Montessori Guides love grammar! This probably doesn’t come as any surprise, considering we work at a school. Montessori grammar materials are so beautiful, and they do a great job of drawing kids in to learn about something many of us dreaded when we were kids ourselves.

It all begins in the final year of primary or the first year of lower elementary, with a presentation and then practice to the miniature environment, sometimes referred to as “The Farm Game.”

The Miniature Environment/Function of Words

Traditionally, the miniature environment consists of a replica barn, complete with tiny toy animal figures, although it could also be a doll house, or similar model. The idea is that it is a space with related, but different, objects in miniature.

When we think of grammar and six-year-olds, the goal is to give them impressions. We don’t expect mastery. We want to introduce concepts in a way that is fun and makes children want to engage and experiment with language.

This is where the farm animals come in.

Nouns are naming words, and six-year-olds are developing their reading skills. It’s so much fun for them to match labels to animals as they name cow, sheep, chicken, and even fence, barn, farmer. As time goes on, we introduce the concept of articles, and how their function is to introduce the noun. The cow, a sheep, an ox. Tiny paper labels lie alongside the figures as the child works. This progresses through all the parts of speech: adjectives, verbs, prepositions, adverbs, pronouns, conjunctions, and finally, interjections. Wooden “Grammar Symbols” are used to give the child a visual impression of the noun family and aid the child in identifying the role of each work in a phrase or sentence. This area of activities is called Function of Words.

The Grammar Boxes

Of course, there’s more to grammar than adorable toy animals. In lower elementary (grades 1 – 3), children use the Grammar Box Materials. The grammar boxes consist of wooden boxes containing cards with words and phrases, sectioned trays to lay the cards in, and open-topped containers with larger index-sized cards.

The index sized cards are called Command Cards. As with the Functions of Words lessons, these progress through the different parts of speech. The Command Cards direct children to physically do specific things. “Throw the eraser out the door” is a crowd favorite. This is one exciting way Montessori turns language work into something more hands on and participatory.

Once they’ve worked their way through the command cards, children engage with the Grammar Filling Boxes, recreating phrases and sentences and identifying the various parts of speech.

The children continue to use the corresponding symbols for each part of speech that they were first introduced to in Children’s House, and they write sentences and draw the correct labels above each word.

The Grammar Boxes are typically completed sometime during the final year of lower elementary, although upper elementary teachers may choose to use the material for review purposes.

Sentence Analysis

Montessori Sentence Analysis is not the same as the sentence diagramming some of us did when we were younger, but it is based on some of the same concepts.

When Montessori children have become confident readers, they are also beginning to move toward what we call abstraction. That is, they are beginning to internalize concepts in a way that doesn’t require them to use hand-held manipulatives or materials nearly as often. The Sentence Analysis Materials are still moveable, but there’s a lot less to manipulate. This material is a series of wooden circles and arrows, which help the child learn concepts like subjects and predicates, direct and indirect objects, and adverbial phrases. These activities also enrich the child’s writing skills and reading comprehension.

The Montessori Grammar Language activities are engaging and often some of the most popular in Children’s House and Elementary. They are designed to be developmentally challenging and fun, tapping into the child’s curiosity about words and their social nature.

Materials Spotlight: Montessori Grammar Materials