Lawrence Montessori School

General information

Our vision is to provide your child with an “education as an aid to life" and instill a lifelong love of learning. We nurture the intellect and the spirit of our children honoring their uniqueness and individuality with self-directed learning. Our “prepared environment” lays the foundation for academic excellence, social grace, and inner discipline.

Lawrence Montessori School offers care and education to children from three months to six years of age. We offer programs for an Infant Community (3 months-1 year), a Toddler Community (1- 3 years) and a Primary Community (3 - 6 years). We also offer a full day Kindergarten program for children 5 to 6 years of age.

Infant Community

A distinguishing feature of the Montessori infant program is that the environment conforms to the physical and psychic needs of the infant, both in the size of the furnishings and in the opportunities for motor development. Minimal furniture, maximum natural light, selected art placed low on the walls, clean floors and well defined spaces invite and encourage gross motor movement. During this time of significant hand and fine motor development, the environment is prepared by providing children educational material specifically designed for eye-hand coordination and concentration. The outdoor environment is a natural extension of the classroom where children spend lots of time in fresh air and sunshine.

Toddler Community

The toddler program at LMS offers hands–on (concrete) experiences in learning which lead to abstractions for later academic work. Our classrooms are thoughtfully prepared with the activities that aid this time of rapid neurological development in the child. The materials we offer to our children are chosen with purpose to focus the child's energy for cognitive and sensorimotor development. Repetition of preferred activities refines skills and creates order, aids concentration, promotes large and small muscle control and thereby develops self-confidence, self-esteem, and independence.

The Primary Program

The Montessori Primary curriculum is based on the activities of practical life, sensorial, language, mathematics and cultural arts. The activities of practical life encourage the child to develop and learn skills for care of self and environment. The Sensorial activities are designed to develop cognition. Math concepts are learned with materials designed to enable the child to understand basic quantity and numeration. The children progress to linear counting and basic math facts of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. The Montessori language materials are used to develop the hand to use writing instruments and reading is taught phonetically. Children learn to put sounds together to build words and sentences and eventually read. A love of reading is inculcated naturally since the children are so confident with sounds. Most children are reading prior to entering Kindergarten and achieve at or above grade level consistently.

The cultural subjects of science, art, music, history, geography are all integrated into the curriculum seamlessly. The program is designed to cultivate the child's curiosity and to instill a lifelong interest in observing nature and discovering more about the world in which we live.