In a Montessori Preschool environment for readers is this okay?

Question

I am a Montessori Directress/Teacher in a pre school environment (3-6year olds) I was just wondering some of the children i teach have started reading. I was thinking of making them books on the different realigions. In each book will contain there religious holidays.

The other idea was doing each book on a religious holidays (Christmas will be one book, Eid will be one book, Diwali will be one book & so fourth)

Is it possible to do each different book on each religion or should i do a book on each religious holiday.

Answer 1

I tie the holidays into each season. Before I even start talking about holidays, I discuss the earth going around the sun and the fact that the sun points to different parts of the earth at different seasons. I have a huge rug that is a map of the world, and the children and I draw the tropics and the equator on it and talk about equinoxes, solstices, and the changes of the seasons. Then I talk about the season that is coming up and we explore the holidays around it.

There are "Harvest Festivals" such as Thanksgiving, Halloween (Samhain), Sukkot, Harvest Moon Festival, ...

There are "Festivals of Lights" such as Christmas, Hanukkah, Diwiali, Saint Lucia Day, Los Posadas, Saint Nicholas Day, Advent, Kwanzaa, ....

There are the "Festivals of Rebirth" such as Christmas, Passover, Holi, Wesak, Nu Rooz, Beltane, ...

I have made booklets for each season with basic information on each holiday so that we can see the similarities in each, and then I have a booklet for each holiday that delves a little deeper into each of the festivals.

I make sure that I always cover the major religious holidays for that season (Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Chinese, Hindu) as well as those of the religion and culture of any child in my classroom. (Hmong, Sikh, Mexican Native American...)

For each of the holidays, I try to find things for the children to touch and taste as well as listen to. A menorah, wooden shoes, sugar skeletons, potato pancakes, …

Obviously, I don’t do all of this in a day or even a week. Each season study takes about a month. I know that might seem like a lot, but there is so much involved and so integrated (science, geography, social studies, history) that I base a lot of my cultural curriculum on it.

Oh, studying holidays this way means that the Islamic ones are left out. I deal with this by talking about calendars. There are some that are solar like ours, those that are lunar like the Muslim, and those that are mixed like the Jewish and Chinese. Since the Islamic calendar is completely lunar, the holidays aren't attached to a specific season and so they don't have a "Festival of Light" and so on. We study Islamic holidays at the time they are happening.

Oh and to Shmoomama, I am sorry for your daughter’s experience. Sadly, just because a school has the name “Montessori” attached to it, does not mean it actually adheres to our philosophy. What you describe is certainly not in any way Montessori. In fact it is the antithesis of it. Montessorians believe in following a child's needs and interests. Please do not judge all Montessori schools based on this interaction.

Answer 2

I have a montessori school of my own and spend some time on religious holidays. It is very important. I have even ordered books about the different holidays around the world which are available in the classroom and read by the children. For clarity one holiday is one book. I then place them in the room around the time of the holiday. I dont do all the hallmark holidays but have info on the religious traditions. What the children learn through discussion is that we are all actually more similar than different. The December holidays nearly all have lights of some kind so I use that item as a spin off into discussions. The children take it very seriously and are curious. They learn to respect differences and look for similarities.

Answer 3

Please make sure you have books on varying levels. We pulled my daughter out of Montessori at age 3. One of the reasons was the reading material they offered was way below her level. I would send books in with her, but had to stop because other children would treat them roughly. She was so sick of the teachers giving her "baby books" she pretended not to know how to read and even stopped reading at home. It took a month or so after we pulled her for her to pick up a book again.