Veranda Montessori

08/06/2026

Prepping for the new year, means crafting!

Here's how I'm making 3 part card pouches (I'm redoing my continents area and need a flat continent color coded storage solution).

The star of the show: fiber-tex paper fabric hybrid. If you have the Waseca sentence material, what their folders are made of, though not as nice a hand feel TBH.

It's probably more expensive than fabric, but I have 35+ of these to make and didn't want to spend the time turning and topstitching, and my felt prototype was too floppy.

1. Using the full WOF (this one is around 16.5"),cut a 6.5" wide strip.

2. From that strip, cut out a 3" wide strip, and trim it down to 3 x 6".

3. Make your folds on the big strip: 3" from one end 1.5" from the other end (if your WOF is bigger, 2" looks nicer) Folding those two flaps inwards, fold the whole thing in half. Round the top flap's corners

4. Sew the sides of the 3" flap. Don't forget to make your stitch longer, I'm doing 4.5.

5. Place your cut out rectangle on the empty inner half, lined up just a teeny bit about the center fold. Sew sides and bottom (having the open side be where the enevelope's closing flap is felt more natural to me).

6. Make the divider line on that top pouch for the labels. I don't have a measurement because I just pulled a set of cards from my shelves when making my prototype and then placed masking tape on my sewing machine's neck area so that I can just line up the edge for this.

7. Trim loose strings, dab on some glue anywhere you played bobbin chicken and lost by a little.

8. Closure - that will be coming later if there's interest, but I tried out a few different options with grommets and I'm going with the simplest, which is single cord (I will be using satin bracelet 1.8mm cord, matching colors simply because I already have it) that goes all the way around the envelope before wrapping.

That said, this fabric is still expensive, using scraps or cotton would save money. But even with that, I estimate I'm saving around 50% over what buying fabric pouches would cost.

Pretty happy with the results, hope this is useful for others!

04/27/2026

Garden work party 2026 was yesterday and our outside spaces are looking amazing!

All thanks to our amazing families who did the heavy lifting!

03/09/2026

Come see what Montessori education can look like in a cozy environment and what makes us special. Open House on Saturday March 14th, 10:30 AM - 1 PM.

Welcome to Veranda! We provide an authentic Montessori program in a loving environment, with ready outdoor access; allowing children to discover and grow their passions and strengths, coming into their full potential. We offer a home-like setting with a full range of Montessori materials, as well

02/07/2026

Open house tomorrow! Saturday February 7th 10:30 AM - 1 PM. Stop by and see what makes us special and how we combine Montessori with cozy, exploration and learning, creativity and fun.

(and if you can't make it, same thing on March 14th)

Welcome to Veranda! We provide an authentic Montessori program in a loving environment, with ready outdoor access; allowing children to discover and grow their passions and strengths, coming into their full potential. We offer a home-like setting with a full range of Montessori materials, as well

12/19/2025

Gift giving season, but this time for the school.

I'm so excited for this one. And love that we're small enough that I can open and setup with the children - this child graded and matched all the bells while I unwrapped boards and other things ❤️

11/27/2025

Coming up next, we're inviting families to join us for an art show in December - here's a sneak peek 😉

This year we've been more intentional about setting aside / intercepting cool stuff for it before it goes home. So we're going bigger and have a good selection!

I'm really excited about this. Still a lot of work to do to make it happen, but it feels like all the pieces are in motion.

The all the art work goes home afterwards.

Of course, things the children felt strongly about or they have made many of have still been going home, and we've been very clear that anything we take we are keeping safe and will give back after the art show.

It's also allowed us to take a harder look around art waste and reuse and come up with some options for layered pieces and for reusing and making new things. Also trying to encourage children to revisit their art - is there anything else you would like to add to it?

Because for the child who is making 10 just filled in easel papers, the joy is in the making, and though sending all of them home as the dry (like we would usually do) does show parents that their child is really into that, we also know that 8 of those at least are just going in the trash. And, well, we can take those 8 and make other things from them.

There's still waste, and I'm always looking for ideas on how to reuse them, so if you've got any, leave them in the comments!

It's been a fun art journey this year😊

11/16/2025

This year's autumnal dropper watercolors are looking particularly gorgeous. We need to hand those up at a window ASAP!

11/06/2025

Having a peek at the mailboxes to see if there's anything to put aside for the art show and ran across this. I love it: a book the child read and enjoyed, to go home both for them to show off their skills and to practice and work on fluency, a paper geography craft thing that I was wondering if it might be too finicky for them when we were halfway through (it wasn't!), and the care put in the coloring in and color choice for that sugar skull design. Plus the cool rainbow spiderweb art piece.

The things, the color, the way they're laid out, and simply knowing the backstory behind each of them.

Just enjoing the close of a busy, and good day as the apple sauce the kids get going summers on and I get ready for a fast clean of the school as I wait for a parent teacher conference.

We're busy, sometimes chaotic and overwhelming. But more often than not happy and creative and joyful. It's good. It's a good year even when it challenges us and makes us stretch ourselves.

11/06/2025

I love it when our families share their traditions and celebrations with us, it makes it meaningful and very real.

10/31/2025

Happy Halloween!