Dana: The use of space is a staple of Montessori philosophy. If you would walk in to a Montessori school in London or in Bangkok or any city around the world, it’s going to look very similar.

Bella: Welcome to our classroom. We have our materials set up nice and neat and I wanted to give you a tour.

Dana: Part of our philosophy is that we design the environment to draw out the child’s natural curiosity.

Bella: My favorite part is doing culture. The population is the most incredible thing. There’s like 1.2 billion people in India.

Dollie: When we were designing this building, we knew that we would like for this to be a Montessori school. We needed large classrooms. And, of course, the big windows let the light in. Every classroom has access to the outdoors.

Student: Seven, eight, nine, ten.

Phyllis: When the kids arrive at school they come directly into our classroom, then they go straight to work.

Teacher: There you go. That’s the one you need.

Nathan: I get my day started off by unpacking my book sack, and when I’m done I get all
my materials and my lesson.

Phyllis: They choose their work that they want to begin on and they unroll their rug and they
begin doing different lessons. And when they finish one lesson they go and choose another lesson.

Bella: I have done a few lessons.

Amanda: They are allowed to get their rug and position it wherever in the classroom that
they want to put it. Students may choose to work together or they may choose to work individually.

Phyllis Hyatt: The structure is very different from traditional.

Student: Twenty-one, twenty-two..

Phyllis: The kids work for three and a half hours, usually uninterrupted. If you have twenty students, you have twenty different lessons going on at one time.

Phyllis: We’re going to stack it so that we can read our numeral.

Amanda: Research has shown that it’s very important for kids to be able to move. Children at this age don’t have a large attention span. So, they don’t learn as much if they’re sitting in a forty-minute lecture listening to the teacher talk. In a Montessori room, they’re able to move as much as they need to move in order to activate their brain.

Dollie: The Montessori classroom–you can’t change it up a lot. All of the lessons have to be in very particular spots, in a particular order.

Nathan: This is where we learn all about our state and this helps us learn about time.

Dan: As the shelves progress, the lessons get more and more challenging. So, the child is really able to see the other materials that they’ll be able to learn as well as how
far they’ve come.

Bella: Case is the snack helper. Mady is the substitute and she is also the zoologist, and my job is the teacher’s assistant.

Phyllis: Our “Practical Life” is a big part of Montessori and that’s where the kids wash the dishes; if the room needs dusting, they have dusting cloths. We also have animals that they take care of.

Amanda: We have gardens outside of our classroom that they take care of.

Group: What do you say–

Amanda: Taking care of yourself and the environment around you, it’s part of growing the whole child.

Amanda: In Montessori, it’s important for children to understand that there’s a very big world out there and we’re just a small piece of it.

Latta Elementary School