As the Toddler becomes more and more competent physically, he will indicate a need, as well as an ability, to accomplish still more complex tasks. The Toddler environment has been developed to enable the child to work more independently, and to explore complex materials, as he grows in orderliness and builds new skills. The Toddler community is a child-sized environment, so that the “I want to do it myself” need of the child may be fulfilled. Shelves are low to the floor, chairs and tables are light-weight for easy movement, and materials are designed to be manipulated by small hands.
This community allows the child to live each day to the fullest and not just be “entertained” by the actions of an adult. The Toddler wants to cook, clean, set tables, wash clothes, change clothes, feed himself, and learn the names of everything he can. He wants to be active and not merely pass the time until his parents pick him up. To meet his strong desire to control everything around him, separate areas have been set up within the environment for dishwashing, cloth washing, food preparation, personal hygiene, language, play, and sensorial exploration.
All areas are introduced to the child through carefully designed lessons. Because Toddlers desire order and routine, lessons are presented in the same fashion every time they are given, and contain a number of steps which Toddlers will eventually learn and use in a ritualistic fashion.
The following are just several examples which show the process behind the development of the Toddler environment.
Light-Weight Furniture
The Toddler often becomes frustrated when he cannot manipulate his own environment. All furnishings meant to be moved are specially designed to be light enough so that the child is able to do so. Those furnishings not intended to be moved are weighted down. However, when selecting furnishings for the Toddler’s environment, the ideal is to choose things over which he may be permitted to control.
Small Spaces
The Toddler is unable to inhibit his movements in large spaces. The larger the room, the more chance a child will run and become over stimulated and aggressive. A child of this age cannot physically inhibit his movement without great physics and mental exertion, and sometimes even outside help. Reduction of space refines grace and courtesy through the awareness of others and of the environment.
Practical Life
Through practical life exercises, the Toddler’s needs for order, repetition and refinement of movement are met. There are many practical life exercises in this environment, including dressing frames, dishwashing, cloth washing, and sewing. The Toddler is preparing for life, and not just for school. One example of how the practical life exercises help the child in his quest for independence and control is the hand-washing exercise.
A parent may ask why a separate hand-washing exercise is set-up in a room that already has a sink. More steps are required in the artificial hand-washing exercise we have devised than are present at a sink. The child not only is at a comfortable level, but is manipulating equipment he is fully capable of controlling. He learns pouring, pumping, wiping and measuring, and not just merely turning on of a faucet.
Attention is drawn to the cleaning of the apparatus in preparation for the next child’s use, thereby expanding the Toddler’s zone of “self” to include the community need. Pouring leads to better feeding abilities, and eventually will assist the child in handwriting, by refining the movement of the wrist and the ability to manipulate a writing instrument (small motor skills). As with all other practical life exercises, it is the sequencing of the steps and ritualizing of the task that holds the child’s attention and fulfills the Toddler’s needs.
Language
To the child of toddler-age, language development is all-encompassing.
Every daily activity depends on, and is an outgrowth of, language. In his sensitive period for language acquisition, the Toddler never tires of hearing both his native and foreign tongue. The Toddler environment is supportive of his quest for language acquisition.
The children in the Toddler program are read to often on a diverse range of topics, including nature, animals, people and places; object baskets introduce new language in an exciting and captivating manner. In addition, Spanish lessons are given on a daily and weekly basis; and verbal labeling of the indoor and outdoor environments as well as those things which they contain is a natural outgrowth of all planned activities.
In Montessori: A Modern Approach, Paula Polk Lillard writes that:
Language is an integral part of the life of the classroom, and there is a continuous encouragement of self-expression and communication. Vocabulary is enriched in the Montessori classroom in a number of unique ways. Precise names are used for all the objects in the environment, and there are a good many! All sorts of language games are played (‘Can you bring me the book?’)
There are also many picture-card matching games that enrich vocabulary: cards of furnishings, foodstuffs, clothing, housing, transportation; classifications of animals, reptiles, etc. These must all be made by the directress. The child absorbs the vocabulary that goes with these cards because he is still in his sensitive period for language. If he does not encounter these names until later, he will have to “learn” them in a process that will have far less appeal for him. The materials also encourage the concept of classification by their orderly arrangement and division into categories of sensorial activities, practical life exercises, etc.
The Toddler language curriculum aids the child in the recreation of language development; from listening, to repeating, to blending sounds, to analysis of words, to expression in words, phrases and sentences and then, finally, to total expression.
Because the exercises and their many facets are too numerous to explore in the Parent Guide, the above examples should help the parent realize that any given environment or exercise represents a carefully designed method for developing a necessary skill or ability. The Toddler environment is painstakingly designed to facilitate the development within the child of a level of conscious activity. When the child demonstrates a respect for others, an ability to maintain order in the environment, a readiness for more abstract concepts, a mastery of toileting, and pending availability in the next program, he will be oriented to the next Toddler or Primary environment.
