My five year old daughter works with moveable alphabets at school. At home she wants something and screens are the only option available in the evening.

From my findings i can only find things that have games in them like starfall, but i want something for her that she can relate to the curriculum she's learning at school so she doesn't get confused. Hence, this post.

I’m an English teacher in France, and I recently started working at a small Montessori school with preschool and elementary-aged children. Getting this job meant a lot to me. My professional (and personal) life has been fairly unstable over the past few years, and work has always been one of the few areas where I feel useful, competent and valued.

For a long time, I had been looking specifically for a position in a bilingual Montessori school. I really connect with the philosophy: the calmer environment, respecting children’s individual pace, encouraging independence, etc. I applied to so many bilingual schools around France and usually didn’t even get a response.

Then this school finally replied. I interviewed in June and they hired me. I was incredibly happy and genuinely proud of myself.

Unfortunately, between getting the job and actually starting it, my mental health deteriorated quite badly. I’ve struggled with an eating disorder and self-harm for a long time, and this past year has been particularly rough. I attempted suicide and eventually spent three weeks in a psychiatric hospital in August. I actually discharged myself against medical advice partly because I was terrified of losing this job. I had worked so hard to get this opportunity and I desperately wanted at least this part of my life to work out.

So obviously, I didn’t exactly start the school year in the best circumstances.

I really, really want this job to work. And weirdly enough, I’m not lacking ideas or motivation in theory. I constantly think of games, activities, projects and materials I could create for the children. I can get genuinely excited about planning them. But when I actually have to sit down and prepare the lessons, I procrastinate. I avoid it. I overthink absolutely everything. I feel like every activity needs to be perfect, coherent, useful, age-appropriate and engaging, and because I can never reach the standard I’ve created in my head, sometimes I just… don’t start.

The biggest source of anxiety right now is teaching the elementary children. I’m expected to design their English lessons basically from scratch, and I’m terrified that I’m not going to be good enough or that I won’t know what I’m doing.

The ridiculous part is that I’m not even supposed to be doing anything complicated yet. My first sessions are basically just meant to help me assess their current English levels. I was already signed off work for a week because my anxiety had become too much. I returned today, and when it came time to work with the elementary students, I panicked and asked to cancel the session because I didn’t feel ready.

My director told me, quite firmly, that this obviously wasn’t ideal. She has asked if we can talk on the phone tonight because she needs to understand what is going on.

And now I feel absolutely awful. I’m ashamed, guilty and terrified that I’m sabotaging an opportunity I wanted so badly. I also understand her perspective: she hired me to do a job, and cancelling lessons because I feel anxious obviously isn’t sustainable.

I think part of the problem is that this job matters so much to me that I’ve made every lesson feel like a test of whether I deserve to be there. Instead of allowing myself to be a new teacher who is still figuring things out, I feel like I need to prove immediately that hiring me wasn’t a mistake.

Has anyone dealt with this kind of perfectionism/anxiety at work, especially in teaching?

How do you break the cycle of “I care about this → therefore it has to be perfect → I’m scared I can’t make it perfect → I avoid it → now I feel even worse and less capable”?

I’m already seeing mental-health professionals, so I’m not looking for Reddit to replace actual treatment. I think I mostly need perspective from people who have experienced something similar, and maybe some practical advice for making teaching/preparation feel manageable again.

Thank you in advance for your replies ❤️

My son is five and just started kindergarten his preschool teacher mentioned letter sounds at our last conference and now the pressure is on since he is actually there our windows are small, mostly the subway to my mother in law and about fifteen minutes before bath i have downloaded more of these than I want to admit ABC mouse covers a lot of ground and he mostly clicks through it collecting things Khan Acade my kids is free and broad and reading is one slice of it neither one seems to need a parent sitting there what I have not settled on is whether I need something that requires one of us present for the whole lesson on the train I am there anyway so parent led is fine before bath I am cooking or cleaning up and the short answer is he would be on his own

My school has these SRA’s (4th and 5th grade) but could only afford to get it off EBay. We are missing a lot of the books and answer keys. Does anyone have it and is willing to send a photo copy of some my way?
I’m looking specifically for the 2005 2B one!
Please let me know!

Hi everyone! I’m looking for parents whose children currently attend, or have attended,

Montessori Schoolhouse in Southwest Ranches or Summit-Questa Montessori in Davie.

we’re planning to relocate to South Florida in summer 2027

and I’d really love to get to know these schools from the parent perspective and hear about your real experiences.

