Reggio Children-May 31, 2023 After my visit to Maria Montessori’s first school in Rome, I was eager to learn more about the Reggio Emilia approach to early childhood education and find out how Montessori and Reggio compare, especially considering these

The Children’s House-May 10, 2023 As I stepped into the courtyard of the first Montessori school, which opened in San Lorenzo, Rome in 1907, I could almost hear the children conversing with each other and their teachers as they worked

Mark Making-March 14, 2023 Recently, Eli has started making what seem to be, more intentional marks with his crayons. Rather than trying to grasp as many crayons in one hand as possible, which he still occasionally enjoys doing, Eli’s mark

Montessori de la Condesa-February 14, 2023 Between seven months and six years of age is a sensitive period for language and early literacy development, one that Maria Montessori described as “a window of time in which a child’s interests are

Becoming Word Conscious-January 22, 2023 Vocabulary learning has been a topic of conversation in my discussions with teachers from across early years programs. Most recently, vocabulary was a focus of conversation with an English teacher I met with in Mexico

“Snake is Slowly Slithering, Over the Soft, Soft Ground…”–November 28, 2022 When I taught kindergarten I would often take pieces of programs rather than use one entire program on its own for my language and literacy instruction. Jolly Phonics was

The World of Montessori–November 14, 2022 When I walked into Bayside Montessori School I found myself surrounded by children scattered around the room on rolled-out mats completely immersed in their work. One child sat very focused at a table with

The Woods–October 28, 2022 It’s been quite a while since I’ve been inside an elementary school, at least a couple of years, so when I was given the opportunity to visit Origins Academy at The Woods, Nature-Based Learning Centre during

“Linguistic Geniuses”–October 20, 2022 It’s been about a week or so since I’ve been able to recognize a few words that Eli has been uttering and appearing to associate with their actual meaning. Take dog for instance: just this morning,

Turning Pages–September 27, 2022 My son, Eli, turned one last week, and, as the saying goes, the nights have sometimes seemed long, but the year has gone by in a blink of an eye. What I love about the past