Grace and Courtesy

Grace and Courtesy lessons are more than just the materials on the shelf. These lessons are living and breathing in the Montessori classroom and found all around.  At the beginning of the school year, we focus heavily on presenting and modeling Grace and Courtesy lessons which in turn become the cornerstone of classroom expectations. 

Some examples of these lessons  {which we are currently working on in our toddler environment} include:

• How to unroll and roll a rug

• How to politely interrupt someone 

• How to clean up a spill 

• How to wait your turn for a material

• greeting someone

• introducing oneself

• shaking hands

• receiving visitors

• apologizing/excusing oneself

• watching and observing others

• taking turns

• interrupting/asking for help

• using a quiet voice

• speaking in a polite tone

• saying please and thank you

• blowing one’s nose

• coughing and sneezing

• washing one’s hands

• inviting and refusing a partner or playmate

• respecting others and their space

• walking around people and objects

• sitting on and putting away a chair

• walking in line

• offering food

• caring for works, books, and the environment

• carrying work or objects

• being silent

• being kind

• making friends

The desire to be gracious and courteous is naturally present in the child.

Examples given by NAMC http://montessoritraining.blogspot.fr/2010/03/montessori-grace-courtesy-infants.html 

Grace and Courtesy lessons are ever expanding and evolving with the children's needs and behaviors. 

Maria Montessori believed children from age 2  to 6 were in a Sensitive Period for order. This means that the child is drawn to order in the external environment so that he can create his own order internally.

"Within every young child is the need for order. The initial lessons of Grace and Courtesy center on building the Montessori classroom community, and are often presented in the context of the Montessori Practical Life curriculum. They answer the child's questions of how they fit into and participate in their environment. Using clear language and modeling, Montessori teachers present these lessons to provide structure so the child can know her place, not only in the Montessori environment, but in the world at large. So in the child, besides the vital impulse to create himself, and to become perfect, there must yet another purpose, a duty to fulfill in harmony, something he has to do in the service of a united whole. ~ " Montessori, The Absorbent Mind, pg 57.

Nikki