Might Montessori education be inherently oriented toward the outdoors? Nature games from Sharing Nature could prove immensely helpful in advancing Montessori activities.
Furthermore, if expensive Montessori materials are reimagined into activities where children craft the tools themselves, the cost of materials becomes zero while simultaneously elevating the quality of the learning experience.
In this discussion, we explored a bold idea regarding an “outdoor Montessori” approach—one that challenges the trend of education becoming increasingly indoor-focused as modernization progresses.
We’d love to hear your thoughts. Feel free to share your comments!
Profile
Yati Obara
Editor-in-Chief, Scientific Montessori
Based in Japan, born in 1989. CEO of Motherhand and Co-Director of the nonprofit think tank Polymath Research. Holds an M.Eng. and is an AMI-certified teacher. Focused on Montessori developmental theory and AI. Mother of two.
Hiro Obara
Publisher, Scientific Montessori
Based in Japan, born in 1990. Works as a software developer and a weekend farmer. Father of two.
Stepping outside brings a sense of freedom.
Yati
For ages 3 to 6, I’d like to introduce “Nature Game.”
Hiro
Okay.
Yati
First, some general background. Nature Game is what Japan calls Sharing Nature, a nature-experience program developed in 1979 by American naturalist Joseph Cornell. The goal is to fully engage the senses, enjoy nature, and feel a sense of unity with it. There are all kinds of games, about 180 currently. Cornell, the founder, says things like “share rather than teach,” “guides should be receptive,” and “experience first, explanation later.” That’s pretty close to Montessori education.
Hiro
Oh, I see.
Yati
Cornell developed his own learning theory called “Flow Learning.” It has four stages that naturally guide participants into deeper experiences: first, awaken enthusiasm; second, focus attention; third, offer direct experience; and fourth, share inspiration. It’s been called one of five outstanding educational theories, alongside those of Maria Montessori, Jean Piaget, and Howard Gardner.
Hiro
You really have to experience it to understand. What I want to say about Nature Game is that it’s brilliant game design. You might think, “What’s fun about Nature Game?” Even hearing explanations or watching it, I’m the type to judge things by information, so I used to think, “What’s the point? You’re just playing with nature.” But when I participated through my daughter’s preschool, I thought, “This is beautiful as game design.”
Yati
Right.
Hiro
For example, in a forest or a park with some plants, you collect fallen leaves and sort them by shape. It’s surprisingly fun.
Yati
You never paid attention to the leaves lying around, but when you look closely, you notice all kinds of things. Also, if you take black cardstock with just circles and squares cut out and stick leaves on, then hold it up to the light, and it looks really beautiful.
Hiro
Right.
Yati
We also did a game where you have ordinary flower beds, and artificial objects are hidden among them. You look carefully and count how many there are. Insect figurines, a CD, a toothbrush hidden in there, and you don’t notice at all. You realize how much you think you’re seeing but aren’t.
Hiro
You realize how little you actually observe in nature. Your observation skills improve.
Yati
You can do this at home too.
Hiro
As I always say, Montessori education is optimized for how to spend time inside a school. It doesn’t consider how to spend time outside the school. That means it doesn’t consider how to spend time at home. “Home Montessori” advice comes from Montessori school directors and the like. The only people who can truly speak about Montessori education at home are those who did Montessori only at home, not people running schools. People who focus on the home.
Yati
That’s true.
Hiro
On the other hand, Nature Game was designed around how to help people notice various things in nature. I want children to notice many things, but I don’t want to do it through instruction, by teaching knowledge like “This ant does this” or “This plant is like that.” I want them to use their five senses. I want to draw out their sense of wonder.
Yati
Rachel Carson.
Hiro
I want children to enjoy nature through their own senses. I want them to love nature. So Nature Game is actually like outdoor teaching materials. Don’t you think?
Yati
What do you mean?
Hiro
Montessori’s sensorial materials and geography are actually connected to this too. Montessori activities all start from the senses. But children aren’t aware of that. The puzzle they’re doing sensorially turns out to be a proof of the Pythagorean theorem. So misguided Montessori teachers use that as a selling point: “This is actually a proof of the Pythagorean theorem.” But that’s not the important part. That comes later. The child being absorbed comes first.
Yati
Right.
Hiro
This applies to the binomial cube, the trinomial cube, everything. They’re artificial, but experiencing mathematical beauty indoors with blocks is considered Montessori’s essence. Nature Game is outdoors, with the real thing. No craftsman made it. Nature produces it. The shapes, colors, smells of plants are produced by nature. So it’s far more Montessori-like. This is what we’re aiming for. This is what Polymath School’s 3-to-6 program is modeled on.
Yati
So the question is: how can we use real natural objects like in Nature Game to do indoors what Montessori education does with senses, math, language, and culture?
Hiro
And I think the default should be outdoors. Basically, spending time in nature is less stressful. There’s a hormone called cortisol that rises with stress, but doesn’t it go down when you’re in nature? In cities, the common idea is that you’re always inside buildings, stress builds up, so occasionally go outside to refresh. But I think the reverse is better: normally spend time in nature-rich places, and occasionally go indoors to a library, sports hall, playroom, café, restaurant, to cook. After all, that’s how human history has been. Being indoors all the time is historically abnormal. [laughs]
Yati
As we talked about in a previous episode, time spent outdoors is really decreasing due to climate change and infectious diseases.
Hiro
Historically, humans spent most of their time outside. Farmers are probably the ideal. They basically work outside all day. Rain or shine, they work outdoors, in sheds connected to the outside, the boundary between inside and outside is blurry. Not always inside or always outside, but crossing the boundary back and forth. So I think the modern idea that “being indoors is normal and being outdoors is abnormal” is itself abnormal.
