Come celebrate Jan 6^th with us at MINT! In reflecting on the discoveries in the first Casa and how the work evolved, Montessori writes in The Absorbent Mind: “Only after repeated experiments did we conclude with certainty that all children are endowed with this capacity to “absorb” culture. If this be true…if culture can be acquired without effort, let us provide the children with other elements of culture. And then we saw them “absorb” far more than reading and writing: botany, zoology, mathematics, geography – and with the same ease, spontaneously and without getting tired…The teacher’s task is not to talk, but to prepare and arrange a series of motives for cultural activity in a special environment made for children.”

How do “prepare and arrange a series of motives for cultural activity”? What is the role of the adult? We are excited to show you how we have developed the cultural exercises in our prepared environment. Explore the materials and activities that we have created to tell stories about plants, animals, people, and places to connect the child to the interdependent world where they belong. We will orient you to how we have organized our shelves to draw the child from these first experiences to practical life, sensorial, language and math activities so that the cultural exercises become the beating heart of the Casa community. We will share tools to plan the calendar so that we can truly embody Montessori’s description of the Casa: “… a place for children where a diffused culture could be assimilated from the environment, without any need for direct instruction.” (Montessori, The Absorbent Mind).