Montessori: A Dream School For Preschoolers
By Therese Emanuel Grey
Edward and Barbara Goodfriend dreamed
of creating a preschool for children that would offer all that
a child's heart desires. Two years ago, they bought a piece of
land and built a dream school that serves as a model for Montessori
enthusiasts in the area.
"We want to provide children with a foundation for life,"
says Barbara, who has taught preschoolers Montessori education
for the last twenty-five years. "We love seeing happy
children here."
I first heard about the Goodfriend Montessori from Dr. Elizabeth
Caspari, a Montessori pioneer who was a close friend and student
of Maria Montessori and who, at the age of 101, still teaches
children and trains teachers. The Goodfriend school, which
will host the Caspari Institute teacher training again this January,
offers children literally a "hands on" approach to most
aspects of learning. Maria Montessori believed that the fastest
way to the intellect was through the hands, and that's how students
at Goddfriend Montessori learn.
Goodfriend Montessori teaches three to six year-olds language,
sensorial, math and practical life skills in a beautiful setting
a few miles from downtown Bozeman on the way to Four Corners.
It's situated on three grassy acres of land with a view of the
mountains, a sledding hill, a pond for ice skating, and a small
creek nestled in the woods where children try to catch frogs and
fish during the summer. "It's so nice for children
to be in the country surrounded by water and trees," says
Barbara "Just the other day, we took a walk and each child
hugged a tree."
The school is a haven for children,
a miniature kingdom of leisure and learning. As you walk in through
the sun room, you are greeted by the benevolent face of Dr. Maria
Montessori, whose portrait hangs on the wall, and the soothing
sound of a waterfall emerges from an abundance of tropical foliage. Every
plant offers a special gift. The jasmine plant brings forth
sweet smelling flowers. Two lemon trees bear lemons the
children pick and cook with. One plant shoots ruby cone
flowers that look like lipstick tubes, another flowers that look
like goldfish and another, flowers that look like stars.
The school is immaculately clean, orderly, and esthetically appealing.
Beautifully framed art hangs from the wall at the level of a child's
eyes. Pale hardwood floors, large bay windows and a wide
variety of plants create an atmosphere that is light and airy.
Everything is child size-from the kitchen table to the bathroom
sink, to the upholstered armchairs in the quiet corner.
Visiting Goodfriend Montessori is a very good introduction to
the educational principles heralded by Dr. Maria Montessori.
The school is divided into four sections that correspond to the
four avenues of learning defined by Dr. Montessori: math, language,
sensorial and practical life. Each avenue offers many lessons
the children can choose from, organized from left to right, to
develop the 
mind for reading and
writing. Most learning is self-directed and self-correcting
and children advance at their own pace. They choose which
lessons they want to learn and once they know the basics, are
free to do them at leisure. Two or three hours of daily lessons
are interspersed with outdoor recreation and extracurricular activities
like Kindermusic, art, Kidcercize, "a gymnastics class"
and French lessons.
In the math area, a child learns numbers one through ten with
beautiful materials, such as long red and blue rods (numerical
rods), wooden spindles and sea shells. Next the child is taught
the decimal system-it's easy to count thousands with the "thousand
cubes." Many other lessons in math atrract their eye such
as colorful beads that teach the multiplication tables and wooden
strips with numbers on them that can be added together.
Next to the math area is the language area, which highlights the
sound and letter of the week. Children learn letters by
seeing them, feeling them, and hearing them repeatedly.
Everything is based on phonics. Some activities teach how
to match objects with their sound. In the "bb"
drawer, for instance, children find a ball, a banana and other
"bb" objects. A popular activity is letter bingo, where
they learn to recognize sounds and match to the corresponding
letter in the card.
Once the letters
are learned, reading begins, first with a few words, then with
small sentences. As a result, most preschoolers trained
in the Montessori method can read before entering first grade.
The children also learn to write, first by tracing sandpaper letters
with their hand, then by tracing letters with beautiful color-coordinated
pencils using metal insets to provide tracing exercises that prepare
the hand for writing.
