Author Archives: Tori Inkley

The Montessori Movement Comes to America: A Brief History

by Camilla Nichols, Senior Director of Montessori Development
and Tori Inkley, Executive Director

The very first official Montessori training course was held in Rome, Italy in 1913. While the course attracted international attendees, the majority were from America. Maria Montessori taught the theory lessons in Italian at her home and the practical lessons/demonstrations took place at Casa dei Bambini (or The Children’s House), the first Montessori School, which she had established in 1907 in Rome.

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During this time, Dr. Montessori experienced significant changes in her personal life. Her mother, Renilde Stoppani, passed away in 1912, and Montessori was reunited with her son, Mario, who had been raised by a foster family since infancy. Maria Montessori had never married, and due to societal expectations and her professional ambitions, she had arranged for Mario to be raised by others. He later became an integral part of her work, continuing her legacy.

Interest in the Montessori educational approach was particularly strong in the United States, where prominent figures such as Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, Helen Keller, and Margaret Woodrow Wilson (President Wilson’s daughter) supported her work. The American journalist Samuel McClure convinced Montessori to travel to the U.S. for a three-week lecture tour in 1913, which he described as a journey “for the conquest of the world”. Dr. Montessori boarded the SS Cincinnati in Naples for a 12-day voyage to America, where she delivered lectures, including two at Carnegie Hall in New York. It has been reported that President Woodrow Wilson and his daughter were so impressed by the Montessori Method that a Montessori classroom was installed in the White House. During her travels, Montessori kept personal and inspirational notes that have since been translated into English and published in Maria Montessori Sails to America: A Private Diary, 1913, by Carolina Montessori, Dr. Montessori’s great-granddaughter.

Dr. Maria Montessori and
Journalist Samuel McClure, 1913

The Evening Star newspaper published an article in 1913 highlighting Dr. Alexander Graham Bell and his wife Mabel’s advocacy for making Washington, D.C., America’s headquarters for Montessori education. Anne George, the first American graduate of Dr. Montessori’s training program in Rome, helped introduce the Montessori Method to the U.S. She was the Director of an early Montessori school in Washington, D.C., with the support of the Bell family. Montessori’s ideas ignited a debate in America about traditional education versus the Montessori approach, which emphasized children’s independence and self-directed learning rather than a rigid, teacher-driven curriculum. Her visit to the U.S. made such a profound impact that she was urged to return as soon as possible to lead more lectures and training programs, as unauthorized training centers were emerging. If Maria Montessori was unable to come herself, it was requested that she send someone who was qualified to train teachers in her method.

In 1915, Maria Montessori returned to the United States, this time accompanied by her son, Mario. She addressed thousands of educators in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and San Diego and participated in the Panama-Pacific International Exposition (“World’s Fair”) in San Francisco. One of the most famous moments of this visit was the “Glass Classroom”, a demonstration where 30 children worked independently in a transparent, glass-walled environment, allowing spectators to witness the Montessori Method in action. During this visit, Montessori wrote letters that have since been preserved and published in Maria Montessori Writes to Her Father: Letters from California, 1915, also translated by Carolina Montessori. Dr. Montessori’s California lectures have been archived, with English translations by Robert G. Buckenmeyer, who also compiled articles she published in various newspapers.

After Maria Montessori’s passing in 1952, her son Mario continued to spread her educational philosophy. In 1960, he appointed Nancy McCormick Rambusch to establish the American Montessori Society (AMS), which played a crucial role in expanding Montessori education in the United States. Rambusch founded Whitby Montessori School in Greenwich, Connecticut in 1958, and today, there are more than 15,750 Montessori schools worldwide.

Maria and her son, Mario Montessori, India, 1939

At The Montessori Children’s Academy (MCA), we continue to honor Maria Montessori’s legacy by celebrating “Montessori Education Week” alongside schools around the world. During this special week in February of each year, MCA students demonstrate Montessori Practical Life exercises for parents and visitors, sing Montessori songs, study Italy, review the timeline of Dr. Montessori’s life and work, and practice the “Silence Game”, a mindfulness exercise inspired by Montessori’s teachings on peace. For Montessori Education Week 2025, parents were also invited to observe their children’s classroom activities, and the celebrations concluded with a pizza party at Nonna’s Pizza and Italian Restaurant in Florham Park.