Yati
Since moving to the countryside in northern Japan, we’ve been doing indoor things outdoors. Taking a laptop to a big farm nearby to work, spreading Montessori materials in a park, cooking and eating outside. It clears your mind, and you want to spend more time outdoors.
Hiro
Please join a local Sharing Nature group. And what I want to emphasize is the name we use in Japan: it’s not “nature education.” Not a nature education group, not nature education, not nature learning. It’s Nature Game. A game. I want to stress this. If you approach it with the adult mindset of “Nature is so wonderful,” it becomes a nature education meeting. It becomes a nature tour, a nature guide. But from a child’s perspective, they don’t want to hear that. It’s boring. Being talked at about things they’re not interested in is boring.
Yati
Maybe that’s why our Scientific Montessori articles don’t get read much. [laughs]
Hiro
Adults don’t know this, but children want to discover things themselves. That’s why games work. That’s why calling it a “game” is important. Children who’ve drifted far from nature will probably say, “This is boring,” right away when they go to Nature Game. That’s because they’ve been watching YouTube or immersed in fantasy worlds, and that’s concerning. Anyway, as an interaction with nature, or really with the universe, Nature Game is a wonderful opportunity.
Yati
I’d like to hear more about applying Nature Game to Montessori education.
Hiro
I’ve been thinking about how to create an indoor version of Nature Game. I think it might lead to an evolved Montessori education without materials. For example, pick up tree branches outside and sort them.
Yati
You won’t find branches conveniently lying around.
Hiro
Oh, you will. What’s fun about the experience is that you start by searching for suitable branches. That’s interesting. Then you realize branches are really bent, broken, thin, thick. You notice that first. Then somehow you gather 10 branches of similar thickness, similar feel, differing only in length. In Montessori, that’s sold as a ready-made product.
Yati
The red rods set costs a few hundred dollars.
Hiro
But in a forest or nature-rich area, children can make it themselves for free, from stuff lying around. Their own materials. With variations, too. Next time, find 10 branches of the same length but different thicknesses.
Yati
That’s interesting.
Hiro
The sets have many variations, and that’s actually learning the math concept of sets, as in set theory.
Yati
But can you really prepare an environment where such perfect branches are available?
Hiro
Leaves work too. Big leaves, small leaves. You can line leaves up from smallest to largest. All you need is something you can put in order.
Yati
There are activities that use color tablets to sort fallen leaves by color. Nature Game has similar activities.
Hiro
What I’m saying is that expensive Montessori materials can be replicated for free with the same effect. In fact, doing it yourself for free lets you reach deeper concepts. A 3-year-old can understand the concept of sets. A little Bourbaki at three, like the French mathematicians who rebuilt math on set theory.
Yati
Have you actually tried this?
Hiro
Yes. At Polymath School, with a child from our 3-to-6 program, we walked around a pond near our school and incorporated Nature Game elements, collecting fallen leaves and asking, “Are there any the same color?” Ultimately, if the adult working with children truly understands the essence of mathematical concepts, you can create play from things lying in nature or free pebbles, and through that play, children unconsciously notice and discover mathematical concepts.
Yati
The other day, I was wondering how to measure the volume of a rectangular block. I ended up using Archimedes’ principle with a digital kitchen scale, a transparent container, tongs, and water, and measured it accurately. Measuring the block with a ruler gave 3 by 3 by 6 centimeters, which is 54 cubic centimeters. I placed the water-filled container on the scale, held the block with tongs, submerged it in the water, and the weight showed 54 grams, matching the volume. The trick was subtracting the tongs.
Hiro
I see.
Yati
And about buoyancy, when my older daughter was in the bath, she picked up my younger daughter and discovered, “Wait, why is she so light?!” If adults don’t understand things well themselves, the textbook just becomes the teaching material, and they can’t recognize everyday things and phenomena as the same concepts.
Hiro
Now that it’s winter, Polymath School has more indoor activities, and we’ve been using materials. But honestly, it’s not that interesting. If adults find it uninteresting, children certainly do even more.
Yati
That sounds like it could be misunderstood. The children do enjoy and concentrate on the materials. But Polymath School’s usual outdoor activities are so free and fun that compared to that, indoor activities still need to evolve.
Hiro
Polymath School’s free-range style means being under the blue sky, freely racing on balance bikes, throwing balls far, playing frisbee, climbing high hills. You don’t feel that sense of liberation indoors, that satisfaction.
Yati
That’s true.
Hiro
We need to evolve the materials. So I’m thinking we should go to the mountains, collect branches, do campfire science. At a ski resort, there’s lots of snow, so you can make whatever you want. Last time, at our cooking club at Polymath School, we made snowmen and snow huts outside. The kids wanted to make a snowman with three snowballs. Head, chest, belly. “It’s like an insect,” we said.
Yati
3D sculpture is fun.
Hiro
Snow is convenient. You can make all kinds of things. Sculpt freely. And sledding down slopes is fun and a physics experience.
Yati
That connects to calculus too.
Hiro
So I’m starting to feel uncomfortable with the idea that using Montessori materials indoors is what Montessori education means. I think what Maria Montessori was talking about was much broader. One more thing I want to point out: in early Montessori photos, activities are all happening outdoors. There’s hardly anything done inside. They’re in outdoor plazas, spreading out something, maybe a rug, and doing activities there.
Yati
A quick search brings those up. Photos of children at tables on grassy areas, doing activities. They look so joyful. I love those photos.
Hiro
It’s a complete contrast to conventional education. Doing Montessori activities outdoors is important. We’re still in the experimental stage, but I think the future of Montessori education lies in this direction.
Yati
I agree. Though I do want to gather all the materials. [laughs]
