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Helping Your Children Develop Executive-Functioning Skills

A caring family life and an environment rich in activities, offers everything a child needs to develop higher-level brain processes. n essence, the brain’s executive functions allow us to plan, organize, and complete tasks. Montessori would not have recognized the term, yet most of her activities are tailor-made for these higher-brain processes. Infants as young […]

A Montessori Primer

A Montessori Primer

hile driving away from my doctor’s office the other day I began to muse about the medical profession. My thinking soon led me to the surprising fact that Dr. Maria Montessori left her thriving and quite lucrative medical practice in Rome to become an impoverished, itinerant educator of young children. As you and I know, […]

Ten Essential Montessori Principles (Plus One!)

hen people first come to study the approach that bears Dr. Maria Montessori’s name, they often see it as simplistic—easily grasped and even more easily implemented. It is not uncommon to hear Montessori principles boiled down: it’s “all about choice”; “independence is the centerpiece”; or “it focuses upon the idea of ‘work.’” Montessori is much […]

Van Gogh’s Bedroom

incent Van Gogh’s bedroom in the Yellow House in Arles, with its bed pressed into the corner of a sky blue room, a table with bottles and pitchers, clothes hanging on hooks and paintings adorning the walls, has hung in our classroom at Montessori Casa International from the time we opened our doors. We had […]

Sensitive Periods

Sensitive Periods

ontessori believed in a necessary relationship between children and their environment. Children must find a properly prepared environment if they are to fully develop their unique human potentials. In addition to determining children’s eventual height, hair color, and other physical characteristics, there is another cognitive plan which determines the unique emotional and intellectual qualities of […]