Independence in the Early Childhood Montessori Classroom

by Camilla Nichols, Senior Director of Montessori Development

“How does he achieve this independence? He does it by means of a continuous activity.
How does he become free? By means of constant effort…
Independence is not a static condition; it is a continuous conquest,
and in order to reach not only freedom, but also strength,
and the perfecting of one’s powers, it is necessary to follow this path of unremitting toil.”
~ Dr. Maria Montessori (The Absorbent Mind)

Maria Montessori recognized early on that there was a need for a form of education that looks at the whole child, at what drives them and what their true needs are. She observed the need for independence in children and began experimenting with different ways to guide children to become more involved in their own education, which was in opposition to the typical thought on Early Childhood Education in the 1900s. Montessori also recognized the importance of having children feel that they belong to a group, that they matter, and that other people care about them.

Young children on the road to independence want to be given the opportunity to do things on their own. On average, a child falls 17 times an hour while learning to walk, but the child doesn’t give up on this task until he has succeeded by repetition, thus learning by trial and error. Mistakes are a vital part of learning because they help children to adjust and motivate them to try again. When a child is learning a new task through direct experience, each small achievement creates a new connection in the brain, and before you know it, this new task has become automatic.

Maria Montessori allowed children to become actively involved in their own education. She discovered that when children were able to freely choose an activity and follow what she called “the child’s inner guide”, they were able to engage for a longer time and were more deeply connected to their activity. Their concentration also deepened, compared to the more traditional practice of the teacher assigning the activity or work.

This discovery was made in Italy back in 1907 at the first Montessori School, Casa dei Bambini, during an interesting observation. A teacher had accidently overslept, and as she rushed into the school, she stepped into the Prepared Environment and was astonished by what she found. All of the children had already chosen work on their own, without her being present. At first she was upset, but then Dr. Montessori urged her to observe the phenomenon before her. This is how one of the Core Principles of the Montessori Method, “Follow the Child”, was born. It was very clear that the children seemed more engaged, content, and happy, and were able to socialize, share, and help each other based on their own choices. Many core principles of the Montessori Method are based on Maria Montessori’s early observations. She observed that children make choices that are influenced by developmental needs and that the children will continue to repeat an activity over and over until their needs have been met.

“We must, therefore, quit our roles as jailers and instead
take care to prepare an environment in which we do as little as possible
to exhaust the child with our surveillance and instruction.”
~ Maria Montessori (The Child in the Family)

In a Montessori Prepared Environment, we always encourage and allow repetition as the children are born with a natural instinct to repeat. Young children are very capable of following through with an activity on their own. The role of the adult is to demonstrate how to do it and then take a step back and observe the child as she independently finishes the task. The Prepared Environment also allows children to make their own choices in a beautiful and inviting setting. Children of mixed ages work together as a community where everyone matters and everyone is able to follow their own inner guide, independently choosing meaningful and purposeful activities that foster a lifelong love of learning.

“Help me to do it by myself” ~ Maria Montessori

Handwriting Without Tears in the Montessori Early Childhood Classroom

by Krissy Huetz, Early Childhood Head Teacher

Handwriting Without Tears (HWT) was developed by Occupational Therapist Jan Olsen and is a multi-sensory approach to teaching handwriting skills. This approach is designed to make the process of learning how to write less intimidating and more accessible for students of all ages and abilities. It emphasizes simple strategies and techniques to make handwriting a more enjoyable and successful experience for students. By breaking down the process of handwriting into straightforward steps, and using a variety of hands-on activities and tools, students are able to develop their handwriting skills in a way that is engaging and effective.

By teaching children how to form letters and words in a systematic way, the program helps build foundational skills that are essential for academic success. These skills include letter formation, spacing, sizing, and alignment. By mastering these skills, students are able to produce written work that is neat, organized, and easy to read. This not only benefits students in the classroom but also helps build their confidence and self-esteem.

Typically, when an educator speaks of the “Science of Reading”, the conversation is based on a collection of research that focuses on theories about how children best learn how to read. HWT aligns with this research, as it helps students develop phonemic awareness, build an understanding of phonics, and strengthen word recognition skills. It also facilitates fine and gross motor skills in order to build handwriting fluency. “Research shows that handwriting improves academic performance in all subjects, from science to math, reading, and social studies,” said Dr. Cheryl Lundy Swift, Professional Learning Director at Learning Without Tears.

The Early Childhood Montessori curriculum engages multiple senses in developing phonemic awareness and pre-handwriting skills. The Montessori approach recognizes and respects that students have different learning styles and preferences, and that engaging multiple senses can enhance both learning and retention. HWT incorporates a range of hands-on activities, such as utilizing wooden pieces and chalkboards, to help students develop their handwriting skills in a way that is fun and engaging. By incorporating movement, touch, music, and visual cues into the learning process, students are able to more effectively internalize the skills they are learning. The combination of the Montessori Method with HWT has proven to be very successful in supporting a student’s handwriting practice.

