Reply to Help me understand the difference between Montessori and play-based preschool

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Hmmm... Thanks for that comment, but I still can't really see how this plays out in real life.  So, at a Montessori school, if a kid is playing with (working on?) a puzzle, and decides to pretend that the pieces are dinosaurs, are they corrected?[/quote]

In my experience touring a local Montessori - yes.  My 2-year-old took down a set of blocks and began stacking them, and the teacher quickly swooped in and corrected her, saying that the blocks were only for laying out in a specific pattern.  Same thing with different instruments on a shelf - 2 YO attempted to ring one of the lined-up chimes with a xylophone mallet and the teacher removed it from her hand.  YMMV, but this was a dealbreaker for me - we're sticking with play-based all the way.  I'm sure some Montessori schools are more or less strict, but I didn't like the rigidity at all, especially for such young children.

Another quirk: "true" Montessori is mixed age classes of 3-5 year olds (3-year learning cycle).  A friend of mine in CA felt that in practice, this meant the older kids in her child's program completely steamrolled the younger ones, "helping" them by drawing over their artwork, writing her child's name for her (and spelling it wrong), etc.  I think it would take a truly skilled teacher (and an equal mix of 3s, 4s, and 5s in the class) to make this work - but generally in this area, the classes skew either young or old.[/quote]

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