The Montessori Way

A calm, childproofed bedroom prepared for independent movement and rest. The first time a patient's mother described her toddler's “floor bed” to me, I assumed she meant the kid had knocked the mattress off the frame again. I was wrong, and it turned into one of those...

Parents sometimes walk into a Montessori classroom and notice something missing. No stack of worksheets. No workbooks lined up on a shelf. No thick folder of papers coming home each week showing exactly what got covered that day. If there is not much paper coming...

September is usually a wonderful month in schools. The classrooms are freshly prepared. Teachers are energized. Parents are hopeful. Children arrive with new backpacks, new lunchboxes, and stories about new friends. For families who have just enrolled, there is often...

  What Is Happening Inside the Brain of a Montessori Child? Every parent who has toured a Montessori school has watched something that looks almost too calm to be real. A four-year-old carries a tray across the room, settles onto a mat, and works with a set of...

A younger child observes an older classmate working independently in a calm, mixed-age Montessori prepared environment. The first time parents encounter a Montessori mixed-age classroom, it can raise real questions. Wouldn't a three-year-old be better off with a room...

A Montessori guide calmly sets a clear limit while preserving the child’s dignity and freedom to choose purposeful work. Montessori classrooms give children a remarkable amount of freedom. Children move around the room. They choose their own work. They decide where to...

Real-world discovery gives children rich material for imagination. One of the most persistent myths about Montessori is that it does not believe in imagination. No pretending, no fairy tales, no fantasy, no make-believe, the story goes, as though Montessori classrooms...

  Your child shows you a picture. We respond, “Good job!” Your child puts on a coat. “Good job!” Lunch, cleanup, a finished puzzle, a written word, the dog fed. “Good job! Good job! Good job!” We say it because we are proud, and we want our children to feel that....

    We've all done it. Perhaps our child is building with blocks, drawing, digging in the garden, or trying again and again to fasten a stubborn button. We mean to help and say something encouraging. “That’s wonderful!” And just like that, the concentration...

The Safe School Framework illustrates the unseen worries that can affect a child’s attention, trust, and readiness to learn. The Montessori Foundation is pleased to support Gavin McCormack’s Safe School Framework and to work with schools interested in bringing its...