Childrens Garden Montessori School Denver

At Childrens Garden, we strive to build relationships and strengthen connections between one child and another, between ourselves and the children in our care, between children and their families, between children and the natural world, and between ourselves and others who might look different, speak differently, or come from far away.

Daily we search for connections between the two strong educational traditions that of Maria Montessori and her followers, and the educational philosophy developed by the early childhood programs in Reggio Emilia, Italy. We believe our study of these two philosophies has allowed us to use somewhat different vocabulary to describe similar phenomena. We hope that the process of viewing young childrens behavior from the different angles suggested by these approaches has enriched and deepened our understanding of what we see. Sometimes we get confused thats OK. Sometimes we disagree thats also OK. We see ourselves as ongoing learners with the children and parents so this study is stimulating and makes our work more interesting. Although Maria Montessori would not have advocated this, but because the Montessori pedagogy is so well designed to carry children through an academic curriculum, we have noticed that its tempting to push children academically, and our study of Reggio reminds us not to do that.