r/Montessori

Hi fellow Montessorians! We have hit the May Madness portion of the year: zero concentration and full dysregulation from every child. We’re trying a lot of different ways to engage the children via classic small group activities, movement exercises, etc. but it is still absolute chaos. Would you please share any of your favorite activities that can help calm a wild group? I need some fresh options, please! Appreciate you all in advance!

My baby is 9 months old, first baby on both sides of the family. He’s very loved and everybody is excited for him.

We’ve cultivated concentration and he’s able to play by himself. He can go for more than 30 minutes (which allow me to eat)

My problem is: most relatives interrupt him a lot. They don’t understand the concept of letting him be. They think they have to be his personal entertainer.

I’m having trouble finding a loving way to tell them to just let him be. To not interrupt him when he’s exploring/ independent playing.

This has already been a problem, we went for a small trip together and after 4 days baby wouldn’t do ONE thing without asking for applause.

Any advice is appreciated

I’ve been collecting art supplies for my 2 year old. I’ve known about dot markers but I know Montessori typically frowns upon "coloring inside the lines". This evening she had an opportunity to play with her friends dot markers and their dot marker books and she loved them.

Are the dot marker books harmful to her later creativity? Or just a positive fun creative experience for toddlers?

Due to low UE enrollment at my school (approx 120 students toddler thru 6th) next year I will be teaching 2nd thru 5th with possibly one sixth grader. Does anyone have experience teaching a mix of lower and upper elementary students? Any advice or things I should try?

I’m AMI trained for both LE and UE, my school is mostly AMS teachers but doesn’t hold accreditation, which doesn’t bother me because I like the flexibility it gives me with curriculum and materials. The one other elementary class will have K-1 (yes I know the class arrangements are not aligned with Montessori, but that part is out of my control).

so i’m having a little bit of an issue here. this is a new school that will be opening. the children will be new as well. one side think it’s best that the tables be grouped together , by basically having 4 children to a table. then there’s another side that thinks it’s best the children have their own space early on to help them be more independent. i will be having another teacher that hasn’t been properly montessori trained and my manager feels the first option will help manage the classroom better. first week i’ll have 10 children and the following week the next ten will join. what’s your take on this?

I have a pending interview with a Montessori school for an adolescent guide/teaching role, and I’m trying to realistically assess whether I’d be a good fit before moving further into the process.

My background is unusual compared to traditional education candidates - I come from intelligence analysis/research/policy work, with experience in writing, interdisciplinary research, communication, mentoring, and project-based work. I’m strongly drawn to the Montessori philosophy, especially the emphasis on independence, intrinsic motivation, mixed-age collaboration, and deeper learning over rote memorization.

However, I do NOT currently hold Montessori certification, and I’m aware that Montessori implementation can vary significantly between schools.

For those already working in Montessori education:
- How difficult is the transition into Montessori for someone coming from a nontraditional professional background?
- How essential is formal Montessori certification before beginning work with adolescents?
- What qualities tend to make someone successful (or unsuccessful) in adolescent Montessori environments?
- Are there “green flags” or “red flags” I should look for when evaluating whether a school is implementing Montessori well?

I’m especially interested in hearing from people who work in middle school/high school/adolescent programs rather than early childhood.

Thank you!

How does the associate credential differ from the standard credential? They both require the same amount of training, but there is virtually no information anywhere regarding what limitations there are in regards to jobs / teaching.

My 2.5 year old just started Montessori half days. It was a tough transition but he’s adjusted well now (3 weeks in). However, he doesn’t eat breakfast (maybe fruit and milk if we’re lucky) and won’t eat snack there. I’ll been getting him at 11 so he only goes for 2-2.5 hours. He’s become a very picky eater at home recently and wasn’t picky as a baby. He is a vegetarian and the school does offer vegetarian options.

Should I start leaving him the whole half day to explore and self regulate? I feel like I’m not doing justice to the picky eating by bailing him out early everyday but also nervous about starving him since he hasn’t touched a single snack and I know he’s hungry at that time.

My soon to be 4 year old has struggled a great deal at his current (and first ever school experience) private preschool. He’s needing a shadow to help with not knocking stuff over, transitions, etc. Some of the school expectations feel a bit developmentally unrealistic but my son does genuinely struggle. He has rigidity in play. He’s working with developmental pediatrician on being evaluated for autism but she thinks he has adhd at least. He’s very bright and is teaching himself to read, loves math, has a ginormous (albeit very nerdy sounding) vocabulary. He loves learning, though sharing is really hard for him. We are not able to take him back to his current school next year. We are looking at a mixed age Montessori class instead as he does generally a lot better socially with older kids. Plus, he could work at his ability level that way. He is getting an IEP evaluation through the public school system currently but that’s a process.

I’m wondering, what should we ask the Montessori school about the implementation of an IEP within their program? What should I be thinking about here? How do I find out if they take scholarships for kids with IEPs, ADHD, or Autism? It’s all new to me so insight would be helpful.

We just want him to have a socially positive year surrounded by people who don’t label him as a “problem child” and who genuinely enjoy him and value his strengths and abilities (he’s a wonderful kid).

My son will be 2 at the end of the month and starting a Montessori program. He’ll be going two full days a week. There’s children there that he knows, I’ve seen incredible growth in these kiddos, and I think he’s ready and will truly benefit so much from all this.

