Mountain Montessori School Resources

Having a 4 day minimum helps to create the consistency that is so important to young children and which is essential in developing strong Montessori programs. Since the primary goal of Montessori involves creating a culture of consistency, order, and empowerment, most Montessori schools will expect children to attend at least 4 days a week. Five days a week is highly encouraged!

Two and a half and potty trained.  We recommend starting as close to 3 years of age as possible.

In Montessori education, children are grouped in mixed ages and abilities in three to six year spans: 0-3, 3-6, 6-9, 9-12, 12-15, 15-18. There is constant interaction, problem solving, child to child teaching, and socialization. Children are challenged according to their ability and never bored.

At each level, Montessori programs are designed to address the developmental characteristics normal to children in that stage.

Montessori classes are organized to encompass a two- or three-year age span, which allows younger students the stimulation of older children, who in turn benefit from serving as role models. Each child learns at her own pace and will be ready for any given lesson in her own time, not on the teacher’s schedule of lessons. In a mixed-age class, children can always find peers who are working at their current level.

Children normally stay in the same class for three years. With two-thirds of the class normally returning each year, the classroom culture tends to remain quite stable.

Working in one class for two or three years allows students to develop a strong sense of community with their classmates and teachers. The age range also allows especially gifted children the stimulation of intellectual peers, without requiring that they skip a grade or feel emotionally out of place.

We go outside every day from 1-2pm.

Rest time is from 2-3:15pm each day. If a child needs to sleep longer, we have extended hours and a 'quiet room' that will allow for their sleep needs. If a child no longer naps, they are welcome to get up off their cots after 20 minutes of rest and engage in a 2nd work period.

Montessori education is fundamentally a model of human development, and an educational approach based on that model. The model has two basic principles. First, children and developing adults engage in psychological self-construction by means of interaction with their environments. Second, children, especially under the age of six, have an innate path of psychological development. Based on her observations, Montessori believed that children at liberty to choose and act freely within an environment prepared according to her model would act spontaneously for optimal development. Source here.