How to Avoid the One-Word Review
Or, Questions to Ask Your Montessori Child in Place of "How Was Your Day?"
Written by Alissa Stolz, Head of School
Remembering back to the days when my own Montessori children piled into the car after a day of school, there were some really wonderful conversations upon asking, “how was your day?” I wanted to find out what my kids had done during the day with the beautiful Montessori materials - the blocks, the beads, the language materials, and later the geometric solids.
What I discovered is that at the end of a long day with all the works and learning and discoveries a Montessori classroom can offer, sometimes the last question to inspire my child to speak was the dizzyingly wide-open, "how was your day?" Thinking about how to see this conversation from a young child’s perspective, I began to identify more nuanced questions to help my children formulate something to say about what they had done that day.
It was sometimes easier to work with images, making it easier for younger children. I might ask any of the following:
What was the largest number you worked with today?
What games did you play at recess?
Who was being kind today?
Which animals did you talk about today?
What was your favorite work today?
Thinking about questions as children grow and develop more complex understanding, they might sound like this:
If you could choose one work to do all day long, which one would it be?
What is a new word that you remember using/hearing today? Can you spell it?
What was a rule (or classroom agreement) that was discussed today in the classroom? Or, what new agreements did you make on the playground today?
Why do you think reading books/learning fractions/writing paragraphs is important?
These questions can prompt children to frame the events in their day in a way that can seem more manageable to their minds. It can remind them that today there were numbers and words and games and activities and learning and choices.
Even though my own college-aged children – both alums of the MFS middle school – do not ride home with me any more, as a parent I still want to know how school is going, even though we talk about it far less often. Talking about how the week went and reflecting on the learning that took place is a habit that has held up over time and though the questions I ask continue to evolve, I am always glad to hear what they have to say….even if I have to text my kids at college to find out.
Alissa Stolz
Head of School
