Our Traditions
Elizabeth Horgan, M.S., Ph.D. • Dec 23, 2023
Traditions connect the past, present, and future in a tangible way.
Each December, the Cross of Life Montessori parents and teachers gather for a Christmas Coffee Talk. Our school community is filled with diverse cultures and traditions, and we come together to discuss the value of tradition in Montessori and share some of our favorite holiday celebrations. From the Ukranian Shchedryk song to Romanian Cozonac bread and German Weihnachtspyramide decorations, we learn about the traditions that filled each of our childhoods with holiday magic.
In tandem with reflecting on our own experiences of holiday traditions, we discuss the ways we hope to carry on traditions with our own children. One aspect of Montessori education that is interwoven with an appreciation for tradition is the emphasis on cultural awareness. The celebration and discussion of holidays, customs, rituals, and festivals from around the world enriches children’s learning experience and also helps foster respect for diversity. By learning about traditions around the world, children also develop a sense of global citizenship and interconnectedness. And by celebrating their own traditions, children find consistency and stability. The Montessori classroom itself is built on the traditions of familiar routines and rituals that enable children to venture into new realms of learning with a sense of security.
The beauty of tradition is that it weaves a thread throughout our memories that can be carried on from generation to generation. For the almost 30 years since our school doors opened, there are a few lasting traditions that our students and parents hold dear as part of their school year experience. The shared rituals, celebrations, and events create lasting bonds among our students, teachers, and parents. Here are a few of our favorite traditions that we repeat year after year:
- Berry Patch Farms: A favorite fall tradition, the school community takes an adventure to a local pumpkin farm. The children, parents, and classroom teachers enjoy a tractor ride, a trek through the pumpkin farm, pumpkin picking, sipping apple cider, and other fall festivities.
- Fall Festival: Around Halloween, we have a gathering at a local playground for the families to enjoy a meal together and for the children to create fall crafts.
- Thanksgiving Family Day: Every November, the children prepare a Thanksgiving performance with songs and poem recitations. Before the performance, families are invited into the classrooms and children love showing off their favorite materials. After the performance, families gather together to enjoy a soup lunch. Thanks to generous donors, each family can also take a kit of ingredients home to make a batch of soup for themselves and a batch to share with family, friends, or neighbors.
- Christmas Chapel: The primary and toddler classes practice a Nativity play for weeks in preparation for Christmas. The classes gather to light the advent wreath, recite the story of Jesus’ birth, and sing carols like The 12 Days of Christmas and We Wish You a Merry Christmas.
- Garden Week: Our Parent Teacher Association coordinates a week each spring to set up our Children’s Garden for a bountiful harvest. Vegetable and fruit plants, new flowers, and other plants are purchased and planted by parent volunteers. The budding garden brings the children immense joy and excitement throughout the spring, early summer, and early fall.
- International Festival: As a celebration of our diverse school community, we host a yearly celebration where each family contributes a dish reflective of their heritage. In recent years, we had dishes from 20+ cultures and traditions! It’s a fantastic experience for the kids to explore different types of foods and learn about their classmates.
- Parent Breakfast: Right before the end of the school year the children prepare a breakfast for their parents, and invite the parents to come explore the classroom and enjoy fellowship together. The students love to show their parents the hard work they’ve put in throughout the school year!
- Closing Chapel: As our traditional last day of school, the students celebrate their accomplishments throughout the year, show appreciation for the teachers, and send off the eldest primary students moving on to their next school.
If you’re interested in learning more about any of these traditions, or our school in general, we’d love to hear from you! Send us a note through this form and we’ll be in touch.
Reading with your child is one of the most impactful practices you can do in the early years. Book reading is beneficial for children of all ages, starting from birth. Listening to stories helps children grow their emergent literacy skills even long before they can speak. Research shows that reading aloud to children, ideally daily, supports a love of literacy, advanced language development, and future ability to read independently. Additionally, taking the time to read storybooks aloud together also enhances the parent-child bond and supports a variety of cognitive and social-emotional skills, including critical thinking and emotional resilience. A few reasons for this host of benefits from reading together is that children learn best when their knowledge is scaffolded by an adult. Scaffolding is when an adult adapts their behavior and the way they give instructions based on the knowledge level of the child. Scaffolding is achieved by first recognizing what your child knows, and then providing incremental challenges to help support their learning. One research-based technique for scaffolding your child’s learning while reading is known as dialogic reading . Dialogic reading is where an adult and child have a meaningful conversation about a book before, during, and after the book. This goes beyond the typical experience of an adult reading while a child simply listens. Through dialogic reading, children are actively involved in learning how to become the storyteller. The goal of dialogic reading is to have the child increasingly lead the reading experience. The basic structure of dialogic reading is the acronym PEER : P rompt the child to talk about the book. Parent, pointing to a picture of a dump truck: “Ooh, what is that?” Child: “A truck!” E valuate the child’s response Parent: “Yes, a dump truck!” E xpand upon their response by adding information Parent: “The dump truck is yellow.” R epeat the prompt or word to see what they learned from the new information. Parent: pointing to the dump truck again “Can you say dump truck?” Child: “A dump truck!” There are five types of p rompts to try out, which you can remember with the acronym CROWD : C ompletion , fill in the blank type questions “This is a _______ truck” R ecall , asking your child to remember or summarize something from the story “Can you tell me what happened to the dump truck in this story?” O pen-Ended , focused on the images in the book “Can you describe what’s going on in this picture?” W h- , asking specific what, where, when, why, and how questions “What is that called?” D istancing , asking your child to connect elements of the story or pictures to their real-life experiences “This book was about a dump truck! Do you remember when a dump truck came to our house? Did it look like any of the trucks in this book?” To practice dialogic reading, try reading a new book to your child. Read it once through, while pointing to interesting images and encouraging your child to repeat new words. The next time you read the book, you can scaffold their knowledge by practicing the PEER method. Ask increasingly complex questions about the book. As you read the same book multiple times, you will start to read the words on the pages less as your child engages in conversation around the story more and more. It’s an incredible thing to witness! A few more ideas for making reading aloud a central and enjoyable practice for the whole family are : Create family routines around reading aloud to ensure it is part of your child’s day. Many families choose to incorporate books into the bedtime routine Read both fiction and nonfiction books, including different genres, with rich illustrations Choose books connected to your child’s cultural background and ethnicity Follow your child’s interests and explore topics that they enjoy through literature Pay attention to your child’s behavior while reading and adjust as necessary Utilize your local library to access countless options for both board and picture books
