Impressionistic Charts fundraiser
With your help, we can make the Montessori Impressionistic Charts freely accessible to all – something we believe Dr. Montessori would have celebrated.
Impressionistic Charts fundraiser
With your help, we can make the Montessori Impressionistic Charts freely accessible to all – something we believe Dr. Montessori would have celebrated.
What we’re doing
Impressionistic charts are an important part of many of the Montessori lessons given in the elementary years. As of now, teachers/guides often spend money from their personal funds to purchase them, and many spend hours coloring or even illustrating them by hand. We want to offer another option by creating a free set of charts for educators presenting the Montessori lessons which include these supportive tools designed to spark the imagination of the elementary child.
If we’re able to meet our fundraising goal for this project …
- We will create beautifully illustrated digital versions of all of the Montessori Impressionistic Charts, the Timeline of Life, the Timeline of Humans, and a few other bonus materials.
- Each chart will be made available in both a full color, and a black line version.
- The charts will be free and accessible to all.
The story behind the project
This whole project started with an idea from Ian Nesbit, who is a Montessori-trained teacher and content creator at Montessori Laboratory. When we began creating a set of Impressionistic Charts to present in the Montessori Laboratory lessons, Ian pointed out how amazing it would be if there were a set of freely accessible and available charts for those presenting the lessons that include Impressionistic Charts.
As it turns out, Ian’s wife, Claudia, is an impeccable illustrator. She loved the idea of creating these Montessori materials too, and so the idea came to life!
Here are a couple samples of what the charts will look like:
Funding goal: $15,900
We’re splitting our fundraising goal into the 4 tiers below. As each milestone is reached, we’ll begin illustrating that tier! If any tier’s goal is not met, we will still use the funds raised to create and share as many charts as we can.
1st milestone: $4,030
- First Great Lesson
- Composition of the Earth
- The Universe, Sun, Earth, and Solar System
- Solar Energy and Effects of Planetary Movement
2nd milestone: $9,755
- The Atmosphere
- The Work of Wind
- The Work of Water
3rd milestone: $13,140
- The Timeline of Life
- Botany
Goal: $15,900
- Timeline of Humans
- Work Charts
- Other Impressionistic Charts
Your contribution
We’re dreaming big with this project, and if anyone can make the dream a reality it’s the Montessori community! To say thank you, we have a few gifts for you when you donate:
- $25: Raffle entry to win a 1 year Montessori Laboratory Membership (If you are already a member, we will add a free year onto your current membership)
- $100: Raffle entry to win a 1 year Montessori Laboratory Membership & Foundations Science Kit.
Frequently asked questions
The Montessori Impressionistic Charts are a material that accompanies many of the Montessori elementary lessons. These beautiful charts are composed of simple illustrations and images designed to spark the child’s interest and imagination, and give them an impression of a specific concept or idea. They are descriptive, yet simple in nature, and each chart belongs with a specific lesson and a specific story.
Initially, these charts were drawn by Montessori teachers during their training, after their training as part of their classroom preparation, or even drawn in real-time as they were giving the lessons. In later years, teachers were given the outlines of the charts to color in. While some teachers in training enjoyed this process, others found it difficult and/or time-consuming to create the Impressionistic Charts while attending to other training program responsibilities. Many training centers and vendors now sell pre-colored charts, which has saved many educators a lot of time. However, the cost can be prohibitive, and if a chart is ruined, it is often difficult to find a replacement. For all of these reasons and more, we wanted to develop digital charts that would be accessible to all.
Once they are complete, the entire set of charts will be available at no cost. Montessori Laboratory will not receive compensation for their creation. Paying our illustrator a fair wage is of the utmost importance to us, and this is a big project! She will be creating over 200 hand-illustrated images, and her samples speak to the quality and care she will be taking in their creation.
88% of the funds will go directly towards the creation of the charts. The majority will go towards the illustrator, and a small portion will go to their development and translation into Spanish.
12% of the funds will go towards the backend and administrative work such as web hosting, design, and organization of the charts so that they will be easy to access and navigate in their digital format, along with outreach efforts associated with this project.
- $25: we will pick a raffle winner when we reach the fundraising goal.
- $100: we will pick a raffle winner when we reach the fundraising goal.
Absolutely! Once you make your donation, please send us an email to info@montessorilaboratory.com so that we can allocate the correct amount of raffle entries.
