pictures, speech, "I spy" stages 1 & 2, books & library.
CULTURE - land / water presentation.
PERIOD TWO - Building foundational skills in all subject areas except mathematics, concentrating on sight and touch in sensorial work.
PRACTICAL - Pouring water, dressing, setting the table, polishing, washing hands, sweeping, asking for, receiving, and using scissors, greeting people, being silent.
SENSORIAL - advanced cylinder blocks, brown stairs material, red rods, binomial cube, blindfold with tactile tablets, sorting grains, sound boxes or cylinders, preliminary presentation of bells, 3 stage lessons on names of sensorial qualities.
LANGUAGE - classify pictures, single letter sandpaper letter, metal insets, frequent speech questioning, "I spy" stages 3 & 4.
CULTURE - land and water exercises, first maps, places classified pictures, preliminary work for classification by leaf.
PERIOD THREE - developing more advanced practical skills, concentrating on other senses in sensorial work, completing prepatory work in language, fully entering culture work, starting mathematics.
PRACTICAL - pouring water through a funnel, tying, simple chores.
SENSORIAL - geometric cabinet, constructive triangle, fabrics, thermic bottles, presentation of bells.
LANGUAGE - all sandpaper letters, "I spy" stages 5 & 6
MATHEMATICS - number rods.
CULTURE - all maps, past / present, air, land, and water, magnetism, classifying animals, parts of animals, parts of plants.
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