Montessori Essentials

Montessori Essentials is a 2-week course that will help you learn new knowledge and skills in each of the following four areas of learning listed below:

Montessori Fundamentals

In this section of the training, you will learn the basics of Montessori education by watching short videos and reflecting on the learning. Learning in this portion of this course will give you the context needed to step in to support a Montessori classroom right away.

Child Development & Montessori Curriculum

Montessori developed the curriculum used today by first observing children and understanding how they change and grow over time, and then creating an educational environment and set of lessons that matches those changes. We'll cover those topics in videos about the activities that children experience in Montessori classrooms.

Key Montessori Concepts

Knowing how a Montessori classroom works and a bit about the curriculum is important, but being an educator is more than simply going through the motions of each day. There are always surprises and interesting circumstances to respond to so knowing why decisions have been made in Montessori classrooms in the past help us make aligned decisions when we need to today. This series introduces some of the key concepts in Montessori that help us make those choices.

Montessori Presentation of the Day

The primary role of Montessori educators is to deliver Presentations. These are the lessons we give to children that show them how to connect with the materials in the environment to discover new knowledge and skills. Each day you will learn about one presentation by watching a video and reading resources about that lesson. Then you will actually practice delivering the presentation yourself, first without children to gain confidence, and then incorporating it into your classroom.

You will start the course by attending a 45-minute online welcome session where we will get you oriented to the course, including how to use Altitude, the learning management system, to complete the asynchronous learning modules in the next 2 weeks. The welcome session runs every Friday from 2:00 to 2:45 pm Eastern Time.

You will then continue to complete daily modules for 10 days at your own pace. Each day, you can expect to spend 1 to 2 hours to complete the required coursework that is consisted of videos to watch, questions to answer, and one Montessori lesson. You can join our optional office hour to ask questions. We host the office hour every Friday from 4:00 to 4:45 pm Eastern Time.

After you complete all 10 days of coursework, we will come together for a live session of conclusions, next steps, and a time for questions and answers. The closing session runs every Friday from 3:00 to 3:45 pm Eastern Time.

By the end of the two weeks, you will have 10 lessons ready to deliver, 10 concepts that help you understand what's going on underneath the surface, and be introduced to the Montessori curriculum and how to bring it to life in your classroom.

In order to complete the course, you will prove your learning by completing an assessment. Upon completion of all the required coursework and passing the assessment, you'll receive a certificate of completion for this course in Montessori education and be a contributor in your classroom.

From there, your career is in your hands. Remember, at any time, you're welcome to return to Prepared Montessorian Institute for full Montessori certification in our accredited program!

Montessori Essentials is a pre-requisite course for Nido & Toddler and Children's House Montessori Teacher Certification program.