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The Power Of Forgiveness

The Power Of Forgiveness

New studies look at forgiveness To earn his doctorate in counseling and health psychology from Stanford in 1997, Fred Luskin had to write a dissertation. At the time, Luskin was furious with a friend. To complete his graduation requirement and to cope with the pain, Luskin researched and wrote about forgiveness. “I couldn’t do it. […]

63 Fun Questions to Get Your Kid Talking

63 Fun Questions to Get Your Kid Talking

Children ask questions—lots of questions. But you can turn the tables! Here are 63 fun suggestions to get a conversation started. Kids ask a lot of questions. Sometimes the questions repeat themselves. Most of the time we’ve answered them over and over. And let’s be honest, we’ve been known to ignore one or two here and […]

The Montessori Difference: Understanding Its Essential Elements

The Montessori Difference: Understanding Its Essential Elements

“The first essential for the child’s development is concentration. It lays the whole basis for his character and social behavior.” (Montessori, 1988, p.202) Dr. Maria Montessori (1870-1952) believed that children have an inner directive for their optimum self-construction and that concentration is the key to their natural development. This was perhaps one of her major […]

The Kindergarten Year: Montessori Early Childhood & The Three-Year Cycle Of Primary

The Kindergarten Year: Montessori Early Childhood & The Three-Year Cycle Of Primary

In Montessori Primary communities the children are referred to as first years, second years, and third years. The children are on a journey that is designed to take three years. The newest two-and-a-half to three-year-old children are considered first years. The first years have never been in Primary before. Children who complete that first year […]

Using he Montessori method To Build The Whole Child

Using he Montessori method To Build The Whole Child

The Montessori method develops the child’s disposition and attitude, self-confidence, and self-esteem. Children’s learning is reflected in the level of motivation and interest they show in their work, and in their ability to concentrate and finish what they start. Children are scientists and have a tendency to explore their world. They learn about who they […]

Open Mind Open Heart

Open Mind Open Heart

From my first observation in a Montessori classroom, I recognized how consistent it was with much about my field of special education. Up to that point, I had worked in a variety of settings from a public-school program to an in-patient psychiatric unit and with children from four to seventeen years of age. It immediately […]

Value and Values of Montessori in the 21st Century

Value and Values of Montessori in the 21st Century

What kinds of life skills will your child need to be successful – happy, healthy, and productive – in the 21st century? Beyond facts, figures, and formulas, what will young people need to know to find their way and make their mark in a world which increasingly demands higher order thinking, social intelligence, and self-organizing […]

Children Learn Best When Parents Learn With Them

Children Learn Best When Parents Learn With Them

I used to think that our school’s mission was solely about each student and his/her learning; now I know that our mission also includes the parent as a learner. My personal journey from “I used to think…but now I know” occurred through observation and research during my 30 years in leadership at Kingsley Montessori in […]

Book Reviews: Ashes to Asheville

Book Reviews: Ashes to Asheville

Ashes to Asheville by Sarah Dooley Ashes to Asheville will make you relearn the definition of family. This book, written by Sarah Dooley, starts in a small town in West Virginia. Two sisters, Zany and Fella, along with their grandmother’s dog, Haberdashery, take their mother’s ashes and set off on an overnight road trip to […]

Cultivating Peace in the Montessori Lessons In Grace And Courtesy

Cultivating Peace in the Montessori Lessons In Grace And Courtesy

If we are to teach real peace in this world…we shall have to begin with the children. —Mahatma Gandhi Montessori education has been referred to as “peace education”; Montessorian Sonnie McFarland calls peace education a “Montessori best practice” (Montessori Life, January 2005); and even Gandhi praised Montessori’s approach to world peace. So, how is peace […]

Being A Montessori Parent

Being A Montessori Parent

Maria Montessori was a pioneer woman,  A brilliant-minded genius who went out on her own to design and build an educational curriculum more than one hundred years ago for the poorest children in Italy. It was deemed ‘alternative’ then, and it still is today. Very few people truly understand how and why the Montessori Method works, […]

The Montessori Checkerboard for Long Multiplication

The Montessori Checkerboard for Long Multiplication

The Multiplication Checkerboard is one of the most popular materials in most elementary Montessori classrooms. The colorful checkerboard materials are a step up the ladder of abstraction in the Montessori math curriculum. Think back to your own years in school. Did you ever really understand what is going on in long-multiplication? Oh, you probably memorized your multiplication tables [like […]

Value and Values of Montessori in the 21st Century

Montessori Re-Enrollment

Christine Lowry shares some of the most up-to-date research on educational settings and their effect on student success. The research includes flexible classroom arrangement, multi-age classes, personalized learning, project-based learning, social-emotional learning,...
Transforming Your Parent-Teacher Relationship Through Courageous Conversation

Transforming Your Parent-Teacher Relationship Through Courageous Conversation

Education requires parents, teacher, and child to work together in cooperation. A weakness in any of these decreases the efficiency of others while inhibiting the development of the child.”  —Maria Montessori Courageous Conversation occurs when people come to a conversation with a deep concern for human welfare, values, and dignity. It exists as people say […]

The Emotionally Healthy Classroom

The Emotionally Healthy Classroom

“It is our responsibility to learn to become emotionally intelligent. These are skills. They’re not easy. Nature didn’t give them to us. We have to learn them.”  —Paul Ekman Children today are more emotional, strong-willed, and reactive than ever before. They have big feelings and oftentimes don’t yet know how to constructively release them. Of […]

Discipline Alternatives: For The Montessori Classroom & Home

Discipline Alternatives: For The Montessori Classroom & Home

“The undisciplined child enters into discipline by working in the company of others; not being told he is naughty … Discipline is, therefore, primarily a learning experience and less a punitive experience if appropriately dealt with.” —Maria Montessori Teachers spend...