NIDO
(3-18 months)
This prepared environment is designed for children ages 3 to 18 months.
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The word 'Nido,' the Italian word meaning 'nest,' captures the spirit of the infant environment as a warm, comfortable, safe, beautiful, and orderly place that provides activities and materials for our youngest children, aged 3 to 18 months. Dr. Maria Montessori believed that education, as an aid to life, begins from the period of pregnancy. She believed that children at this age develop best when provided with appropriate freedom in a safe and carefully prepared environment that respects the needs and desires of the infant as a person.
"Infancy is a period of true importance,
because, when we want to infuse new ideas, to modify or better the habits and customs of a people, to breathe new vigor into its national traits, we must use the child as our vehicle; for little can be accomplished with adults."
~ Dr. Maria Montessori
Prepared Environment
The Nido environment is nurturing and home-like to stimulate the development of infants in a way that promotes independence and self-esteem, allowing the infants to explore and interact. The environment and activities are carefully designed to meet their unique needs during this sensitive period.
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Our primary focus is to address the three basic needs of the infant (which both operate on a physical and psychological level) by creating:
"In our school, we give everything needed so that
the child can imitate he actions he sees in his home, or
in the country in which he lives. But we have implements specially made for him, of the right size to suit his diminutive proportion and strength. The room is dedicated to him, and he is free to move about in it, talk and apply himself to intelligent and formative kinds of work."
~ Dr. Maria Montessori
A safe and caring connection between adult and child
An environment that encourages the development of the infant's growing sense of self and independence
Freedom to move so that the infant develops an understanding of his or her body in space
Furniture
Each piece of furniture is made to the proportions of this young age to enable successful development toward movement and independence.
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Material
Through simple displays and aesthetic order, the Nido environment is designed to respect, support and respond to the infant's sensorial development and learning. The trust and sense of belonging gained through the infant's interaction with caring adults encourages the infant to explore and learn.
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Food
The infant is held and fed with breast milk or formula provided by the parents. Breastfeeding is welcomed if a mother is able to visit during the day. Those children who begin to be able to sit with support will sit at a low table and chair during meals and learn to use a spoon and glass with guidance of the adults. This allows the young child a valuable first experience at gaining independence with self-feeding.
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Sleeping Area
The infant sleeps or rests on a floor bed. The bed is used whenever the infant is tired. He has the freedom to roll out of the bed, look around and get things from the shelf. The floor bed provides the infant a psychologically and physically comfortable place for resting. It aids the infant's independence by allowing him to get in/out of the bed at will once he is moving. It also serves as an important point of reference for the adult to learn to respect his rhythm.
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Toilet Learning
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Infants in the Nido are beginning to learn how their bodies function.
We assist them in this process by engaging them in a non-judgmental
diaper changing process. The frequent changes of cloth diapers help
them make the connection. A changing table, potty and child size
toilet are equipped in a clean, hygienic environment.
"The child must always be given work to do with his hands as he works with his mind, for the child's personality has a functional unity."
~ Dr. Maria Montessori
"Movement has great importance in mental development provided that the action which occurs is connected with the mental activity going on. Both mental and spiritual growth are fostered by this, without which neither maximum progress nor maximum health (speaking of the mind) can exist."
~ Dr. Maria Montessori
Movement
Movement is a vital characteristic of an individual, whether an infant or an adult. Purposeful movement is the initial key to human expression and connection with nature, animals, and other individuals. The environment is filled with carefully prepared materials that will encourage your child to freely move and aid his or her development in movement.
"The child uses his movements to extend
his understanding. Movement helps the development
of the mind, and this finds renewed expression in
further movement and activity. [...] mind and
movement are parts of the same entity."
~ Dr. Maria Montessori
Gross Motor
From stationary work with mobiles that encourage visual development, to other
materials that encourage grasping, rolling, slithering, scooting, crawling, and
eventually pulling up to stand and walk, the environment for the youngest child
offers a variety of appropriately challenging, sensorial experiences to bolster
the acquisition of purposeful movement and language.
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Fine Motor
The materials that require manipulation of the hands and general body
coordination promote the children's spontaneous efforts to gain control
of movement.
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The Senses: Visual, Tactile, Auditory, & Kinesthetic
The young child absorbs the world around him or her through the five senses,
and a rich environment caters to the child's senses. The beautiful materials
attract the child's interest and fulfill the child's natural urge to explore the world.
Gradually, the child lengthens his span of concentration.
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"The hand is the delicate and structurally complicated organ
that allows the mind not only to manifest itself but to enter into special relations with its environment. Man, we may say, takes possession of his environment by his hand and transforms it as his mind directs, thus
fulfilling his mission on the great stage of the universe."
~ Dr. Maria Montessori
"The child must possess within himself, from birth, a capacity - only a potential
at first - of abstracting or taking off from particular things their essential qualities.
If you watch carefully any small child, of one to two years old, you will see that he is not only interested in objects as a whole, but also in their qualities, such as roughness,
smoothness, hardness, softness, colour, taste, texture, weight, pliability, and so on."
~ From E. M. Standing's "Maria Montessori: Her Life and Work"
"Love impels the child not toward the possession of an object, but toward the work he can do with it."
~ Dr. Maria Montessori
Language
Language is the interaction between two or more people. It can take many forms such as body language, crying, eye contact, symbols, music, speech, etc. It is one of the most important pillars for the development of a child for it synthesizes personal experience in expressing his feelings.
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In the Nido, our adults speak in their native tongue to provide the most authentic and accurate means of language. In addition, music and sound are incorporated to introduce other ways of communication.
"In the mysterious period which follows immediately after birth,
the child – who is a psychic entity endowed with a specially refined
form of sensitiveness – might be regarded as an ego asleep. But all of
a sudden he wakes up and hears delicious music; all his fibers begin to vibrate. The baby might think that no other sound had ever reached his ears, but really it was because his soul was not responsive to other
sounds. Only human speech had any power to stir him."
~ Dr. Maria Montessori
The Adults
The adults, the key to the environment, will guide the children by creating learning opportunities in every moment. PRINTS's Nido Staff is AMI trained in child development and highly attentive to the individual needs of each infant. They involve the child in the care given him, as well as talk, explain and foster the child's desire to participate.
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In his first years of life, the child needs points of reference in the environment. In the home, the child will have his parents with their smell, sounds, touch, and the way they feel. In the Nido, all adults wear a special garment to provide the child a sensorial guide with which to identify a safe parent substitute. The garment also satisfies the need for cleanliness and maintains a hygienic environment.
"The adult must continue to provide a suitable environment
for the psychic embryo, just as nature, in the guise of the mother, provided a suitable environment for the physical embryo."
~ Dr. Maria Montessori
Collaboration with Families
Communication with families is extremely important to PRINTS Assistants to Infancy (trained AMI caregivers in the Nido and Infant Community). Not only do they communicate frequently about the children, but they know that communication about the process of Montessori education and the materials used is vital for the complete development of each child in their care. Community Involvement Nights (CINs) offer a broad overview of Montessori philosophy and developmental education, and break-out sessions at each developmental level offer specifics germane to the monthly topic for each developmental stage. Parent-teacher conferences are held twice yearly, but more frequent updates for optimum development are essential.
A Typical Day in the Nido
Children are free to work with materials in the environment, sleep, eat, and play, etc., under an adult's supervision. Some activities include practicing to crawl and walk, observing mobiles, or using materials that aid in hand-eye coordination. Overtime, the child establishes a routine that the adult in the environment will respect and follow. Mothers are welcomed to arrange to nurse their children in the environment.