The Montessori Approach

Teaching children to teach themselves.

A small Montessori school in Armonk for children from eighteen months through first grade, where each child is known well and helped to become confident.

Schedule a Visit How it works ↓

The Basics

How the school is set up

Six Years in One School

Children start in a Toddler room at eighteen months and finish in Elementary after first grade. Most families are here five or six years, and never change schools in between.

The Long Morning

Preschool mornings run as one work period of about three hours, so a child who gets absorbed in something is left alone to finish it.

Teachers Who Stay

Seventeen of the adults here have been at the school since 2011 or earlier, and four of our classroom teachers started in the mid-nineties. When your child moves up, the next teacher already knows them.

“

The child who concentrates is immensely happy.

— Maria Montessori, The Absorbent Mind

Side by Side

Montessori and a public pre-K year

New York is expanding free public pre-K, and for many families it will be the right choice. It is a different kind of program from this one.

Montessori Children's Room

A public pre-K year

Eighteen months through first grade

One year, at age four

7:30 am to 5:30 pm available

9:00 am to 3:00 pm

Three, four, or five days a week, with the option to run through August

The district calendar, 180 days, no summer

Purposeful work with hands-on materials, chosen by the child

Play-based learning

Mixed ages in every classroom

One age group, four-year-olds

Lead teachers who have been here for decades

Often early-career teachers, and a new one the following year

One independent school, since 1968

Often run by a contracted daycare company

In the Classroom

What the work looks like

Everything a child needs for an activity sits together on a tray or in a basket, on shelves low enough to reach without asking. A child takes one down, works at it as long as they like, and puts it away before starting anything else. They can repeat the same activity as often as they want, and many do, for days. The pride, as the children say, is in doing it all by myself.

Come See a Morning

Pouring, hand washing and polishing, before letters and numbers

Sandpaper letters and rhyming games for reading

Beads and rods first, written numerals afterwards

Materials that correct themselves, so a child can work alone

Ages span two to three years in a class, so older children help the little ones

Go Deeper

Teaching children to teach themselves.

How the school is set up

Six Years in One School

The Long Morning

Teachers Who Stay

Montessori and a public pre-K year

What the work looks like

Learn more about how we teach

Our Philosophy

The Curriculum

Resources