My biggest anxiety right now is how to help prepare him for the napping environment. I’m a full-time SAHM, so currently I give him about 3oz of milk in a little sippy cup and rock my sweet baby to sleep while I sing to him then transition him to his bed. He’s sleeping in a crib currently (not tall enough to climb out but getting close) and his bedroom is dark but not completely blacked-out, and I also run a fan in his room for some white noise. So that’s all very different to napping surrounded by other kids and toys in a cot with a blanket and a pillow in a new environment. The one consistency is that nap time is the same there as it is at home.

He already has trouble napping at my parents house when he visit - this bed is a full-sized mattress with a mesh toddler gate around it in the room with all the toys.

He is fully sleep trained for bed time but nap time has been another story.

Anyways. How can I help start preparing him for this transition? Do I convert the crib to a toddler bed? Do I cut out the cup of milk? Do I need to stop rocking him (which would honestly kill me but whatever is best for him is what I’ll do). I’ll take any and all advice pretty please

Completely free. How to make a preschool garden (that works)
Growschoolgarden.org

Our very confident, independent three year old has been attending Montessori schools since she was about a year old. She’s currently at an AMI program that we generally love, and that she thrives in. We try to approach home life with a similar approach that she gets at school. I vaguely remember reading the Absorbent Mind during the fever dream that was pregnancy, and we read Montessori from the Start when she was an infant, so, we have a novice understanding.

We have recently hit a bit of a frustrating inflection point when it comes to mealtimes.

There are three interrelated things happening at home (last month-plus):

— She is snack crazy. She wants constant snacks between meals. So like, we’d have a regularly scheduled snack time, and then she would want a snack 10 minutes after that, and then 15 minutes after that, etc which we tried to have a balanced response to — like allowing fruit and vegetables, or stopping her from snacking right before or right after a meal.

— That transitioned into her exclusively wanting “snack” foods instead of meals, regardless of how much input she had in the meal choice or preparation. Basically a “snack” as anything that isn’t the meal. We say no to this, and there’s typically a small fit, and historically we’ve been able to move on with the meal, even just in part.
— Now here we are, as anyone could have predicted, with her taking 2 bites of a meal, announcing that she’s done, and wanting to help herself to a snack. No way!

To be clear, this is not a pickiness issue. Our daughter has always been more or less open when it comes to food, which we don’t take for granted — she eats most of what we make for meals, she is open to trying new foods, and we have recently been fairly successful with getting her to sit at the table for most of the duration of a meal rather than getting up to go do other things.

We usually offer her the choice of what to have at breakfast, from a fairly wide array of more or less nutritionally complete/substantial offerings, all of which are proven winners, and all of which she helps with the making of (smoothies, eggs, oatmeal, yogurt and toppings, etc). Wha we’re having for dinner is a conversation, and while it is rarely totally her choice, she usually has some sort of say in different elements, and always has the option to help prepare it.

We generally offer two snack times on weekdays: in the car on the way home from school, and during storytime, which is after bathtime and before bedtime. We keep most of the really high value pantry snacks out of reach, but she has long been able to help herself to berries or cherry tomatoes from the fridge.

In children’s house they are able to self serve themselves with snacks that have some element of work associated with them — peeling and slicing hardboiled eggs, spreading sun butter on rice cakes, etc. We know that they also get offered snacks at set times in the morning and afternoon, and that they eat lunches family-style.

From a household food culture lens, we’re not really believers in the free range approach to food, but we’re not trying to be our parents either. We are doing our best to have her be an active participant in family cooking and mealtimes, and to avoid traps like separate meals just for her. If this were the only consideration, I think we would feel pretty secure in moving forward with a tough snack approach.

However — as we enforced our rule of zero-free-snacks-if-you-don’t-eat-dinner this evening, she corrected us: “I can get my own snack, that’s what we do.” And I realized that at school, she absolutely gets to go make herself a snack.

So — is our more rigid / authoritative take inherently in conflict with Montessori philosophy? We don’t want to set rules that are totally at odds with the structure she has at school, which is where she spends the majority of her time, realistically. Is there a way of framing this with her where we can have expectations for mealtimes and she also gets to self-serve snacks? Should we just give all of our mealtime rigidity up, and trust that it will sort itself out with age?

hi!! I’ve been researching and excited about Montessori and now that my LO is here I’m trying to apply things.

my 7 month old has an area with a cushion and some cushion tiles. I have a mini pikler triangle, object permanence ball rolling, basket of things, and wooden rattles. I switch things out but I need a shelf to organize better. right now they’re in a row. anyways I’ll show him a toy and he ends up chewing or banging the item instead putting the ball in hole for example. he also just keeps leaving the mat to explore the kitchen table. I know that is normal but just curious if it means he doesn’t have interest in the toys?

EDIT TO ADD: yes I just observe him as he does bang and chew and explore. I am asking and trying to learn if that’s normal or if i need to tweak anything. I’m a FTM and new to Montessori so just asking for help

many of my friends of play yards and they say their kids play better in there. I don’t want one because it’s massive and it seems like baby jail.

advice?

My 18 month old just started Montessori this week after being at home with a nanny since 16 weeks. The transition has been rough: tears at drop off (although those stop after a few minutes and he is very social with the kids), reduced appetite, sleep regression, meltdowns over the smallest things. I’m feeling all the emotions including mom guilt of being a working mom and anxiety over his anxieties. My husband says I need to give myself grace since it’s only been 4 days. We were planning on doing full day but his guides (teachers) think half day is more appropriate right now as he adjusts, which my husband and I agree with but it has definitely been more stressful as he and I juggle mid day pick up and arrange for his nanny to come in for half days. How long did the transition take for your LO? What things can we do at home to make this easier on all parties?