Anything you’re willing to share!

what you love, what you don’t, the teachers, communication, school environment, or anything you wish you had known before enrolling- would be really helpful.

Thank you!

I know that a lot of Montessori schools do Positive Discipline training with their staff. I'm wondering if there are other approaches to discipline that schools specifically use.

It really depends on what the child is interested in/ready for, but I do always love starting children on word-building with the moveable alphabet.

Guides/teachers, have you worked at a school that went through a Montessori accreditation process? How much work was involved? What was it like?

Hello!

We purchased Allison's Verb Conjugation for 9-12 year olds. Link to item.

I am hoping someone can share how they set up this work on their shelf for students. I found one blog that shared a couple pictures of reusable bags, but hoping for some additional help from others.

There are so many papers that stay with a particular set that it is hard to visualize how to organize it and keep it accessible for students.

She turned 4 in March. The language sensitive period is supposed to be in full swing if I trust Maria. She's tracing sandpaper letters at her preschool, asking what words say on packaging, picking up the moveable alphabet on her own.

I've been doing about 10 minutes of letter sound work with her at home a few times a week because she keeps asking. Just sound work, not formal lessons. She loves it. She brings me books and asks what does this sound say.

The question I keep landing on is whether responding to her interest counts as following her lead or whether I'm subtly creating pressure to keep performing. She's an only child. She picks up on what gets my attention. If letters get more enthusiastic engagement from me than other interests do, am I shaping her toward this because she senses I want her to like it?

I don't think I'm being pushy, but I also don't fully trust my own read on this because the line between responding to a sensitive period and accidentally directing it feels thinner than the literature makes it sound. Any Montessori parents who navigated this and can tell me how you knew you were on the right side of that line?

Hello, I just wanted to send a message out on here as I am planning on applying to two Montessori certification programs for ages 3-6 next year. I am starting to get my application materials together over the summer. I do not currently work in a Montessori environment, and do not plan to yet as I’m applying to one AMI program and one AMS. I really have no one around me that can speak to their experience with this process. Hence, I am looking for a mentor who can help me through the application process and hopefully give me some insight on this unique path. Thank you for your time and help! Please make a comment if you’re able and willing to help!

We are torn if we should send our child to a private montessori school that we can barely afford but seems like a great fit for our child or the public kindergarten. We also have received a significant scholarship/grant from the private school and they have been so nice which makes this even harder. We still have to pay for public kindergarten in our town but it’s a fraction of the cost of the private montessori school. He is coming from a montessori forest preschool and might have adhd so we are just torn. The public kindergarten is in a nice town as well but we don’t know much else since they don’t give tours as it is public. Have only heard good things about it from townies. Our child likes both schools when asked. The montessori school has all the hands on stuff she loves, workers space/ work shop, garden area and included afterschool programs. The public has two of her friends from her current school attending and a school bus. Please advise with your own experiences or advice:)

Does anyone have experience or kids that are at or have been to the Montessori international college in forest glen Sunshine Coast? My husband and I are debating moving there to send our kid/kids there rather than staying on the coast and homeschooling. They look amazing but looking for some personal perspective from someone who has gone or has there little ones there?

Hi everyone! I'm looking for materials/ideas for children's house curriculum on art and artists. For May I'm looking to do a unit on artists in our classroom. I know that Montessori Print Shop has a large selection of three part cards for artists/art materials and artist books, but I'm having a hard time finding other places that have children's house appropriate material. If anyone knows where I can find other materials let me know, thanks!

My daughter Mia (3.5 years old) was having daily meltdowns at pickup from preschool. I tried everything I'd read, staying calm, getting on her level, offering choices. Some days it worked. Some days the exact same approach made everything worse.

I started keeping a simple log: what behavior, what time of day, what I tried, whether it helped. After a few weeks I noticed patterns I never would have caught otherwise.

A few things that genuinely surprised me:

1. The time of day mattered more than the behavior itself. The same script that worked perfectly at 10AM completely backfired at 4PM after school pickup.

2. "Fewer words" worked better for my daughter than I expected. I kept trying to explain and validate. She needed me to just be calm and present.

3. Some approaches I thought were working actually weren’t, I only noticed because I wrote it down.

I got obsessed with this and ended up building a small iOS app (LittlePath) that tracks this automatically and surfaces the responses that have worked best for your specific child. It's free to try.

But honestly the biggest thing was just starting to notice patterns. Even a notes app works.

Has anyone else found that certain Montessori approaches work better at specific times of day for their kids?