Why Montessori Classrooms Flow Naturally Between Indoors and Outdoors

In Montessori education, learning seamlessly flows between the natural world and a traditional indoor classroom. Sensory exploration in the classroom quickly deepens and expands into nature-based discovery. Practical life work becomes environmental stewardship. Whole-brain development is amplified through body movement, grounding and exposure to the natural elements. Cosmic education comes alive through exposure to real ecosystems. Together, these experiences create deeper and more meaningful learning experiences than either environment could provide alone. 

Nature supports the same developmental needs Montessori environments are designed to meet. The Montessori learning environment is intentionally prepared to support independence, curiosity, and exploration. Nature is already set up to do the same. By using the outdoors as an extension of the classrooms, we strengthen the hand-brain connection, deepen learners' development and increase educational outcomes. 

Learners using natural materials to make paint.

Here at Goldenrod Montessori our learners are experiencing nature all around them. Last fall our students studied apples directly from the apple trees on our school’s property. We learned about apple and apple trees through observing their growth, picking the apples, touching, tasting and even watching them decompose. These experiences organically developed curiosity and led to deeper explorations of apples and bee anatomy, art projects, flowers, pollination and how all of these play a role in our food system. Our local corn fields turned into studies of grains (corn, oats and rye grains). This study led to making bread as a classroom community and how bread and grains play across cultures in food systems. Once winter approached, geometry was outside everywhere! Snowflakes became in-depth geometry studies, counting work and of course, art projects. Our older learners studied vectors, slope, and kinematics through sledding. The creation of jumps expanded these mathematical studies even further. 

Bringing nature indoors to explore.

Our indoor and outdoor environment work together to support our learner’s development, curiosity, and sense of responsibility. At times, it is not possible to be directly in the natural environment we are exploring, however it is often possible to bring nature from far away places into the classroom. 

Our students have worked hard this year in both their indoor classrooms and outdoor classrooms. We celebrate their successes through community togetherness and the sharing of their work. Some of our students will be experiencing a big milestone! For those students moving up to the next classroom, we will be holding a bridging ceremony. Some of you may wonder what this is, what it looks like and what it will mean for those learners. We will explore these very things in our next blog, so please follow us along on facebook to stay tuned.