The floor bed is maybe the most controversial of the Montessori infant suggestions. Parents often wonder, will my child roll off his floor bed, or crawl off and begin to play? Well, that’s certainly the case—but is that an argument against or for the floor bed? By rolling off onto a soft carpet, from the height of a few inches, a child learns to recognize boundaries with little risk. By having the freedom to get out of bed when no longer tired, a child feels empowered, rather than trapped. Think about it from a child’s perspective: wouldn’t such a bed allow a baby to discover something fantastic, namely, that he is in control, that he can get himself to sleep and get himself up again: “I am the master of my movements, I don’t need to stay in my container and cry until somebody rescues me, I can even go to bed when I am tired, no need for me to wait until my sleepy cues have been interpreted.”
Jeanne-Marie Paynel, M.Ed, holds AMI Montessori diplomas for ages birth through six. She is a Montessori Parent Liaison for LePort Montessori Schools and the founder of 
The one material rule. A child may have one and only one activity out at a time. He can take any material he has received a lesson on from a shelf and work with it in a clearly-defined work space, such as a small table or a rug rolled out on the floor. Once he is done, he needs to put the material back in its proper spot on the shelf, before he can move on to his next activity.
Clear rules, and a respect for each child’s right to work without being forced to surrender the materials, is a key factor in the peacefulness parents observe when visiting our Montessori classrooms. Yet this respect, this refusal to allow one child to interrupt another’s activity, has another, equally important purpose: protecting a child’s right to work enables him to meet his need for mental nourishment, and, in doing so, helps him become a more centered, better adjusted young person.
Be clear on your goal: do you want to encourage voluntary sharing (trading value for value), or do you want to compel children to surrender their toys on demand? Our suggestions in this blog post focus on fostering voluntary interactions to mutual benefit. We want to help children see each other benevolently, to treat one another with respect, and to respect the rights of each child to their things and personal space. If your goals are different, you’ll want to think about different rules than those we outline here.
For community toys, support taking long turns.
Protect your child’s rights when needed; otherwise, 
In my family, we have been playing by these rules since my daughter was not quite three, and my son, not quite one: my children have never been compelled to surrender their toys on demand—not at home, not at the playground and not at their Montessori school. Yet they are both very caring, kind, friendly children—children who are quite adept at reading social clues, who can (usually) wait their turn, who speak up for their needs, and who have good relationships with their classmates and strong friendships for their age. Last summer, when we were on an extended play date with my daughter and four other six-year-old girls, one of my daughter’s friends hadn’t brought her bike along. This girl was walking alone as the other four girls were riding along happily on their bikes. After a short while, my daughter—who knew I would never ask her to share her bike—noticed her friend’s sad face and realized the friend felt left out. She got off her bike, took of her helmet, and invited her friend to take a turn.
And yet, in the reverse situation, the same parents often don’t reinforce the “no taking” principle. Instead of protecting their child’s play, they encourage (and sometimes admonish) their child to give up the toy in question.
Watching your young child grow up so quickly can be bittersweet—one minute you’re celebrating his first steps and his first words, then you blink and—gasp!—your child is ready for his first day of school!
Part-time students don’t derive the full benefit from the Montessori environment as they never really get settled down in a consistent routine. I once worked at a Montessori school where primary students were given the option of attending school part-time for just three days a week. After a while, I began to observe a great difference between the part-time students and the full-time students who came to school five days a week: The part-time students appeared to spend much of their time aimlessly wandering around the classroom, while the full-time students were actively engaged in lessons on the floor or at a table, working independently, working with a classmate, or working with a teacher.
Young children thrive when their daily lives are full of consistent routines. They do best when they can predict what is going to happen next. This kind of consistency happens when a child goes to school for five consecutive days in a row each week versus attending school for only two or three days a week. It is hard for a child to figure out their routine when they go to school every other day or for just a few days in a row!
Part-time students feel left out of the full-timers close classroom communities. The part-time students in my class also appeared to be less likely to have strong bonds with their classmates. Why? They were missing out on important events or lessons that were given on the days they were off. Their full-time peers tended to gravitate toward other children who were there each day, children they could rely on to be there to play and work with. Disconnected from the rhythm of the classroom, and implicitly perceived as being less reliable (because often absent) playmates, the part-timers sadly lived at the edges of our solid classroom community—despite my best efforts to integrate them anew each week.
When you enroll with your child in LePort’s Toddler Parent & Child class, you enter a beautiful room where everything has a place and a purpose. It’s an environment carefully prepared to enable toddlers to fulfill their urgent need to act independently and to explore with all their senses. Everything is at the child’s level, on wooden furniture sized just right for toddlers. Your child will be excited to take the many interesting materials from the shelves and explore them with you. Parent & Child classes are held in the same Montessori toddler environments that our 18 to 36 month old students enjoy in our drop-off Montessori programs.
At LePort we combined the best of both and are excited to offer parents a school that will give their child a truly well-rounded education. Our unique programs are designed to give students a rich, intellectually demanding academic experience (based on our own advanced curriculum) – in a child-centered environment that encourages a healthy curiosity, a love of learning, and an overall emotional wellbeing. Now, in our fourteenth year of existence – with eight thriving schools and a current enrollment of over 900 students – our dream of “getting education right” is a successful reality. As a result, LePort Schools look and operate very differently from everything else out there.
It starts before our school year even begins. Every August, we have an all-teacher meeting during which we go over our entire student body, focusing especially on students who might need accommodations, whether remedial work, enrichment, social-emotional development. We have this meeting so teachers can begin their classes with a big picture understanding of the children with whom they will be working so closely. This helps us to start the year off right, to create a caring, supportive learning environment for each and every unique child, from day one.
