Thoughts on Montessori for busy kids
What are your thoughts about Montessori for busy kids? I like that kids can move about doing one activity or another at their own pace but then again is the structure too strict? Do play based school generally have a larger volume of kids leading to more opportunities for distractions and over excitement? Would appreciate preschool suggestions for busy kids!
Sep 25, 2019
Parent Replies
My daughter spent age 20 months to 5.5 years old in a Montessori. In our experience, the "job" concept is great because it teaches the kids to do one thing at a time, and put it away properly before moving on to the next thing. This has proven to be an invaluable life skill. She is now a successful college student and the Montessori basis has been a key toward her focus and time management (and keeping her room clean!) all along. Time management is, in the long run (by middle school, high school, and life), a more useful skill than most pre-academic or academic subject learned in pre-school or elementary school (vocabulary is another important one). My daughter spent one summer when she was about 4 years old in a play based preschool and yes, it was busy and distracting.
It depends a bit on your kid. Is your child curious for knowledge about the world and eager to do things older kids are doing? Montessori is great for those things. Is your kid very social and eager to socialize all day and navigate a group of kids? Then a play based preschool would work.
My son was going to a Montessori for about 3wks and he seem to like it. The only thing is that the teachers use a very deep tone almost like yelling when they don’t listen. I had witness one teacher doing that. I’m not saying all teachers do but I just don’t agree with the tone of voice. Also they let them do whatever and not really have control over them according to a lot of parents. I even talk to a few parents abt how they feel abt the school, they shook their head. I recommend you to look into francophone Charter school. Their accepting application for PK and Kinder right now. It’s a dual French immersion school. I was lucky enough to get my son in within just a wk of applying. He loves the school! And the rating for the school is far above average. They are sharing their facility at Howard Elementary and Currently waiting for a bigger permanent location some time next year. Hope this helps!
I never considered Montessori for a variety of reasons but if you're interested in a Reggio based school then I can't recommend the Aquatic Park School enough. My son is extremely busy and they did amazing work there engaging him in deep and meaningful project, teaching him social-emotional skills, etc. while also having lots of free-play and outside time. It's an amazing school!