Flags of the world hang in the sensorial area, where children
learn about the world around them and about colors, textures,
tastes notes and sizes. Here they learn about geography,
botany and other subjects with wooden puzzles. They explore
different weights to learn what is heavy and light. Sandpaper
tablets show what is smooth and rough. Wooden blocks show
geometric shapes. Montessori bells feature all of
the notes to help anchor perfect pitch and prepare for music.
Further back is the practical life section, a very special part
of Montessori education which prepares children for life.
Here they learn how to button, zip, tie, buckle, and sew; how
to pour water, polish shoes, arrange flowers, fold clothes and
pack a suitcase; how to wash and set a table, cut a banana, peel
and cut a carrot, squeeze an orange and wash dishes; and how to
take care of a bird, a fish, a bunny and plants. Barbara
says that the children find these activities very enjoyable. An
important part of practical life is learning social skills. Once
a child has set a table, for example, he or she can invite a classmate
for tea.
Children can also invite a friend to visit in the beautiful quiet
room in the back of the school that looks like a miniature living
room. In this room they may sit and visit a friend or have some
quiet time alone. When problems come up between children, the
children are taught to work them out with each other. Sometimes,
meetings are held where the children can openly discuss these
problems.
Next to the school is a separate building that serves as a recreation
room, complete with gymnastic mats and a woodworking area where
Barbara's husband, Edward, gives woodworking lessons twice a week,
helping children carve and paint the project of their choice,
be it a wooden plane, a boat, flowers or a pencil holder.
In a large cage next to the recreation center, a furry gray bunny
peacefully chews on some grass and carrot bits that the children
have left him.
In the backyard behind a large
playgound lies a large garden that parents helped build and maintain,
with boxed garden beds that make it easier for children to reach
without getting mud all over. There, they grow all kinds
of vegetables, fruits and flowers transplanted from seedlings
started in the sun room. The largest box in the garden,
in the form of an "S" to keep insects at bay, is devoted
to strawberry plants, a yearly favorite. On a bench along the
side, children can sit and watch the fruit of their labor come
forth. At the other end, they can play in a large row of
green bean teepees. A large row of sunflowers provides shade during
the day.
At harvest time, most of the crop ends up in the school's kitchen for cooking projects and snack time. Children learn, for instance, to pluck sunflower seeds out with tweezers and roast them, to carve pumpkins and squash and to shuck corn. The surplus is brought home to parents. "The lettuce this year was the best I've ever had," says Barbara. "We had so much of it we just kept giving it away. The radishes, the onions and the strawberries were unbelievably good as well."
A rooster who adopted the school as his own can be seen walking
the grounds on his own terms. "He's the mascot of the
property," says Barbara. "He's very pretty, very
gentle with the children and he has very funny feet."
Goodfriend Montessori has earned a very good reputation with parents
and educators. Students come from all over the area.
"We always dreamed of having our own place with children
and a school in a beautiful setting," says Barbara.
"When we found this place, it didn't look anything like what
you see today and it was hard to imagine that we could make it
look like this. Little by little, we worked to make this
dream come true and we will continue to do so."
The Goodfriend Montessori School is full, however they are accepting
applications for next Fall, and can be reached at 587-3817. Also,
Caspari Montessori preschool education course begins January 5th
at Goodfriend's Montessori school, and is designed for educators,
administrators, aspiring teachers, parents, grandparents and everyone
who loves children. Call 333-4270 for more information or visit
www.montessori-training-cmi.org.
Other Montessori schools in the area include:
| Bozeman | |
| Giving Tree Montessori | 585-5847 |
| Great Beginnings Montessori | 587-0132 |
| Learning Circle Montessori | 587-2672 |
| Pallas Athena's Montessori | 556-8459 |
| Sourdough Montessori | 582-1548 |
| Emigrant | |
| Montessori Garden | 333-4270 |
| Gardiner | |
| Montesorri Plus | 848-2355 |