Our approach
Play first, real materials, and the time to use them.
Children learn most when they choose what to do and are allowed to stay with it. Our mornings are built around that, with a few well-made materials on the shelves and an hour in the garden.
Play-based learning
Most of the morning is free play. Children pick from the shelves, the dress-up corner, the block rug, the art table or the garden, and they move on when they are done, not when a timer says so. A teacher sits nearby, notices what a child is working on and adds a word, a question or a harder version.
A child pretending to run a bakery is counting, taking turns, negotiating and using new words. A child carrying buckets of sand is learning about weight. We follow those interests and plan the next week from what we saw.
There are no worksheets and no screens. Letters and numbers come in when a child is curious about them, through sound games, wooden letters and labels on the things they made.
On the shelves
The materials, and why they are there
We borrow a handful of materials from Montessori classrooms because they work. Each one does a single job well, shows a child when something isn't quite right, and lives in the same spot on the shelf every day.
Pouring and spooning
Small glass jugs, bowls of rice and beans, a sponge for spills.
Steady hands, focus, and the pride of pouring their own water at snack.
Bead chains and sorting
Strings of wooden beads, trays of buttons, shells and acorns to sort.
Counting with their fingers, grouping, and noticing what is the same and what is different.
Textured letters
Letters cut from sandpaper on smooth boards, traced with two fingers while saying the sound.
Early letters through touch and sound, long before a pencil.
The stacking tower
Ten wooden cubes, each a little smaller than the last.
Size and order, and the patience to start again when it topples.
Montessori-inspired, not a Montessori school
We use some Montessori materials and habits: child-sized tools, a tidy shelf, a long work time. We don't follow the method in full, and we mix it with free play, pretend play and a lot of time outside. If a full Montessori program is what you want, we are glad to say so honestly when you visit.
The classroom
One room, set up to be used without asking.
Shelves are low, so children can reach things and put them back. Cups, cloths and aprons hang where small hands can get them. There is a quiet corner with cushions and books for anyone who needs a break.
Two teachers, Maren (lead teacher) and Joelle (teacher), run the room together, with no more than sixteen children on any morning.
And the garden
The fenced garden is the second classroom. Children dig, plant, water, collect leaves and watch what grows over a whole school year. They come home muddy most days, which we take as a good sign.
Arrival to pickup
How a morning flows
The same order every day, so children always know what comes next. The times bend a little to the weather and the mood of the room.
Hello at the garden gate
A teacher greets each child by name. Coats, boots and backpacks go on low hooks, and indoor shoes go on.
Work and play time
The long stretch: shelves, art table, blocks and pretend play. Teachers show a new material to one or two children at a time.
Snack table
Children wash hands, pour their own water, eat together in small groups and wipe their own place.
Circle in two groups
The 3s sing and share a story. The 4s and 5s play sound games, count and talk about the week.
Outside
Garden time in most weather: digging, watering, the mud kitchen and the log circle.
Goodbye song and pickup
Back in for a picture book and a song. Families collect children at the garden gate at 11:45.