Academics: What Makes Montessori Unique

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• Deep respect for children as individuals

• Multiage classes allow teachers to develop close and long-term relationships with their students, allow them to know each other's learning style well, and encourage older students to become role models, mentors, and leaders to younger students.

• Integrated curriculum is carefully structured and connects subjects within programs (e.g., history and cultural arts to maximize the opportunity for learning and builds from program to program to progress from concrete to abstract learning).

• Independence is nurtured and leads to children becoming purposeful, motivated, and confident in their own abilities.

• Peace and conflict resolution are taught daily and children learn to be a part of a warm, respectful, and supportive community. The child creates, in a very real sense, the adult that is to be, through his/her experiences, interactions, and environments. Character development is a central focus of the AMS Montessori curriculum.

• Hands-on learning is central to the curriculum in all programs and leads to children being engaged rather than passive with their work.

• The environments are responsibly and carefully prepared with multisensory, sequential, and self-correcting materials to support self-directed learning.

• Teachers and children and teachers and parents work together as a warm and supportive community.

• Self-expression is nurtured in all children. Children experience art, music, poetry, theater, writing, and other forms of creative arts with confidence and passion.

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Montessori in the 21st Century. The American Montessori Society. 2003.