The Montessori classrooms have a prepared environment. This means they are carefully designed to create a learning environment that reinforces the children’s independence and intellectual development.

Classrooms are bright, warm, and inviting. You will find low shelves filled with plants, art, music, books, intriguing learning materials, fascinating mathematical models, maps, charts, fossils, historical artifacts, computers, scientific apparatus, perhaps a small natural science museum, and animals that the students are raising.

Montessori learning environments are set up to facilitate student discussion and encourage collaborative learning. You will observe that the students feel comfortable and at home. There are little table and chairs all around for the children. There is also a rug where the teacher/directress can do group time. The children work at the table or at a floor rug. The environment is conducive to interactive learning.

Students work alone or in groups with one or two others. Teachers work with one or two children at a time, advising, presenting a new lesson, or quietly observing the class at work. Students may or may not choose the lesson for practice. Eventually they will tend to settle down seriously to work at it with spontaneous spell of concentration.

According to Maria Montessori this is the first step in education “Normalization Through Work,” where the child becomes well adjusted both internally and to the social environment.

Dr. Montessori, in her research, noted specific characteristics associated with the child’s interests and abilities at each plane of development. She believed that a school carefully designed to meet the needs and interests of the child will work more effectively because it is consistent with basic principles of psychology. Instead of fighting the laws of nature, Montessori suggested that we “follow the child” and allow children to show us how to facilitate the development of their human potential.

Maria Montessori’s focus on the “whole child” led her to develop a very different sort of school from the traditional adult-centered classroom. She named her first school the “Casa dei Bambini” or the “Children’s House”.

The Montessori classroom is not an area controlled by adults, but rather a carefully prepared environment designed to facilitate the development of the children’s independence and sense of personal empowerment.

The classroom is a true community of young children. They move freely within the rooms, selecting works they have had a lesson on and something they are interested in, rather than passively participating in lessons and projects selected by the teachers.

The children take care of their own child-sized environment in a very real sense. They prepare their own snack and drink; help clean spills; go to the bathroom without assistance; cut fruits and vegetables; sweep and dust, etc. The children do their work so calmly and purposely it becomes obvious that this is their environment: The Children’s House.