Montessori Living

Montessori Living Montessori Living is operated by Crossway Community Inc.

a 501(c)(3) nature-based intergenerational campus in Kensington Maryland where children, families, elders, and caregivers learn, live, and grow together, modeling connection, dignity, and longevity.

09/18/2026

Sometimes making our own Montessori materials from nature teaches more than the lesson does.

-

09/10/2026

POV: your parents enrolled you in a nature-based Montessori preschool, and now your days look like this.

-

08/21/2026

They show instead of tell.

A child hears hundreds of instructions a day. Most of it becomes noise to them.

"Be gentle" means nothing to a two year old. They have no picture for it. Watching you gently pet a dog while saying "gentle, so she feels safe" gives them one.

Say what you are doing and why while you do it:
🌿 Instead of "clean up your toys," put one away yourself and say "blocks go in the bin so we can find them tomorrow"
🌿 Instead of "put your coat on," put yours on first and say "it is cold out, this keeps me warm"
🌿 Instead of "calm down," take a slow breath and say "I am upset, so I am taking a minute"
🌿 Instead of "be careful," step over the root and say "I am watching where my feet go so I do not trip"

Children copy what adults actually do, not what adults tell them to do. Including the parts you were not trying to teach.

-

08/15/2026

Not punishments. Not rewards.

Self-discipline comes from adults who set these conditions and then get out of the way:
1️⃣ Hold boundaries calmly instead of enforcing them loudly
2️⃣ Give real responsibility, not pretend jobs
3️⃣ Let things take longer rather than stepping in
4️⃣ Let consequences teach instead of rescuing
5️⃣ Skip the reward and let the accomplishment stand on its own

Rewards and punishment teach a child to behave only while someone is watching.

A child who has finished hard things on their own carries that discipline and confidence with them for the rest of their life.

-

08/11/2026

Being outdoors builds coordination, judgment, focus, and the ability to self-settle.

The hard part for adults is letting them explore and take risks.

Instead of "be careful," try:
🌿 "Look where your hands and feet are going."
🌿 "Is that branch strong enough to hold you?"
🌿 "Take your time."
🌿 "Notice where you are stepping."

"Be careful" makes a child nervous without telling them how. These give them something to actually do, and teach them to be safe when you are not there.

-

08/06/2026

What she is practicing is not cutting. It is staying with something difficult, choosing to keep going, and finding out what she is capable of.

Our instinct is to do it for her. But what she hears is that we did not think she could do it.

Confidence is not something you give a child. It is something they must find themselves.

-

08/04/2026

Children start with everything a leader needs.

🌿 Curiosity that nobody had to spark
🌿 Care for the people around them
🌿 The freedom to be exactly who they are

Then it gets slowly managed out of them. Corrected, redirected, replaced with instructions about who to be.

What children actually need is someone to notice what is already inside them and reflect it back until they can see it themselves.

We build leaders by making sure nothing gets in their way.

-

08/01/2026

You do not need to be good at it. You just need to do it.

Singing with a child every day builds more than almost anything else in their routine.

🌿 Memory
🌿 Vocabulary
🌿 Pre-reading skills
🌿 Emotional expression
🌿 Self-regulation
🌿 Cooperation

Music is not entertainment. It is how a child builds the skills they will use for the rest of their life.

-

07/30/2026

She is two. It’s messy and slow. Let her do it anyway.

Not as a chore, and not to be cute. Because being useful to a group is one of the first things a person wants to feel.

We rescue children from difficulty because we want their day to go smoothly. But in doing so, we take away the challenge that was going to teach them something.

A child who is trusted with real work learns something no lesson can teach them: that they are capable, and that they belong to a community that depends on them.

Every time we step in to save a minute, a child loses a chance to find out they are capable.

-

07/28/2026

Every adult in the world was once three years old.

Nobody taught them patience or respect in a lesson. They learned it by living inside a community that practiced it every single day.

That is why we see our school as a family, not just a classroom.

A better world actually starts there.

-

Address

3015 Upton Drive
Kensington, MD
20895

Opening Hours

Monday 8am - 6pm
Tuesday 8am - 6pm
Wednesday 8am - 6pm
Thursday 8am - 6pm
Friday 8am - 6pm

Website

, ,

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Montessori Living posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Business

Send a message to Montessori Living:

Shortcuts

Share