FAQ

All Day Primary was launched on April 21, 2020. Since that time, Montessori families, teachers, and schools from 197 countries have explored this site and downloaded over 807,000 PDFs and activities for the children in their care. We hope this website will continue to serve as a resource as we work together to provide a Montessori experience to children across the globe during these unprecedented times.

All of the downloadable & printable PDFs available on All-Day primary are free to distribute and use for schools, teachers, and parents. The PDFs include a copyright to ensure that these materials remain free and are not offered for sale. In short: Use our PDFs however you see fit but you are not allowed to sell them.

"How can we establish a schedule at home that mirrors what happens in the all-day class?"

As you prepare for the upcoming week of learning from home, I thought I would offer a few pointers as you establish a schedule for your child.

Primary aged children (2 ½ to 6 ½ years old) thrive on consistency and routine. They do well knowing what will (or what will not) happen at each point in the day, and often become disoriented (and act out) when surprises are thrown their way. The younger your child is, the more critical a consistent routine will be. As your child approaches 6 and beyond, they do become more flexible, but still appreciate having a plan for their day.

• "The challenge is to develop appropriate daily routines for children which offer them a sense of consistency and security, yet remain flexible and responsive to the individual needs of each child." -PBS.org

The all-day class schedule has been the same (give or take 5 minutes) for the last 13 years! If there are changes to our daily routine, we have a group gathering during the first five minutes of the day to share changes in the schedule (such as a tornado drill, child visitor, parent observer, or birthday circles). Knowing of changes ahead of time minimizes surprises and helps children feel in control of their day.

A parent reached out to me yesterday, suggesting that I share the flow of the classroom day so that parents can stick as closely to the regular school routine as possible. Our day flows as follows:

7:30 am to 8:30 am: Arrival and Preparation

Children begin their morning by having breakfast and preparing the space for work (such as cutting vegetables for snack, filling the water pitcher for sips throughout the day, or taking down the chairs).

8:30 am to 11:30 am: Morning work cycle (with snack)

Children have three hours of uninterrupted work time to engage with the materials in the classroom. They work with one material at a time at a table or a rug and mostly work individually. Children decide when they get a drink of water, go to the bathroom, have a snack, read a book, listen to music, or read a book. You can find ideas for age-appropriate activities in the Learning From Home Handbook prepared by the teachers and staff members of Arbor Montessori School. 

11:30 to 11:45: Circle Time/Group Activity

We take a moment to gather as a community to sing, listen to a story, celebrate a birthday, or learn about a holiday at this time. The children like coming together as a group.

1:15 pm: Lunch and 45 min playtime

The children spend about 45 minutes of free play outside. We encourage lots of running! When they return inside, the children set their tables with a fork, knife, spoon, and glass and enjoy lunch as a group. When finished, they load their dishes into the dishwasher, wipe off their tables, and prepare for a nap or the afternoon work period.

1:15 to 4:00 pm: Afternoon work period (with nap from 1:15 to 3 pm and snack)

The five and six-year-old children engage in a work period that mirrors the morning cycle. The younger children rest for a minimum of 1 hour and then return to the classroom for work. The children are free to enjoy a snack (usually cheese and fruit) in the afternoon as well.

4:00 to 6:00: playtime and enrichment activities/free play.

Please know that we understand home life is very different from our typical school day. We simply hope that knowing your child's usual routine will better equip you to create a consistent plan that will work best for your family. Consider the following questions:

• What will "work" look like at home? 
• What daily flow will best suit the children AND the parent's needs?
• When will we come together as a family to check in and say hello before returning to our respective activities? 

“Are there any rules or guidelines the children are expected to follow during the school day? How can I set the expectation with my four-year-old that we are not on an extended vacation? I actually have to work!”

The Montessori classroom offers what teachers refer to as “Freedom within limits.” In other words, the children have a good deal of freedom to work with the materials, chat with their friends, have a snack, get a drink of water, or just sit and rest during their time in the classroom. This is the freedom all children appreciate. However, there are limits to the children’s freedom in that they must work within the expectations of the classroom. Many times, adults refer to them as classroom rules. Below, I have shared our LV2 expectations, and you may consider using them as a framework for your own “learning from home” ground rules. Keep them short, easy to understand, and limited in number. Let your child know that you will follow the rules too! With a common understanding, I am confident you and your children can work peacefully and productively together over the next few weeks.

Children are free to work with materials they have been given a lesson on. If there is something they have not been shown how to use, however, they must wait until they have been given a lesson.

• At Home: Is your child attempting to use the vacuum cleaner or asking to use the iPad? Consider letting them know that they need to wait until you give them a lesson before they can use it! And it is okay NOT to give them a lesson.

