Blog | Hollis Montessori School, NH

Summer has a rhythm that the school year rarely allows. Mornings without a clock ticking. Afternoons that stretch and meander. The unhurried pace of days that don't need to be anywhere quite so urgently. And tucked inside all of that spaciousness is one of the most valuable gifts the season can offer young children: time to do things for themselves.

Summer opens a door that the school year can only partially prop open. Suddenly, there is time (unhurried, generous time!) to kneel beside a flower and really look at it. To follow a beetle across a garden path. To press a leaf between the pages of a book and wonder later what kind of tree it came from. To ask questions that don't have quick answers and feel good about the no...

Among the many principles of Montessori philosophy, the absence of rewards and punishments is one of the more difficult concepts to embody fully. Although many of us understand how punishments can be harmful to children, it can be harder to accept that rewards, and especially praise, can be equally detrimental!

Yet this is one of th...

In seeking to understand the world, young children ask so many questions! The Montessori geography materials meet that curiosity with simple, beautiful objects that help children put the world into context.

As Dr. Montessori explains in Education for a New World, "Children are not able to follow long explanations, and need ...