The Power of a Mirror and a Tissue
Rebecca Lingo • August 25, 2025

In their journey toward independence, one of the earliest and most meaningful steps children take is learning to care for themselves. In Montessori, this essential area of development is part of what we call Practical Life, which supports both physical and psychological growth.


A Prepared Environment for Self-Care


Montessori environments are intentionally designed to foster this growth. Everything is made accessible and is at the toddler’s level: a sink they can reach, a faucet they can operate, and art visible at their eye level. Elementary students use cubbies for their belongings and have lessons in preparation for going out and traveling. Our adolescents prep and cook lunches for themselves in our kitchen lab. At all levels, we carefully choose and arrange materials to promote independence, order, and confidence.


We ensure activities often done to children—washing hands, brushing hair, or putting on a coat—can be done by children. Having these opportunities means each time children practice, they do so with increasing skill and pride. These simple tasks carry profound developmental weight, reinforcing children’s self-concept and strengthening their ability to function with increasing autonomy.


Learning to Care for the Self: Wiping the Nose


For our internationally credentialed teachers, even the simplest daily tasks are viewed as meaningful opportunities for children to build independence and confidence. One such task—often overlooked by adults but deeply empowering for children—is learning how to wipe their nose.


This Practical Life activity is typically introduced around age one, or when a child enters a Montessori classroom. It is designed not only to support hygiene but also to encourage autonomy, intentional movement, and body care.


This activity can also be introduced at home! (We know you are doing your best at raising children. Many of these skills are performed more easily and joyfully in Wheaton Montessori School’s classrooms among friends and with teachers’ support. We’ve got you covered! These lessons have already started this year. We’ll keep supporting your children as much as they need to get to independence.


A Prepared Environment for Self-Care


To support this important developmental step, first think about how to carefully prepare the environment:


  • Set up a small basket or container that holds about 10 tissues, each folded in half. (During flu and cold season, full-size tissues may be used for greater effectiveness.)
  • Place a small trash can nearby for easy disposal.
  • Have a mirror, either mounted or resting at the child’s height, to allow your child to observe their own face and movements.
  • Store extra tissues nearby, either on a grooming table or supply shelf, to support repetition and independence.


This setup encourages children to move freely and participate fully in the process, fostering confidence and coordination.


Step-by-Step: The Wiping Process


Next, we can model and provide gentle guidance:


  • Invite your child to come to the mirror.
  • Help them notice something on their nose and explain the purpose of the activity.
  • Show the tissues and select one, unfolding it slowly and deliberately.
  • Invite your child to select and open a tissue.
  • Face the mirror and demonstrate how to place the tissue so each half forms a “tent” over the nose.
  • Gently bring the tissue edges together and wipe upward and outward.
  • Fold the tissue in half, then rotate it and repeat with the other side.
  • Use the remaining clean section to dab gently under the nose.
  • Dispose of the tissue in the trash.
  • Invite your child to have a turn and, if needed, show the mucus on the tissue as a reference.
  • Encourage repetition with a new tissue if their nose is not yet clean.
  • Remind your child that they may wipe their nose anytime.
  • Follow up with handwashing to reinforce cleanliness.


If your child has excessive mucus or needs a more thorough cleaning, you can also use pre-moistened wipes. We typically introduce nose blowing around age 2.5 to 3.


When introducing this activity, it is helpful to consider its overarching purposes. First and foremost, learning how to wipe one’s nose helps support independence and confidence. The process also helps children develop self-awareness and tools for self-care. 


We can also highlight certain movements so that our children achieve success. In Montessori classrooms, we call these “points of interest.” The key points of interest in this activity are:


  • Watching their own movements in the mirror
  • Observing the removal of mucus from their face
  • The folding and unfolding of the tissue
  • Practicing care not to touch the mouth during wiping


A Foundation for Independence & Self-Awareness


At Wheaton Montessori School, every Practical Life activity serves a deeper purpose. Even wiping the nose becomes a pathway to self-discovery, dignity, and joyful independence. By breaking down the steps and offering repeated, respectful invitations to participate, we give children the tools they need to become gracefully self-aware and independent.


Care of oneself is about far more than hygiene or appearance. These early experiences shape children’s understanding of their place in the world and prepare them to become responsible, confident, and independent human beings.


In this community, self-care isn’t a chore—it’s a celebration of children’s growing independence. Come visit Wheaton Montessori School to learn more about activities that cultivate children’s capability and self-respect. Observations for current parents begin in October each year.


