Guidepost Montessori at Marlborough

Learning how to make 10s is easy when it is so visually clear. Learning math concretely is so enjoyable!

Guidepost Montessori | Exceptional School Education Programs

Why choose Montessori?

In these pictures you'll see children who are:

❤Happy
❤Self motivated
❤Independent
❤Considerate of others
❤Able to concentrate
❤Eager to learn

Montessori education is all about self-directed, hands-on activity, right from the start.
Children are given the opportunity to build their own learning experience by choosing materials that interest them.

They are given the tools and the freedom to become independent members of their community, feeling a sense of pride in being able to take care of themselves.
They are consistently engaged in challenging work which builds their confidence and ignites their passion for learning.

Children leave Montessori education ready for the world, excited for all they can achieve. They are guided to become considerate and compassionate members of society.

Join us at Guidepost Montessori Marlborough for a campus tour and information session focusing on our Children's House program for ages 2.9 - 6 years old.

What we'll cover:

✨ The benefits of Montessori education for this age group.
✨ A look inside our classrooms to see the space and materials.
✨ An overview of our building to get a sense of our environment and community.
✨ Information about our daily schedule, tuition rates and calendar.

Sign up now and feel free to bring a friend with a child interested in our community!

Visit our website here to learn more and click on "Tours and Events" at the top to sign up:

https://www.guidepostmontessori.com/schools/marlborough-ma

Guidepost Montessori | Exceptional School Education Programs The largest international network of Montessori schools. Exclusive nursery, day care, kindergarten, elementary, and middle school education programs. Call now!

A concentrating infant can look a lot of different ways. A concentrating child might be still, or they might move a lot! Look for an expression of focus with whatever the child is doing.

It might be while trying to reach for something new. It might be intensely staring at a mobile floating above them. It might also come from exploring an object with their hands and mouths!

❓ What is this material?
✨ Knobless Cylinders

❓ How is this material presented?
✨ Starting with the red box, the guide removes one cylinder at a time, placing them randomly mid-table, and grading them horizontally from largest to smallest.

❓Why do we do it?
✨ To observe and compare the different series with each other
✨ Gives a clearer idea about dimensions and their interplay

This ramp in one of our Nido rooms gives children just the right amount of assistance in balancing while holding on as they walk down it, and as soon as they're ready, they can let go at the end and walk all by themselves!

"The child is both a hope and a promise for mankind" - Maria Montessori

Hurray for books!

“We shall walk together on this path of life, for all things are part of the universe and are connected with each other to form one whole unity.”
― Maria Montessori

Montessori art is very open ended which allows for complete creative freedom. This child had a vision and requested gray paint so worked with the Guide to figure out how to make it and then brought his vision to life ✨

Happy Thanksgiving from our family to yours! 🫓🍁

Now that it's getting cold outside, it's a great time to start filling bird feeders to keep those little birds fed during the winter months. Our toddlers love to help to care for our environment and wildlife!

These child friendly knives are a wonderful tool for cutting fruit and vegetables both in the classroom and at home. Food preparation builds skills in fine motor, concentration, and coordination.

We're loving our new Guidepost long-sleeves! 💙

Self-feeding is one of your baby's earliest steps towards self-care. First, baby learns to hold her own bottle while she is held to feed.

Next, as your baby learns to sit reliably, we arrange a tiny table and a sturdy chair, sized so that she can crawl in and out of the chair herself. We provide real dishes and utensils, just her size.

The adult does as much as necessary but as little as possible at any given stage, so that your baby will have room to experiment. It'll be messy at first, but pretty soon, your 15-month old will be confidently using a fork and drinking from a tiny glass! The natural course of human development unimpeded.

We hope you enjoy some extra rest on this rainy, sleepy Saturday! 🌧☔️💜

Our new friends are having so much fun in our brand-new toddler room! 💙

Children's House classrooms all have a section devoted to Cultural Studies, which includes the Montessori map cabinet. Children have the freedom to use these maps as puzzles, or to ask or be offered a lesson on them.

The Guide might have a conversation with the child about how many continents there are, the differences between the continents, how long it takes to travel between them, what types of animals live on them, or what kind of climate each one has.

They may also give the child a 3-period-lesson. The 3-period-lesson begins with the teacher pointing to and naming, e.g., "This is North America", then asking for recognition, e.g., "show me North America", then asking for recall, e.g., "which continent is this?"

