Show-Me-How Courtesy Minutes

Tiny, two-minute Montessori-style lessons in which the adult silently shows one everyday courtesy and the child then tries it — one small lesson a day.

  1. Choose one courtesy for today. Good ones for a 5-year-old: holding a door for the person behind you; covering a cough or sneeze with your elbow; walking around someone’s game on the floor instead of through it; handing over scissors or a pencil safely; receiving a present (including one you don’t love); saying “Sorry — are you okay?” after bumping into someone.
  2. At a calm time — never right after a slip-up — say, “I’d like to show you how we hold a door for someone.”
  3. Show it slowly, with very few words, using another adult or a soft toy as your partner. Let the actions do the teaching.
  4. Ask, “Would you like a turn?” The child tries; then swap so they also feel what it is like to be on the receiving end.
  5. Ask one question: “How did it feel when I held the door for you?”
  6. Then leave it alone. Over the following days simply notice it out loud when it happens for real: “You walked around my jigsaw — thank you.”

Variation: put picture cards for the courtesies in a jar and let the child draw one to act out with you, or let the child teach a lesson to a younger sibling, a grandparent or a row of soft toys.

Requirements

  • Space: Wherever the courtesy naturally happens — a doorway, hallway, table or play mat
  • Surface: Not applicable
  • Materials: Everyday objects for the lesson of the day (a door, a tissue, a wrapped "present," child scissors); optional picture cards and a jar
  • Participants: 1 adult + 1 child; a second person or a soft toy as a partner
  • Supervision: Light — the adult demonstrates, then watches

Rationale & Objective

Grace & Courtesy is a core part of the Montessori practical-life curriculum for 3–6-year-olds. Its principle is that manners are skills to be shown, not faults to be corrected: the adult isolates one small piece of social behaviour, demonstrates it precisely at a neutral moment, and lets the child practise through brief role-play (Lillard, Montessori: The Science Behind the Genius). Decades of social-learning research (Bandura) support the same idea — children acquire social behaviour chiefly by observing models and rehearsing what they saw. Because the lesson is separate from any misbehaviour, the child meets it with curiosity instead of shame. Each courtesy also carries a small act of perspective-taking — noticing the person behind you at the door, the friend whose game is on the floor — which is why the Polish core curriculum and the EYFS both pair polite conventions with showing sensitivity to others’ needs. Over time the lessons add up to the easy, considerate public behaviour that Montessori Grace & Courtesy checklists look for.

Progress Indicators

  • Early: copies the courtesy during the lesson but does not yet use it in real life; lets doors swing shut and walks through others’ play without noticing
  • Developing: uses a practised courtesy when reminded with a look or a word; occasionally does one spontaneously and looks to the adult for approval
  • Proficient: uses several courtesies unprompted at home (holds doors, covers coughs, walks around others’ work); checks on someone after bumping into them
  • Advanced: uses them with unfamiliar people and in new places; notices who needs a courtesy (a person with full hands, a younger child); enjoys teaching a lesson to someone else

Safety Notes

  • For the door lesson, show where hands go — flat on the door or on the handle, never near the hinge side where fingers can be trapped; heavy or self-closing doors need an adult
  • Practise passing scissors closed, with the handles toward the other person, and only with child-safe scissors
  • After the cough-and-sneeze lesson, finish with handwashing so the hygiene habit is complete
  • Never require hugs or kisses as “good manners” — a wave, a high-five or a spoken thank-you is always an acceptable polite choice, and the child’s right to decide about touch comes first
  • Do not rehearse a courtesy as a punishment straight after a lapse; children who seem unable to pick up social conventions despite plenty of calm modelling can be discussed with the preschool teacher or pediatrician

Hints

  • Playfulness: do the lesson with exaggerated elegance, like royalty at a palace door, or let a clumsy teddy get it comically wrong first
  • Sustain interest: one lesson a day is plenty; revisit old favourites through the picture-card jar and add new ones as real situations come up (visiting a newborn, a birthday party)
  • Common mistake: talking too much. A slow, nearly silent demonstration is clearer than an explanation, and prompting “What do you say?” in front of others only embarrasses the child
  • Limited space: no props are needed — most lessons can be acted out with pretend objects in a hallway or at the kitchen table
  • Cross-domain: opening doors, carrying and handing over objects build practical-life motor control; talking about how the other person felt builds empathy and emotion vocabulary
  • Progression: adult shows and child copies → child chooses the lesson from the jar → child uses the courtesy with family unprompted → uses it with visitors and in public → child teaches it to a younger child

Sources

  • Montessori Grace & Courtesy lessons — practical-life curriculum for ages 3–6 (AMI / American Montessori Society)
  • Lillard, A.S. (2017), Montessori: The Science Behind the Genius (3rd ed.), Oxford University Press
  • Bandura, A. (1977), Social Learning Theory — observational learning and modelling
  • Polish Podstawa Programowa Wychowania Przedszkolnego — using polite forms and respecting the needs of others
  • UK EYFS Statutory Framework — ELG Building Relationships (show sensitivity to their own and to others’ needs)
  • CDC — coughing and sneezing hygiene etiquette (cover with a tissue or your elbow, then wash hands)