• Internalization Vs. Memorization

    May 1, 2017

    Sometimes there are things you just need to know. Whether it’s specialized knowledge for your field or common knowledge that just makes life easier if you can pull the answer off the top of your →

  • Freedom and Discipline

    April 27, 2017

    Freedom and Discipline are fundamental parts of a Montessori classroom, but they’re tough for a few reasons. We've written about Freedom and Discipline before, and we surely will again. Each day, we learn more deeply →

  • No Daily Report

    April 24, 2017

    The children are learning all day, every day. The adults in the classroom are trained observers, making careful, extensive notes throughout the day of a child’s progress in the various areas of the classroom. We →

  • Moveable Alphabet

    April 20, 2017

    How do you use this material? The Moveable Alphabet is a collection of letters arranged in two boxes. The vowels are blue, and the consonants are pink, to coordinate with the Sandpaper Letters. We’ll take →

  • Earth Day Every Day

    April 17, 2017

    This month we celebrate Earth Day. We bring the natural world into the classroom in various ways, and we thought we’d look at some of those here. 1. There’s mostly natural materials. Look around a →

  • Vocation or Job?

    April 13, 2017

    Lara Jacobs is gifted. She is a wealth of experience, and always happy to share her observations, thoughts, or a helpful hint. She's also always learning. She lives and breathes Montessori, and shared these thoughts →

  • Siblings!

    April 10, 2017

    We recently held a webinar on the topic of Siblings! We often receive questions from families about the sibling dynamic: We're expecting, now what? How do we help prepare our child (and ourselves!) for welcoming →

  • Spotlight Voilà Montessori

    April 6, 2017

    Jeanne-Marie Paynel provides gracious articles and tidbits at Voilà Montessori, in addition to personal coaching, webinars, and helpful downloads. It's so clear she is passionate about this work, and in helping parents to feel successful in →

  • Welcome

    April 5, 2017

    Welcome! We love what we do and we’re so glad you’re here! Established in 2007, we’re the first and only accredited Montessori School in South Dakota. We started with the idea of offering this 100 →

  • Saving the Good Behavior for School

    April 3, 2017

    “How’s she doing??” A parent asks, with perhaps a bit of caution in their voice. “Wonderful!” we gush, eager to share all the latest achievements, treasured moments, kind words and actions we see during the →

  • The Social Side

    March 30, 2017

    How do we tend to the empathetic nature of children, the human desire to be in relationship with others, the important social education? Montessori is education of the Whole Child. Social interactions, development of independence, →

  • Teamwork

    March 27, 2017

    We are a team. We all work together with a common goal -- to best support the needs of the children at our school, and their families. What role we play might look a little →