Through my West Side Montessori School Teacher Education Program, I set out to do a year-long research project to show what learning looks like in infancy. To someone who does not have experience with infants, it may look like they are not doing much as they lay on a soft mat, gazing around the room, or grabbing at their toes. For those of us who have cared for infants, we know that so much hard work goes into their first 18 months of life! Infants go from being completely dependent beings to very capable toddlers. What truly happens in this period of development? How does so much development and growth take place?

 

Through Maria Montessori’s study of child development she noticed patterns of stages that children go through where they were intensely receptive to certain concepts. They were highly motivated to achieve specific skills and she could see the internal drive that they have to practice them. These stages are called sensitive periods. During these periods, children are drawn to activities that satisfy their need to acquire certain skills. These periods can be identified as “a burning intellectual love” for the children.  Children in infancy learn by doing. They learn effortlessly and typically acquire the skills for weaning, order, movement, refinement of the senses and language with ease.

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This year the children in our Nido and Sprouts classrooms at Magnolia Montessori School showed me just how incredible infants are and how much they can learn when they are given the opportunity to succeed. The Montessori Philosophy and research speaks to Sensitive Periods of development and I found them to be so illuminating and evident in my research. I collected observation notes, video snippets and photographs to support my findings that can be found in the respective Sensitive Period tabs above.