We invite all our 2024-25 school families to participate in The Montessori House International Festival on Saturday, October 5.

Here are some of the many ways you and your family can participate (remember, the more families, the better):

•  Booths:  School families create “booths” representing countries of their choice.  “Booths” can feature food, games, customs, clothing, and/or interesting facts from cultures around the world.  But don’t let the word “booth” scare you; some of our most popular booths in the past have involved simple presentations, easy activities for the children, or foods from the represented country.  Families can make booths themselves or join with other families.  A booth can reflect your family’s heritage, or simply a country or region that interests you.
• Food:  We ask all families who attend to bring an ethnic dish of their choice.  This gives The Montessori House families yet another way to experience the great diversity that makes up our school.
• Other volunteer opportunities:  The day of the Festival, we’ll need help decorating the playground, setting up food tables and chairs, coordinating the food contributions as they arrive, and cleaning up when the festival ends.

What’s next? 

It’s time to start organizing the Festival.  We’ll spend some time on Meet the Teachers Night (Tuesday, Sept 3, 7 p.m.) discussing the Fest, and if needed we will have another planning meeting after school (provisionally Thursday, Sept 7, 3:05 p.m.) or via Zoom one evening.  In addition, our families will receive a regular stream of emails with updates and volunteer opportunities.

We invite all our 2021-22 school families to participate in The Montessori House International Festival on Saturday, October 16 (rain date Oct 17).

Here are some of the many ways you and your family can participate (remember, the more families, the better):

•  Booths:  School families create “booths” representing countries of their choice.  “Booths” can feature food, games, customs, clothing, and/or interesting facts from cultures around the world.  But don’t let the word “booth” scare you; some of our most popular booths in the past have involved simple presentations, easy activities for the children, or foods from the represented country.  Families can make booths themselves or join with other families.  A booth can reflect yoru family’s heritage, or simply a country or region that interests you.
• Food:  We ask all families who attend to bring an ethnic dish of their choice.  This gives The Montessori House families yet another way to experience the great diversity that makes up our school.
• Other volunteer opportunities:  The day of the Festival, we’ll need help decorating the playground, setting up food tables and chairs, coordinating the food contributions as they arrive, and cleaning up when the festival ends.

What’s next? 

It’s time to start organizing the Festival.  We’ll spend some time on Meet the Teachers Night (Wednesday, Sept 8, 7 p.m.) discussing the Fest, and will have another planning meeting after school (Monday, Sept 13, 3:05 p.m.).  In addition, our families will receive a regular stream of emails with updates and volunteer opportunities.

This week Ms. Maria continued Zoom sessions for all The Montessori House students learning at home.  She introduced several new formats for at home learning (see Zoom Primer for Parents), including a Science Demonstration, Show & Do Cooking at Home, and Follow the Leader (movement and songs).

Each week, we’ll post links to video recordings of select sessions.   For this week: (more…)

We wanted to provide our Montessori House families information on our Zoom sessions, to help make them fun and productive for students who attend.  We have multiple formats for Zoom sessions — some require preparation for children to participate (for example if we do food preparation together, you’ll need to gather ingredients ahead of time),  others are intended to teach students how to do a project on their own after the session (with parents’ help of course, for example a science experiment), and many have little or no preparation or follow up.   If a session is aimed at older students (e.g. Kindergarten) or younger students (under age 4), we’ll let parents know.  Below you’ll find a chart of our different session formats (note, certain formats may have no limit on participants, while others are intended for a limited, small group of students).  Following the chart is further information and a few pointers for parents to make our Zoom session with your children fun and successful.

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At The Montessori House, we use the classic, phonetic Montessori Method to have children form a sound basis for reading.  Those who already read well (that is, parents), may no longer be aware of the complexities involved in learning to read.  Without that awareness, it’s easy to confuse a child just starting to learn her/his phonetic sounds.

To help parents at home work with their pre-readers and early readers, here are some key Don’ts and Do’s: (more…)

Montessori House students of all ages love Practical Life (PL).  For our youngest students, a large part of their time is spent on PL.  Practical Life lessons are all demonstration and imitation.  By doing PL, children learn the concept of a “work”: having a lesson, getting it from the shelf, working (only as instructed), mastery, and clean-up.  An important aspect of Montessori education is engaging the whole child (physical and mental) to reinforce learning, as occurs with PL works.  Starting with PL, children establish a set of habits and a framework for further learning, as they become capable of lessons in other areas like math (numbers), and reading (sounds, letters, etc.), and more.

Why Practical Life? (more…)

Creating an organized area for you child to “go to school” (while at home) will help you and your child.
Your child’s work area should have the following attributes: (more…)

In our Montessori House classroom we distinguish between handwriting and word/sentence/paragraph building.   Handwriting is physical and requires the child to have fine-motor skills.  The “building” skills for words, etc. depends on cognitive development.  The physical skill and cognitive skills may develop at different rates.  Don’t worry now, these skills will all fall into place, usually by 3rd Grade.

This note is about handwriting: (more…)

Here are suggestions for how you can give your child lessons.  Remember in the Montessori classroom, when we say “lessons” we mean introducing your child to a “work”.  Once introduced, your child works on his/her own to master the work on which you’ve given the lesson. (more…)

8:30 – 10:35:   Children’s Work Time – more focused and individual/traditional Montessori works: 

Work Time Goals:  independence, self-direction, learning by trying (perseverance), creativity, purposeful (not destructive) exploration, patience, skill-building, and dealing with frustration.

How To: Bring your child to the School/Work Area (see “Creating Your Child’s Work Area”) to choose works.
During Work Time: (more…)