The Montessori Preschool Classroom: A Child-Centered Community

• Is a multi-aged classroom consisting of three, four, and five year-olds.
• Is a thriving community where children are treated with respect and dignity and want to treat others with the same respect and dignity.
• Is an environment designed to facilitate maximum independent learning and exploration by the child.
• Is interdisciplinary and interactive.
• There is little separation between the indoors and the outdoors. The children are exposed to the natural world, inside and outside of the classroom.
• The classroom space is usually divided into four distinct areas: practical life, sensorial, mathematical, and language.

• Practical life exercises teach care of person, care of environment, development of social relations, and movement.
• Through sight, touch, sound, taste, and smell, the sensorial materials enable them to clarify, classify, and comprehend their world.
• Mathematical materials allow these sensorial explorers to begin their mathematical journey from the concrete to the abstract through manipulation, experimentation, and invention.
• Spoken language is emphasized, but materials for introducing children to the alphabet and their sounds begin the journey of expressing themselves in writing. Language is also developed through art and music which are forms of self-expression. Language work can extend to exploration in science and social studies.