Concentration: The basis of all learning

A foundational cornerstone of Montessori education is concentration. We all understand that for children to learn, they need to cultivate the ability to sustain focus on the task at hand.

How do we help children develop and strengthen this quality?

In Montessori classrooms, we begin fostering the development of concentration through our Practical Life activities.  Practical Life exercises are everyday activities that prepare children for life.  They ainclude works used in daily activities such as pouring works, sewing, gardening, cleaning, scrubbing, watering plants, taking care of class pets, etc.  These works teach our children how to respectfully contribute to the society within the classroom (and hopefully at home too).  These activities are building blocks to understand how to have a role in a society that is bigger than the child himself.  Our Practical Life exercises are specifically designed to develop and build concentration.  Once concentration is developed, they use this skill to sustain focus to learn reading, writing and math and do longer and more complex projects. 

Researcher Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has recognized that all people do their best work when they are in "flow states."  Have you ever worked on a project and lost all sense of time and space?  Working like this is referred to as the flow state.  Montessori schools are designed help children reach these flow states. We do this by protecting the concentration of all children. We do not interrupt them for corrections or conversations nor do we allow other children to interrupt them either.  The walls and environment in our classroom are not filled with unnecessary visual or auditory distractions.  

At home, you can help children strengthen their ability to concentrate by:

•  Reducing background noise (turn off tv, screens, etc.)
•  Noticing when your child is looking at a book, doing puzzles, coloring, playing with Legos, exploring water, etc. and refrain from talking at that time
• Setting up intervals of time where everyone in the home can work quietly for a period of time (5 minutes in the beginning and continually increase that time)
• Go out in nature with a magnifying glass and observe quietly
• Looking up yoga and meditation videos for children
• Walking with a bean bag on the head without dropping it, or carrying a ping pong ball on a spoon across the room
• Games like Simon Says help children learn to focus on words people are saying
• Setting up simple pouring works using water and vases and/or glasses
• Asking children to water gardens or plants 

I hope you try one or more of these suggestions, and if you do, let us know how it is going!