The Conscious Learner: Children Ages 3-6

Children ages 3-6 are transitioning from merely testing and exploring their environment to having meaning and purpose in the world they live.  How can parents prepare themselves to support this exciting new stage of development in their children?

Child Development, Age 3-6

In Montessori terms, children aged 3-6 are known as “Conscious Learners.” As children grow into consciousness, they become more aware of their bodies and their movements. At about the age of three, they use their hands with more purpose and direction. It’s during this time period where they are developing their wills and their memory. Conscious Learners are more curious about the world around them and actively seek out impressions from their environment.

Conscious Learners

Early childhood expert, Jeanne-Marie Paynel has observed this transition many times, in her years of working with young children both in the classroom, as well as in her consulting work with her company Voila Montessori.

“There’s a click that happens,” says Paynel. “They’re actually making eye contact. There’s this consciousness that happens where they’re aware and it’s true you’re able to reason with them a lot more. You’re able to give them purposeful, let’s say intellectual, work.” Below are ways to encourage and support Conscious Learners.

Engage Your Child at Home

• Encourage kids to help in the kitchen. Kids love food! Let them participate in the cooking process. Let them smell the ingredients and help in small ways. A suggestions is to allow them to peel the carrots with a kid-friendly veggie peeler. “Instead of giving the whole carrot, give them one carrot to peel,” says Paynel. “They will peel that carrot till there’s no carrot left, but at least their getting the movement.”
• Engage your children in what your passions are. Let them see and take part in the activities that you love, like gardening, painting, or exercising. Simplify the activitiy for them so the steps are manageable for them at their age. Try to make the projects self-sufficient, so they can perform the task independently from set up to clean up.

Learn more ways to encourage and empower your child through our Online Parenting Course!

Young Children Crave Order

• Set up the environment so there’s an order to everything. “This is actually what we call a sensitive period for order and children at that age (3-6) really need to know where things go,” says Paynel. When kids have completed an activity, it’s reassuring for them to know where to put the materials back. Paynel even advises color coding shelves and drawers to make things easier. “External order brings internal order,” says Paynel.
• Do away with the toybox. “A toybox where everything is just thrown in can be very discouraging to a child. They only want to play with one thing,” says Paynel. “They have to take out all those things to get to the one thing they want to play with and then you tell them to clean up their room? How overwhelming and frustrating!” Paynel advises choosing the 5 things you’ve observed them interested in. Put them on a shelf, and change them out as needed. “It gives them order, but it also simplifies your life.”

by Pamela Layug Laney