Children may work with one material at a time, for as long as they wish during the work period. When finished, the child must clean up the activity and put it back on the shelf before making a different choice.

• At Home: Let your children know ahead of time that they may use their toys/art supplies/books as much as they want, but they must use them one at a time. Remind them to put their “work” away before choosing the next activity.

Children may work with a material as long as they are using it carefully. If we notice a piece of the brown stair being launched across the room, we encourage (and, if needed, help) the child to put it away.

• At Home: Use your toys carefully, or they will be put away until tomorrow.

Children are asked to walk and use their inside voices while inside. They may run and use loud voices when outside.

• At Home: Walking inside is much safer than running, and softer voices will allow everyone to work without interrupting each other.

Children are free to observe the work of others as long as they are not disturbing, distracting, or touching the work of the other person. If this happens, the person being observed will offer, “I would like to work all by myself. Will you please find something else to do?”

• At Home: Are you concerned that your children will want to chat with you for every moment of the day? Let them know that you would like to work all by yourself for a while and that you will join them for a story, snack, or playtime later in the morning. It may be helpful to set up a workspace for your child that is within line of sight. Recently, my sister spent the day at home with her son due to school closure. She tried her best to work on a project in her office, but her son kept coming from the playroom to ask her a new question every five minutes. After an hour of interruptions, she finally moved his table and chair into her office. He then worked on an art project for two hours without saying a word. Knowing you are working together is sometimes enough!

Children do not have to work every minute of every day. They want to stop and chat with a friend, spend a little bit longer eating snacks than we adults feel is necessary, gaze out the window, or just admire themselves in the mirror. This is completely fine! We only intervene if they are disturbing someone who is attempting to focus on their work.

• At Home: The days will be long, and there will be times when your child isn’t interested in doing structured activities. That is fine! Over time, children usually think of something they would like to do and will pull out that game they haven’t used in months. As the saying goes, “Boredom is the mother of creativity.”

(This section was written by Neil)

The AllDayPrimary.com can be thought of as having three distinct parts:

1. The Content, which was created by Myesha.
2. The Website, which is no different than any other site on the internet.
3. The Website Generator, which was custom built specifically for Myesha’s workflow.

The Content of the Website is all the documents Myesha created and stored in a series of well-organized directories on her personal computer. She spent many long hours producing a massive amount of Content in an extremely short period. I believe it was roughly an equivalent feat of writing a book in 6 weeks while working a full-time job as a teacher. Without the Content, there would be an empty website with a logo and nothing else.

The Website itself - what you read and click on in your web browser - is not special in any way. All sites are HTML, CSS, Images, with a bit of JavaScript for interactivity. AllDayPrimary could have been made with a custom Wordpress template and look the same as it does. Using Wordpress is the route I would advise anyone to follow if they wanted to make a site that functions similar to AllDayPrimary: hire a Wordpress developer to build a custom template and install it on the Wordpress host of your choosing.

The Website Generator is custom software that takes in Myesha’s Content and generates the AllDayPrimary Website. In other words, all Myesha has to do is make new documents, and the Website updates itself. There are a few rules she has to follow, however:

• She has to work in a specific folder structure within our shared Dropbox account. For example, to create a new Category, she creates a new Folder in the “Categories” Folder; to create a Module (the individual pages such as “Flowers”), she creates a new folder in the “Modules” directory.
• She has to add a Manifest file (called “Manifest.txt”) to the Category and Module folders to specify a title, description, icon, tags, and the order it falls in listings.
• She has to use Tags (text surrounded by square brackets) in her Word documents to add features like PDF previews, audio players, and collapsible sections.

That’s all she has to do, and as she works, the AllDayPrimary website is automatically generated. To preview the Website, she goes to a local URL in her browser. As she updates her documents, the webpage preview refreshes itself. The sequence looks like this:

1. Myesha creates or edits a file.
2. Myesha saves it to the correct Dropbox folder, which uploads it to Dropbox.
3. The file downloads to another computer on our local network via automatic Dropbox synchronization.
4. The Website Generator detects that a file has been edited or created and runs the generation sequence.
5. Once the generation sequence is complete, the Website is generated and is ready for upload to AllDayPrimary.com.

The generation sequence is where the magic happens. The screenshot below shows the output of the Website Generator, which I use to verify that it’s working correctly:

The question now is, “Why didn’t you just use a custom Wordpress template since that’s the route you’re advising other people to follow?” The simple answer is: At the time of creation, Myesha wasn’t keen on learning how to use Wordpress, and she was the one generating the Content. I considered uploading her Content to a Wordpress site myself every time she created or updated it, but I’m far too lazy for that. Since I write software for a living, it was easier for me to write software that does all of that work for me.