12/21/2025
Don’t forget about the sensitive period of socialization!
Our Montessori environments need to make space for socialization the same way we do for sensorial refinement or language acquisition.
Through my observation, the more time they have to be together joyfully without interruption, the more freely grace and courtesy emerges among them. This group has had social planning and sharing (don’t sit in that seat/I won’t and save some for me/I will) younger than I have previously seen in my classrooms. Before 3 years old, they were starting to communicate wants and needs with one another.
Maybe being all together through the toddler environment or maybe my own confidence and experience in the prepared environment have played a role.
Regardless, or maybe thanks to, these factors play into the freedom for socialization to be explored. I have to imagine that just as when a child emerges from building a pink tower repeatedly, appearing to be refreshed, there must be a similar response to a positive social engagement. There must be the sense of joy that builds the bonds and strengthens their connection to each other. This, I believe, in turn leads to the group respecting the others requests such as “save some for me” or “please wait for me” and the easy response from their peers “okay!”
These positive social engagements must happen at three years old, because once they get to four and five, the activities in the classroom begin to involve group work. They must know how to be together, through experience and not direction, for these activities to be accomplished successfully and independently. If we want to see a group of children working in addition with the golden beads independently, they have to already know how to communicate and plan simple exchanges to have success with the purpose of the activity.
Just some food for thought!
