“Something I would like to say to the WSM community, but the faculty and staff especially, is thank you for making my time at WSM so memorable and playing such a big part in influencing my dream of becoming a Montessori Educator.”

As we near the end of the school year, the pace of inquiry, experimentation, study, work and play hasn't slowed one bit! Please enjoy these images as we look forward to our last few weeks.

The adolescents have been enjoying the warmer weather this month with more work and recreation taking place outdoors. We have so many exciting things just ahead of us, from the arrival of a new brood of chicks to a trip to our nation's capital.

Welcome back! We are excited to get started on the second half of our year and look back on some highlights from the end of 2022.

The educational program for the Early Childhood level in Children’s House is distinguished by a core curriculum where children 3 to 6 years old acquire and apply a breadth of skills during a three-year learning cycle.

The difference between cursive and print styles lies in the movements used to create the forms, known in the lexicon as start-point and directionality. The difference is in the production process. When choosing between print and cursive the decision is not just a simple choice of letter shape. It is a decision to promote good writing process and fluency. We want our children to be able to use handwriting as a tool – put thoughts on paper quickly and easily. Cursive is the handwriting process that works the best.

“Practical Life” is the name coined by Dr. Montessori to explain an area of curriculum in the Montessori method that departs dramatically from traditional forms. Practical life activities refer to the necessary everyday functions that we all perform to care for ourselves, maintain our physical environment and interact with others in a socially acceptable manner.

Created before American public schools chose, in the 1920’s, the Henry Ford factory assembly line as a model (a model which persists in many schools to this day), Winston-Salem Montessori School believes that educational environments should neither feel nor look like factories. WSM is created to look more like a home than an institution, and stress a community based approach to learning.

To achieve this goal, Winston-Salem Montessori School uses a “trio of teachers”. The trio includes the community of children in a mixed-age grouping, the educational environment equipped with hands-on materials, and the adult guide.

Montessori saw the child as a veritable world power, able to reconstruct society. The impact that parenting and education could have on society was profound for her. She embraced education as an instrument for world peace. She envisioned an approach to education for the development of each individual’s human potential and as service to humanity. She saw the child as he constructor of a better world, of a harmonious society, and as a result eliminate war altogether.

Dr. Montessori designed educational environments that produced outcomes based on spontaneous choices in an environment with practical elements. She trained teachers to create and adapt the educational environment in response to observing the children’s purposeful engagement.

Authentic Montessori education is comprised of mixed aged groupings specific to periods of development. Dr. Montessori’s psychology has four stages of development which she called “planes”.

Given the freedom to discover, question, and connect with their surroundings, Montessori education can transform your kids into strong, independent individuals one day. But, that’s not the only benefit of Montessori education.

The Montessori program relies on a set of five unique principles. These principles encourage students to self-motivate, question and analyze what’s happening around them, and learn at their own pace.

Montessori education focuses on various learning principles and tools to fulfill these objectives. They are very different from traditional teacher-led education.

Although each new day will be more or less the same, it will be full of different lessons and activities. Also, each Montessori private school will follow its unique schedule. But, it will strictly adhere to the same principles of Montessori education.