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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Hi all,

Is anyone aware of some good montessori school options near central PG county?  The only montessori schools nearby that I am aware of are Bowie Montessori Children's House in Bowie (which does not get the best reviews or have the best reputation),[b] Julia Brown Montessori in Laurel (far away and also has iffy reviews)[/b], Christian Family Montessori in Petworth (also far away and not getting the best reviews), and St. Jerome, which stops at kindergarten.  I am ok with a very small school or a homeschool co-op, as long as it has some sort of Montessori accreditation.[/quote]

While it may be far from your location, I will counter those who give Julia Brown iffy reviews.  The negative reviews that I saw were from families who were really not interested in Montessori style education and only wanted play based daycares.  It was more a bad fit than a poor review.

My twins were there from summer 2013 through summer 2015.  The school was a great choice for us.  My children learned and developed a lot in this school.  Academically, it worked well for us.  Twin A is very focused and wants to work/play with a project for a long time until he understands everything about it.  Twin B, once he learns the "lesson" for a project, is ready to finish and move on.  In the JBMS classrooms, they have 6 learning centers.  Each day, for the 2.5 hours they have Montessori class, the kids have to complete at least one project from each of the learning centers.  Twin A would do 6, maybe 7.  Twin B would finish like 15 or 18.  This worked for us because the child controls how many projects he works on.  My kids loved that control and it helped them.  In play based learning, Twin A had problems when he was playing with something and was told that it was time to put things away for circle time or a group activity and he wasn't done playing, he had problems transitioning.  At JBMS, he had the control.  One issue a lot of people complain about is the quiet.  They play soothing music and encourage the children to work quietly, only talking to the teacher.  In reality, the kids will talk quietly to each other briefly throughout this period.  If a child goes to the rest room or puts a project away to get another one, they walk by a friend's work space and will chat a little.  As long as it keeps quiet and it's brief, the teachers let it happen.  Some parents believe that this is not healthy, but it gives them one 2.5 period of disclipline.  My kids were they all day and the other 5.5-6 hours they were in the daycare or out on the playground and it was pretty much typical play based daycare.  We found that the quiet Montessori environment actually helped us with the kids when they were not at school.  They did better following rules like when eating out or places where it was not appropriate to act out, run, yell and play, but were still able to easily transition to that in appropriate spaces.  The other thing that helped is that the sense of community there is very strong.  The majority of kids live in the Laurel and Columbia areas.  With 15 kids, we celebrated a lot of birthdays together and attended special events together (like a group of us went to the Easter Egg event at the local park together).  My kids have been gone from JBMS for 2 years and we're still friends with several of the families and see them around town and occasionally get together for play dates or local events.

I understand that the Montessori style is not for everyone, but for us, the Montessori style and JBMS was a very good experience.  We've recommended two other families and both have their children there now and the parents love it there.  [/quote]

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