Bergamo albums now right here!

In 1973 I spent three months in Italy studying the language prior to the 1973-74 Montessori Elementary Training Course, which was held in Bergamo, Italy.  Lectures were delivered by Eleanor Honegger and Camillo Grazinni, speaking Italian and then translated sentence-by-sentence into English by Maria, a Mexican woman. With the advantage of having studied Italian, I was able to hear each sentence twice and could actually transcribe the lectures (rather than taking notes).  Despite occasional usage or mathematical errors, I have used the resulting albums, full of lessons and philosophy for forty years; and I still find inspiration with every reading.

All of use who have enjoyed the Montessori elementary training know how important our albums are in teaching Montessori lessons everyday.  I am posting my albums not because I think they are better.  However, I do know that Grazinni often collaborated with Mario Montessori on the slightest details, making some of these lectures one step closer to Maria Montessori’s original thinking.  Although the albums are 40 years old now and probably differ significantly from albums created in more recent elementary training courses, I am hopeful that these albums will provide some additional suggestions, some added insight into the theory behind our practice, and perhaps even some new lesson strategies.

Thanks to Mindy Burnett at Wheatmark for the enormous contribution of taking hundreds of separate files and turning them into usable chapters, which you will find here in the section called “Montessori Curriculum.”