Very interesting information about the national government approving the Montessori curriculum! It is definitely a viable alternative

Thank you so much. I purchased the complete CD from you yesterday and am really excited anticipating its arrival! I will follow up on the albums.

Here in Australia we have just had a national curriculum written that unifies the countries education system. I was excited when hearing from Montessori Australia that Montessori is in the processes of having its own curriculum approved by our national government as a parallel alternative. It was not a matter of rewriting the materials of course. Rather, outlining to those not familiar with the teaching that the children are in fact receiving the necessary education in all areas to make it a viable alternative.

We are extremely grateful for the opportunity to be moving. I think it will be a really enriching experience for our family.

Will certainly be back again!

Siobhan

Yes, since you’ve made some materials yourself I think you’d be fine just buying some albums. You can indeed use them for a long and for as many children as you need – they’re guides for you, not consumables.

If you purchase my Complete CD, you will have materials for ages 2-12, some can even be used up to age 15. You can see all of our 9-12 materials here.

Our materials and NAMC’s are very complimentary. You should have no problems using them together. Many of their students and graduates are my customers

I hope that helps! Thanks for stopping by.

We have three boys aged 4, 6 and 8, that will begin home schooling in 2012 as we are moving to a remote farm. I have looked at the NAMC albums and am very impressed. The cost is considerable but I can use the 6-9 albums for both the older boys and of course for the little one in time, (please correct me if I am wrong). I have looked at the home schooling program that NAMC have compiled. Although it looks wonderful, I have already made some materials, sand paper letters, moveable alphabet etc and I thought that I might just buy the language and maths 3-6 albums individually instead. What do you think?

In addition to the albums I was wanting to purchase your complete curriculum CD, and using the basic essentials classrooms list, gather the necessary hands-on materials. Will these purchases complement each other and will I in fact be able to achieve a Montessori based home school education for our boys in your opinion?

Just to clarify, with the purchase of your complete CD I have access to ALL the PDF files that you sell, suitable for ages 3-9? I love how you use photographs in your materials as opposed to clip art. The files I have viewed are beautifully presented.

I appreciate your time and want to express much gratitude for your site and the wealth of information you share.

Keys of the Universe is now offering AMI-based elementary Montessori training (so 6-12), primarily for homeschoolers, but I’ve had a few teachers join us as well. We are still in the early months, so there is a lot yet to come. Right now we have portions of albums available monthly (so that you can get started right away in a variety of areas), permanent discussion board shared by all participants regardless of their join-date, homeschool support, discount to downloadable files (more added weekly), and access to a mentor whenever needed.

In the end, I hope that we can provide a very comprehensive, homeschool-user-friendly elementary Montessori “training” – affordably

Here are all of my Toddler posts: Montessori for Everyone Infant & Toddler posts.

I highly recommend my Comprehensive List for Toddlers, which you can use as a checklist to outfit your classroom, as well as printing one for each child to keep track of the work they do: Comprehensive List for Toddlers.

Here are very well-written, thorough albums (manuals) for Infant & Toddler from Montessori Research and Development: Montessori R & D Infant & Toddler Albums.

Here are some helpful videos including some for Practical Life, which can be in Infant & Toddler or Preschool: Videos on Materials.

There will be no daily curriculum for Infant & Toddler available anywhere, since everything is individualized to each child’s pace. There are few if any group lessons at this age – everything is one-on-one.

The truth is, it will be very difficult for you to have a Montessori Toddler room without having taken the Montessori Infant & Toddler training. While the internet has many resources, there is no substitute – no videos or manuals – that can replace the training. So while I think you probably can educate yourself somewhat, and learn to use many of the materials, it’s a good idea to try and take the Montessori Infant & Toddler training at some point. There are some great options online, like The North American Montessori Training Center.

I am searching information about infant and toddler materials. In September I will be accepting 14 kids, aged 10 and a half months, into my day care group. I would like to learn a daily program/curriculum for this age; which materials to use (that was the easiest to find, since there are so many shops), how to use the materials. I understand how Montessori works from 3 years on.

The most difficult time for me is, when the child can not speak yet, can not walk yet, cries cause parents are not there. Kids aged 15 or 16 months are already beginning to be active and they have the ability to stay focused on one toy. But the youngsters, i am having problems with. I cannot seem to find any useful information for this period, which is the most critical. I would love to buy a dvd or video online where all the montessori materials for toddlers and infants would be shown.

Any kind of information, would be great. I checked all the links, but could not find what I am looking for.

Lara

Thank you so much for including Montessori R & D in your discussion of Montessori albums. How wonderful that more and more parents are home schooling their children with Montessori! You provide a great service to the community.

We hope to meet this growing demand better than we currently do by including more illustrations. Many of our manuals do offer illustrations of the materials, but not of the actual presentation. Our manuals were originally developed for those in a Montessori teacher training program who would draw their own pictures to create a “personal” album. They are used at dozens of AMS training programs including Princeton TEC, Michigan MTEC (Montessori Teacher Education Center), MTEC- San Francisco, Follett Bookstores (Xavier University, Barry University, South Mountain CC, Palm Beach CC), MTEC Sacramento, MT of Southern Nevada and Center for Contemporary Montessori Programs (College of St. Catherine’s).

Zsuzsa, thank you for taking the time to write about our manuals. Your comments will be useful, I’m sure, to many parents preparing to home school their children. We do have sample pages for each of our manuals that we hope provide an accurate representation. Our manuals are comparatively detailed yet visually unrefined – a drawback we hope to rectify!

To view our manuals you can visit Montessori Research and Development Teacher Manuals.

If you choose a certain manual, for example, Early Childhood Geography,
you can click on “VIEW TABLE OF CONTENTS IN PDF” or “VIEW SAMPLE PAGES IN PDF” to get a better sense of the manual’s content, structure, visuals and presentation format.

It’s such a great feeling to have enthusiastic users of our manuals and materials… but all feedback is most welcome!

If you or any of your readers have questions about the manuals, please feel free to contact me at ckreuzer@montessorird.com or 510-278-1115.

Warm Regards,
Chandra

I am a homeschool montessori parent of primary & elementary aged children & have found it extremely difficult to source 6-12yr albums. The elementary albums from Montessori Reserach & Development are the more comprehensive I have been able to find, so for those wanting to continue the montessori curriculum past primary I definitely recommend them!
I also have a couple of albums from NAMC but have found these ones to be more detailed & methodical.

The albums also make comprehensive notes on suppliers to source various materials from depending on the lesson & also list detail on many of the Niemhuis word study label sets, so you are able to make them yourself and save the expense!

There is only one draw back & that is they are written with the assumption that you know what you are doing, as their are no diagrams. If you are a parent of a montessori child or have had experience with some of the equipment that it shouldn’t be an issue. I am a parent that home schools my children (who used to attend a montessori school) & I have been able to work through & understand the lessons. Note – you must follow the albums in progression, as I have found that when I have taken exercises out of context sometimes they do not flow smoothly or I do not understand how to present them. This can be a draw back when wanting to “follow the child’s” rate of progress.