Overall, Handwriting Without Tears is a highly effective program for teaching handwriting skills to students of varying ages and abilities. By using this multi-sensory approach, focusing on foundational skills, and incorporating a unique style of handwriting practice, HWT helps students to develop efficient and legible handwriting that will serve them well throughout their academic and professional careers. The program’s emphasis on building confidence and self-esteem, as well as its commitment to making learning fun and engaging, makes it a valuable resource for Montessori educators and students alike.

Making Sense of the Sensorial Area in the Prepared Environment

by Imelda McShane, Early Childhood Head Teacher
and Doreen Adamo, Early Childhood Head Teacher

“There is the obvious value of the training and the refinement of the senses which,
by widening the field of perception, furnish an ever more solid and richer basis to the development of the intelligence. It is through contact with and exploration of the environment that the intelligence builds up its store of operational ideas.”
~ Dr. Maria Montessori

The Montessori Methodology emphasizes that Sensorial education is a fundamental part of a child’s development. By engaging with Sensorial materials, children are provided with experiences that help them understand and internalize the world around them in a concrete way. The essence of Sensorial education lies in its ability to refine the senses, leading to heightened perceptual skills and cognitive development.

Children live in a world of senses where they need to classify and express the impressions they have already received. Sensorial education in the Montessori classroom aims to develop and refine the five senses – tactile, visual, auditory, olfactory, and gustatory. Montessori Sensorial materials help children make judgements and comparisons based on isolated individual characteristics, such as size, shape, weight, texture, color, sound, and temperature. By providing a Prepared Environment where children can explore and manipulate these materials, The Montessori Children’s Academy allows its students to clarify, classify, and develop a keen awareness of their surroundings to better comprehend their world. The materials help children relate new information to what they already know. They find a sense of order in these materials. With order comes knowledge. This is crucial as it lays the foundation for complex thought processes and problem-solving skills.

Along with enabling children to clarify and internalize such concepts as size, shape, weight, texture, color, sound, and temperature, the Sensorial materials also provide a basis for the development of other skills, such as Music, Culture (awareness of classification), and Language (sound discrimination, visual perception, and eye-hand coordination). When children trace the Sandpaper Globe, they are taking in knowledge that will later be used when tracing the Sandpaper Letters. Later, the muscles of their hands will remember the tracing motion as they write their letters. Also, when children are given the opportunity to manipulate and internalize the Sensorial materials, they are then able to reach a level of abstraction needed for the study of mathematics.

Dr. Maria Montessori emphasized that “the training of the senses makes people observers”. The tactile and hands-on nature of the Sensorial materials make them accessible to children with varying abilities. This inclusivity ensures that all children, regardless of their development, can benefit from Sensorial education. Montessori Sensorial materials are designed to be self-correcting, allowing children to independently discover and learn from their experiences, fostering a sense of autonomy and confidence.

The child’s first exercise with color is Color Box 1, which contains six tablets – two red, two blue and two yellow. The child pairs the tablets and learns the corresponding color names. Gradually, in Color Box 2, more pairs of colors are added. Ultimately, the child will be able to name and match eleven different pairs.

During the next step, Color Box 3, the child will grade the colors by using seven different shades of nine different colors. The shades of each color are graded from very light to very dark. To carry out this work, the child must differentiate the intensity of the shades and place the tablets in order from the lightest to the darkest shade of each color. [See photo above.] Teaching children to be aware of the fine differences in color aids them in future work involving visual discrimination, such as reading, art, scientific research, and so on.

The Binomial Cube helps develop the child’s perception of differences in proportion in three dimensions. This cube represent, in a concrete way, the binomial equation (a + b)³. The child removes the blocks in layers and once all of the blocks are removed, the cube can then be rebuilt, one layer at a time.

The Geometric Cabinet is a wooden cabinet of six drawers, each containing cutout geometric shapes. The child works with one drawer at a time, removing the shapes from the drawer. Once the pieces are removed, the child is shown how to trace the shape of the empty space and find the correct match by tracing the outside of the removed pieces. In the next step, the child will use the drawers to match cards with corresponding shapes.

Sound Cylinders, as well as bells, are used for refining a child’s auditory sense. Sound Matching, such as identifying bells by sound, enables the child’s auditory sense to become heightened and more able to discern differences in sound when learning letter sounds, number names, vocabulary, etc.

The Geometric Solids are made of wood and painted blue. The solids are explored through both sight and touch. Work with this material helps develop the child’s awareness of the shapes and where these shapes occur in the environment.