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends avoiding screen media exposure (except for video chat, which is appropriate for children of all ages) before age 18 months and setting screen time limits of one hour per day or less for older toddlers and preschoolers. However, recent research shows that young children are spending an average of 2.5 hours DAILY on screens. If you find this number alarming, you’re not alone! Digital technologies such as televisions, tablets, and smartphones have become central to modern society. Screens can be a valuable tool for parents to use with and for their children. However, face-to-face human interaction will always be the primary and preferred way for young children to learn. A child ages 0-6 is in the absorbent mind stage of development, soaking in everything in the environment easily and completely. This means the good and the bad are taken in equally. It also means the child cannot absorb what is not there, so as adults it's our responsibility to provide an environment rich in concrete experiences, language(s), art, culture, discovery, exploration, and most importantly, emotional connection and a sense of love and security. Technology is useful, but not essential, for young children. Whether or not your family chooses to engage with technology in the home is a personal decision. Evaluating your unique family situation and values is important to determine whether and how technology fits in. There is a distinct difference between intentional, mindful media use that contributes to a child’s knowledge and development and habitual media use without a clear benefit to the child. It’s necessary to carefully consider the impact of our technological choices on growing young minds. In the same way that Montessori materials are introduced to children with a set of lessons, safety precautions, and guidelines, home media use for young children requires a knowledgeable guide. Parents play an essential role in shaping children’s media literacy and guiding them to learn healthy boundaries around using technology as a tool. While technology is rarely included in the Montessori classroom, applying Montessori principles to screen time provides a framework for home media use with young children. Here are a few of our favorite Montessori-based approaches to setting healthy boundaries around technology and choosing media that contributes to children's well-being. Freedom Within Limits Set firm boundaries around technology, including what type of devices children can use, how long they can spend on the device, and what type of content they can access. Hold these boundaries in a firm, loving way, and do not change your limits in response to tantrums. Create technology-free times and spaces in your home. Choosing areas such as bedrooms and eating areas to be tech-free encourages healthy boundaries around technology. Prioritizing tech-free meals where the family sits down together to eat and engage in conversation is invaluable for healthy child development. Fit screen time into the gaps of your child’s day rather than making it a central focus. Ensure that your child’s schedule prioritizes the things that matter most for child development, including interaction, play, sleep, meal time, exercise, and reading. Follow the Child Think about the Three Cs when it comes to tech use in childhood: Child - Your child is the “ who ” of the media situation. What are your child’s individual characteristics? Each child experiences media differently depending on their age, developmental level, cognitive skills, past media experiences, preferences, and interests. Choose media that is aligned with your child’s level and interests. Content - The content your child is watching is the “ what ” of their media experience. It is essential to pay close attention to the themes, behaviors, messaging, and design of the media your child is interacting with. Opt for shows with a slower pace of motion, relatable situations, and kind language. Children copy what they see, so it’s important to ensure that the content modeled on the screen is positive and appropriate. Context - Think of context as the “ where, when, how ” of the media situation. What type of device is your child using? Where are they? What time of day is it? Who else is present with your child? As often as possible, engage with your child around their tech use. Screen time is not a babysitter, but it can be used as a tool for education and connection. Try joining your child for their media use and talking about what you see on the screen to help your child connect the screen to real life. Practical Life Seek out age-appropriate and relevant educational media content that contributes to your child’s growth and development. Look for themes and lessons that they find interesting to help support and advance their learning. Behavior Modeling Integrating technology into children’s lives should always be secondary to face-to-face human interactions. Research suggests that parent phone use around children can cause impactful interruptions in parent-child relationships. This happens through a concept coined technoference , when technology causes interference in interpersonal interactions. Consider how often you pick up and look at your phone throughout the day, and be mindful of the ways your children see you interacting with technology. Set screen time limits on all devices. People use screens far more often than they think they do. Set realistic screen time limits on your devices to reduce daily usage. Montessori education is a preparation for life. As caregivers, it's important to consider what kind of life we hope to create for our children. Media use is not essential to childhood, but if you do choose to use media at home we hope that these tips serve as a helpful guide for making the most of your child's screen time experiences. References: Guernsey, L. (2007). Into the minds of babes: How screen time affects children from birth to age five . Basic Books. McDaniel, B. T., & Radesky, J. S. (2018). Technoference: Parent distraction with technology and associations with child behavior problems. Child development , 89(1), 100-109. Ohme, J., Araujo, T., de Vreese, C. H., & Piotrowski, J. T. (2021). Mobile data donations: Assessing self-report accuracy and sample biases with the iOS Screen Time function. Mobile Media & Communication, 9(2), 293-313. Rideout, V., & Robb, M. B. (2020). The Common Sense census: Media use by kids age zero to eight. San Francisco, CA: Common Sense Media .