Young children who are exposed to art early in life are inspired to create their own artwork. When making art, children develop fine motor skills and learn how to communicate their feelings.

In a Montessori school, students learn that art is everywhere. They learn to draw and paint with art supplies as well as found objects. These students also learn to work with each other to make group art projects.

Here are some of the projects, materials, and objects that encourage artistic expression and group activity in the Montessori student. (more…)

Your child beginning preschool is an exciting time of transition. Attending Montessori preschool may be an easier adjustment than most since Montessori schools are deliberately designed to be calm environments where children are encouraged to engage in their natural independence and creativity. When you take the time to prepare your child in these ways so they know what to expect, the transition will be even easier.

1. Incorporate Montessori at Home

It’s simple yet helpful to incorporate Montessori classroom principles at home, especially in your child’s bedroom. In a Montessori classroom, anything your child plays with or uses on a daily basis is designed to be child-sized and placed where your child can see it, reach it, or easily use it. (more…)

You’ve watched your child flourish in the child-centered, exploration-focused Montessori classroom. The preschool years have been a time when your child grew into an inquisitive learner who is an autonomous, creative thinker. The Montessori education doesn’t end when your child finishes preschool. Unlike other early childhood environments, Montessori extends into the kindergarten year — and potentially beyond.

Why should your child stay in Montessori for kindergarten? This is a major decision that not only affects your child right now but also changes the face of their future learning experiences. (more…)

Today, your child is crazy about dinosaurs. Tomorrow, it could be insects, photography, ballet, or any number of passion projects that may strike their fancy. As a parent, it can be difficult to keep up with your child’s changing interests, but it’s important that you do.

Here are five benefits of encouraging your child to follow their passions, however fleeting they may be.

1. Pursuing Passions Releases Dopamine

When you force your child to do something, they don’t feel joy. When they do something that they want to do, however, their brain kicks into overdrive, releasing substantial amounts of dopamine. The feel-good chemical, dopamine, makes your child feel joy and a sense of accomplishment. It also keeps them focused and encourages them to keep hard at work, developing their talents in any given area.

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Parents of children who have ADHD know that traditional classrooms can be difficult places for their children. A typical classroom might move from one subject to the next while your child is still struggling to focus on the first task.

Ordinary classrooms are often full of distractions that can keep your child off-balance. From computer screens to brightly colored walls, a typical classroom can leave a child with ADHD overstimulated and frustrated. (more…)

As a parent, you want your child to receive the best possible education. However, this admirable goal involves numerous individual choices. For example, while you may know that your child will benefit from Montessori-style learning, you may wonder if he or she should stay at the same center from infancy on.

Many Montessori learning centers offer infant early learning programs, toddler curriculum, preschool and kindergarten. In this blog, we discuss five ways that your child may benefit from staying at the same learning center for each of these educational stages. (more…)

Dr. Maria Montessori observed that children pass through certain stages in their development when they are predisposed to learning a particular skill. She called these sensitive periods. These spans last as long as it takes the child to learn the skill.

Sense of Order

In Montessori, the classroom is carefully prepared in an orderly fashion for the children. They are responsible for returning things where they belong and caring for their environment. Items are child-sized and placed at the child’s level. (more…)

When you visit a Montessori classroom to find out if it’s right for your child, one thing you might notice is that the classroom is organized a bit differently than other classrooms. There’s a good reason for that.

The layout of the Montessori classroom isn’t random or accidental. Classroom objects are deliberately placed in different areas that correspond with the five curriculum areas that will be addressed in the classroom. Take a look at the five areas that you’ll find in a Montessori classroom. (more…)

When you enroll your children in a Montessori school, it will quickly become apparent that such a school offers more for your kids than most institutions of learning. For example, the American Montessori Society requires that all students who are at the early childhood level or older experience an uninterrupted work period that lasts for at least two hours four days each week.

All accredited Montessori schools offer this uninterrupted work period. Some parents may be confused about what this entails. That can be especially true if your children were previously enrolled in other schools where every activity throughout the day was structured. (more…)

As the weather turns warm, many parents of young children break out of the house, anxious to take advantage of parks and backyards. However, as the weather turns from warm to hot, families retreat indoors again, fearing heat exhaustion, dehydration, and sunburns. The summer months can start to drag, with more and more parents relying on TV or tablets to pass the time.

The Montessori model of early childhood education celebrates curiosity, brain development, learning experiences, and diverse sensory activity. Screen time provides none of these benefits, and too much time with a screen can actually decrease a child’s ability to learn, visualize, create, and emote.
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