The Knobbed Cylinders consist of four wooden blocks containing ten cylinders each. The dimensions of the cylinders can vary in both diameter and height. After receiving a lesson with each block separately, the child may then work with blocks in combination, using two, three, or four blocks together. The child removes the cylinders from the block or blocks, placing them in random order, and then returns the cylinders to their correct places and the correct block(s).

The Stereognostic materials allow the child to recognize shapes through the movement of the muscles of the hand. By using two hands, the child is shown how to feel the objects, then separate and match them according to shape.

In summary, Sensorial education invokes the essence of being alive. The aim, purpose, and value of Montessori Sensorial education are intertwined with the goal of supporting the holistic development of young children. By refining their senses, children develop essential cognitive skills that serve as the foundation for lifelong learning.

“It is exactly in the repetition of the exercises that the education of the senses exists;
not that the child shall know colors, forms or qualities,
but that he refines his senses through an exercise of attention, comparison and judgement.
~ Maria Montessori

World Connections Through Montessori

by Camilla Nichols, Senior Director of Montessori Development

At The Montessori Children’s Academy, we are always looking for opportunities to connect our students with other children and cultures through events inside and outside of the Prepared Environment. Maria Montessori believed that widening the children’s horizons was an important aspect of learning that we are part of something bigger and that we are all connected and needed.

We prepare MCA students to become global citizens through a variety of activities, lessons, and projects that will strengthen and develop their sense of belonging in this world. It also teaches our children at a very young age that they can have an impact and make a difference. This is something that has always been integrated into MCA, where we have inspired families to continue looking for opportunities where they can make a difference in their own communities outside of school.

In the Geography area of MCA’s classrooms, there are color-coded Cultural Folders representing each continent. In those folders our students find pictures of people, houses, food, and a variety of other items from each Culture. There are folders for North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Antarctica, Asia, and Australia. Often, the children will also find corresponding Cultural Boxes that house souvenirs from each continent. A student chooses a folder and the corresponding flag, along with the colored globe, and can discuss the pictures with a friend or simply review alone while also examining the objects.

As part of our Cultural studies, MCA students learn to sing moving, meaningful songs such as “The Universe”, “Beautiful Earth”, and “The Continents” by Shelley Murley (Montessori Minute Melodies: https://music.apple.com/us/album/montessori-minute-melodies/279575407) and are exposed to many wonderful books and fables with stories and messages from various cultures. We invite parents into our classrooms to introduce students to their own culture and traditions. In the past, parents have shared traditional celebratory clothing, food, or various small items, as well as assisted us in celebrating Diwali, Lucia, Yom Kippur, Chinese New Year, and many other cultural events. MCA is proud of our diverse community and celebrates the uniqueness that each child, family, and staff member brings to our little corner of the Montessori world.

Around September 21^st of each year, our students and staff celebrate the International Day of Peace. For many years, it has been an annual MCA tradition to participate in a worldwide celebration where approximately 150,000 Montessori students from 65 countries come together to sing “Light a Candle for Peace”. Dr. Montessori was a huge advocate for peace and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize three times! Her legacy of Peace Education lives on to this day. During the celebration, our students come together to hold hands and pass the colored Globe of Continents or a Peace Flag while singing at the dedicated New Jersey time, usually around 9:30AM. The chosen song always starts with children in New Zealand and then travels to all the continents throughout the day. For video footage of children singing around the world and to listen to the song “Light a Candle for Peace”, we invite you to visit www.singpeacearoundtheworld.com.

In past years, students, families, and staff from The Montessori Children’s Academy have built relationships with and donated money or supplies to Montessori schools in need in countries like Uganda and Puerto Rico. We have also assisted with rebuilding schools throughout Asia by collecting pennies and hosting numerous bake and craft sales.

Most recently, MCA enjoyed an exchange program with Bladins Montessori School in Malmö Sweden. Our students created art projects and booklets representing the USA and introduced Flat Stanley to Sweden. Those items made their way to Sweden where Bladins’ students reciprocated with art projects, pictures of Swedish foods and traditions, and even a life-size Pippi Longstocking. Once here in America, Pippi visited all MCA classrooms and our students fell in love with the character while learning about her adventures and the author Astrid Lindgren. Swedish students viewed photos of some of MCA’s classrooms and compared our Prepared Environments with theirs. Bladins’ main hallway entrance now displays of all the items that our MCA students sent to Sweden.

At MCA, we love sharing and connecting our students and our school to all corners of the world.

“Culture and education have no bounds or limits; now man is in a phase in which he must decide for himself how far he can proceed in the culture that belongs to the whole of humanity.”
~ Dr. Maria Montessori