Mixed Age Grouping

Mixed age environments benefit children’s development in many ways. The classroom creates a community where children naturally learn to cooperate and work together. The younger children observe and learn from the older ones, while the older children model and practice leadership, patience, and empathy with the younger ones. This model offers the best for everyone in the classroom.

 

 

As Dr. Maria Montessori said in The Absorbent Mind “to segregate by age is one of the cruelest and most inhuman things one can do, and this is equally true for children. It breaks the bonds of social life, deprives it of nourishment… children of different ages help one another. The younger ones see what the older ones are doing and ask for explanations. There are many things which no teacher can convey to a child of three, but a child of five can do it with utmost ease…”