Our classrooms have a maximum size of 16 students, and teachers have manageable course loads (approximately 15 hours of class time a week, as compared to 25+ in other schools). This allows teachers a lot of time to study their students and really understand each child’s motivations. They also have time to follow up on important “little things” that matter to students, discuss and collaborate with colleagues, communicate with parents, and find solutions that help address concerns and challenges.
That’s a quick tour of some of the general and specific “behind the scenes” work in our upper elementary/junior high division. We deeply care about the individualized work that makes a huge impact on understanding your child, and, even more importantly, in his understanding himself – a precondition to success in the unique adventure he will confidently create of his life.
Some parents who discover Montessori when their child is four years old are concerned about joining the mixed-age primary room mid-stream. “Will my child be playing catch-up? Some of the other four-year-olds are already reading ”, you might wonder. “I’ve just learned about Montessori, and I see how wonderful this environment could be for my child. She’s already four, though. Did we miss the boat?”
It is true that younger is better when it comes to joining a Montessori program. Starting as a toddler or a young three-year-old gives children the best opportunity to benefit from the enriched, carefully prepared classroom environment. As Montessori educators, we understand that the time between birth and age six is the most critical in a human being’s development. During this stage of growth, children go through rapid changes and develop the most important aspects of their personality and intellect.
While some of these sensitive periods begin at birth, four-year-old children are still in the midst of this amazing time. We regularly see four-year-olds join our class and become drawn to the materials on our shelves; they quickly begin “working” and become acclimated to their new environment. With the right support at home and at school, you’ll be surprised by how much joy both you and your child will get from his Montessori experience!
This consistent time is especially important for your four-year-old who is new to Montessori. Dr. Montessori observed that many issues that children struggle with, from temper tantrums to uncoordinated movement, from disobedience to physical aggression, disappeared when children are allowed freedom in an environment suited to their needs. Often, a child would find some activity that spoke to him, become immersed in it, and repeat it over and over again. Once a child connected to an engaging activity, he became happier, more curious to explore more learning materials in class, and even became kinder and more benevolent to his peers.
The third year in Montessori Primary (the equivalent of traditional kindergarten) is the year when much of the foundational skill development solidifies, and many children suddenly experience huge growth spurts in writing, reading, math and overall confidence.
The best way to help your child thrive in a Montessori environment is to better understand Montessori yourself. We make this easy for you: When your child joins our program, you’ll receive eight short, one-page handouts explaining key aspects of Montessori, and suggesting simple ways you can align what you do at home with what your child experiences at school. Throughout the school year, we offer Parent Education Events, where we discuss a wide range of topics: from how to support independence to learning math in preschool. Our blog also offers plenty of helpful articles. Your child’s teacher is also a great resource: Our trained head teachers are available via email or in person after school to answer all kinds of Montessori-related questions you may have and to help you understand how you can best support your child.
One of the beauties of Montessori is the profound respect for the individuality we give each child. Montessori teachers do not compare their students with each other. We know that your four-year-old may need some time to get used to his new school, and that it would not help at all to compare him to other four-year-olds who had started before him. Each Montessori teacher allows her students to develop at their own pace, and she trusts that the Montessori classroom will enable her students to reach their individual potential at their own unique pace.
If you want to support your child’s academic development, the best way to do this is to read with your child. Read a lot! Read a variety of books, discuss what you read, ask her questions about what you’ve read, follow along with your finger under text as you read, and explain vocabulary. That way, when she does finally master her letter sounds, she’ll be able to move along much faster. You can read more about how to 
Cee-aye-tee”, no matter how fast you say it, never blends together to make the sound “cat”. Yet most commercial products focus on teaching letter names. At best, they introduce sounds and names simultaneously, with emphasis on the name of the letters.In Montessori, in contrast, we start literacy by teaching sounds exclusively. ecause we don’t focus on letter names, the process is much less confusing for children, and it enables them to more quickly begin to write and read.
Teach lower-case letters—and engage hand and mind at the same time. Most commercial materials and much public school instruction starts with capital print letters. This is contrary to what a child actually needs: most print children will encounter is in lower case, as is most of the writing they’ll do (just look at this blog post!) That’s why, in our preschool program, we introduce lower-case letters first, and transition to capitals only later.
If your child cannot attend Montessori school, then buying a set of 
Separate handwriting from word-building. For a child to write a word, he needs to combine two separate skills: he needs to segment the word into sounds, represented by letters—and he needs to have the motor skills to write these letters on a piece of paper.Often, children can associate sounds with letters long before they can easily form the letters: their conceptual understanding of language is more advanced than their motor skills.That’s why in the Montessori program, children first “write” by building words with the Montessori Moveable Alphabet, a set of wooden letters that a child can arrange in different orders. They make words by placing the letters on a rug. This enables them to practice putting sounds together to make words—separated from the more challenging task of forming the letters with a pencil.If your child will not attend a Montessori program (e.g., if you are planning on homeschooling, or if he attends a play-based preschool program), a 
The 
Instead, start reading by making it a game to read and act out what we call “command cards”: write small action instructions on a piece of paper, and have your child do the action—such as “hop”, “jump”, “run”, “skip” and so on. e careful to use only words that are phonetic—i.e., words you can sound out with just short vowel and regular consonant sounds. When your child is ready to progress to books, invest in early readers that are phonetic. The best series we have found is published by Flyleaf Publishing. It includes very short, purely phonetic books for 
With this careful approach, most of our Montessori students are strong readers by the time they graduate from the third year of our Montessori program (the equivalent of traditional kindergarten.) They read 
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