Children are fascinated by the maps and love to learn about our world 🌎💚

In our Children's House classrooms, snack is available throughout most of the morning work period. We offer a fruit or vegetable, as well as a healthy carbohydrate.

We place the bowls of snack on a shelf with labels indicating how many of each to take. Children use a scoop or tongs to serve themselves on real ceramic plates and then take their snack to the snack table.

This process involves so many lessons:

✨Listening to your body to learn when you're hungry
✨Counting the correct quantity of snack
✨Using fine motor skills to scoop or tong the pieces
✨Carefully carrying a delicate plate to a table without spilling
✨Using conversation skills and dining etiquette when sitting and having snack with a friend

If you're the parent of a toddler, you know how important it is for them to MOVE! Toddlers love to jump, stretch, dance, climb, march, roll.... you get the gist! Basically, moving their bodies in every possible way to let out that energy and explore what their amazing bodies can do!

Our Guides know how important movement is for children and so they incorporate ways to move inside the classroom as well as on the playground!

We hope you have a peaceful and relaxing Sunday! ❤

While preparing snacks or food this weekend, see how you might be able to involve your child. Whether it's peeling a banana, cutting up some strawberries, or mixing ingredients for baking, children love to get involved in the kitchen!

The 45 card layout is a Children's House math extension. Children layout every number of the Bank from 1-9000 and for each number, they collect the corresponding quantity from the Bank.

For a child of this age, it is a long and challenging work, but gives them a great sense of achievement when they complete it!

Big plants take a lot of care - it's a good thing our toddlers love to look after living things in their environment!

You may not know, but our Nido classrooms have quite an extensive curriculum, including Practical Life, Psycho-Sensory Motor Development, and Language.

Beginning Language materials include baskets of animal replicas like this basket of jungle animals.

We present these objects in three periods. This lesson is given one-on-one or to a small group of children.

✨The “first period” introduces the name of each object (“Here is a replica of a duck. This is a replica of a cow.”)

✨The “second period” supplies the name and asks the child to find the corresponding object (“Where is the replica of the pig? Can you point to it?”)

✨The “third period” is appropriate for older, verbal children; it shows the object and invites the child to name it (“What is this?”) Your child may revisit and explore the replicas during the work period, even if there is no lesson taking place at the time.

We love to see friends helping each other to learn a big new skill! 🥰

These fall showers have us donning our rain jackets and boots, nothing's gonna stop us from getting our outside time! 💙

Montessori children have the chance to serve themselves snacks when they are hungry every single day. This teaches children wonderful practical life skills including scooping, pouring, and tonging, and it also teaches them to listen to their bodies and be aware of when they are hungry.

Sensory bins are great fun and such a wonderful learning tool. Children are free to gently touch the objects or to dive their hands right in!

It's a great feeling when you and your Guide work as a team to complete a work!

Learning to be independent in feeding oneself starts as soon as children have an interest in holding their own bottle, or putting food in their own mouth! Just one of the many ways we encourage independence from the start in our Nido rooms 💕

This is the proud face of a toddler who loves to feel independent in spreading her own sun butter on her crackers. Independence is such a wonderful gift to give your children!

We love to see siblings so eager to visit each others classrooms at school 🥰

Use of the chalkboard is a great way for children to practice their pincer grip for writing and experiment without feeling the pressure of making a mistake. They are free to draw, make shapes or receive a lesson on writing letters or numbers.

Learning emotions is important for children, it helps them to understand their own and other peoples.

Looking at pictures of different facial expressions helps them to understand how to read another persons expression to find out what emotion they are feeling. This activity encourages them to be considerate and empathetic of other peoples feelings.

"Joy is the evidence of inner growth." - Maria Montessori

It might be nearing fall but we're still acting like it's summer! ☀️🌻🏖

Self-care is important, but it's also nice to learn how to help and take care of others. While this work is mostly used as practice in combing one's own hair, it's beautiful to see children using it to help others too.

Of the many skills to learn within the practical life curriculum, folding clothes is a wonderful and rewarding thing for a child to practice. We are able to offer it as a lesson within our classrooms, but it's also a great skill to practice at home.

This picture shows a lesson on folding laundry to place into a suitcase, so make sure to give your child the chance to pack their own suitcase next time you go on a trip!

Blindfolds are often used with the Sensorial materials in the classroom. They give the chance for a child to experiment with focusing on their sense of touch rather than always relying on the visual.

It's a fun challenge to attempt to match or sequence materials without looking at them!