How Your Young Children Learn and Why It Matters

How Your Young Children Learn and Why It Matters

By Rebecca Lingo • February 23, 2026
How Your Young Children Learn and Why It Matters Your young children learn by actively constructing themselves through purposeful work. From birth through age six, learning is not passive or instructional. It is driven from within your child, supported by responsive adults like you and all of my colleagues. This internal passion to learn is also boosted through the campus design and surroundings. Every movement, repetition, and exploration is meaningful work that builds the child’s body, mind, language, and sense of self. How learning happens Active construction through work: Your young children learn by doing. Don’t we all! Movement, using the hands, exploring real materials, and repeating challenging tasks are how the brain develops. This work must be meaningful and appropriately challenging, not busy work. Movement and the hand: Development of walking, balance, and refined hand use is foundational. Your children of all ages need freedom to move and manipulate real objects to fully develop coordination, concentration, and foundational academics like writing and adding. Language through relationship: Language develops through reciprocal human interactions. Rich spoken language, conversation, naming the world, and storytelling are essential. Wheaton Montessori School eliminates screens and background noise to highlight communication. Sensorial exploration of reality: Your children learn the world through their senses. Touching, comparing, carrying, observing, and interacting with real things builds the foundation for imagination, reasoning, and abstract thinking later. Authentic Montessori immerses us in exploration and discovery. Sensitive periods: Your children pass through brief, powerful windows of heightened interest and ability, such as for language, movement, social behavior, etc. Wheaton Montessori School teachers observe and offer the right experience at the right time. Learning happens easily and joyfully and feels like play! Concentration and normalization: When your children are connected to meaningful work that they choose themselves and repeat, they develop deep concentration, self-regulation, delight in effort, and care for others. Why This Is Important Early experiences shape lifelong learning: Early experiences lay the neurological, emotional, and social foundation for everything that follows. Missed opportunities are harder to recover: Skills learned during ideal stages are acquired with ease. When these periods are missed, learning later requires more effort and frustration. My colleagues are passionate about tailoring lessons and their classrooms to match child development (and adolescent development, too!) Strong foundations support later independence: Your children deserve rich early support leading to confident, capable, socially aware, and academically prepared people. Well-supported children become well-adjusted humans: This approach supports not just academic readiness, but the development of secure, courteous, empathetic children who care about their community and the world. In short, your children learn best when they are trusted as active learners, supported by attentive adults, and given real, challenging work at the right time. Investing in this early foundation supports not only your child’s success in school, but their lifelong well-being and ability to thrive.
Be Quiet and Sit Still

Be Quiet and Sit Still

By Rebecca Lingo • February 16, 2026
At Wheaton Montessori School, your child is guided by highly trained professionals who deeply understand child and adolescent development. Every day, thoughtful structures and intentional practices support students in using their intellect, curiosity, time, and choices successfully, so they can grow into capable, self-directed individuals. Dr. Maria Montessori never equated being “good” with silence or stillness. Our teachers do not equate being well-behaved with being quiet and sitting still. In fact, like Dr. Montessori, we believe that movement, communication, and social interaction are essential to learning. When you observe a classroom at Wheaton Montessori School, you’ll see exactly that: children moving purposefully, talking with peers, collaborating, and responsibly managing their academic work throughout the day. What may look like “freedom” on the surface is actually built upon a strong underlying structure. Students experience a sense of choice, what to work on, where to sit, how long to engage, and who to collaborate with, because the environment has been carefully prepared to support those decisions. The Power of Structure and Grace The foundation of our campus is made up of proactive lessons called Grace and Courtesy . These lessons explicitly teach students how to: Set up and return materials Respect others’ space and work Ask to observe a peer’s work Acknowledge feelings and resolve conflict respectfully These shared lessons give everyone a common language and reference point for living and learning together. Older or more experienced students model appropriate behavior, creating classrooms full of young teachers, not just the adults guiding the environment. Students always have opportunities to challenge themselves or to take a healthy break. They work and play with materials they are developmentally ready to use, ensuring success while still encouraging growth. Not a Free-For-All: A Thoughtfully Designed Community Authentic Montessori environments are often misunderstood as unstructured. In reality, our campus is carefully designed to meet the developmental needs of preschool children through high school freshmen. The structure is natural, respectful, and aligned with who children and adolescents truly are. We know learners may still experience frustration, regret, and disappointment at times. Those moments are part of learning. When a child sits beside a teacher to regroup, it may feel like a “time out” to them, but it is actually a moment of support, reflection, and connection within a safe community. When challenging behaviors arise, our teachers respond with empathy and expertise. They understand that all behavior communicates a need. Rather than relying on rewards or punishments, teachers may guide a child toward a break, offer work that better meets their developmental needs, or help them return to a centered and purposeful state. Growing Self-Discipline From the Inside Out At Wheaton Montessori School, self-discipline and regulation develop through meaningful activity. Expected behavior grows through practice within a warm, structured community. Curiosity sparks interest, interest fuels focus, and focus leads toward mastery. This process contributes to valorization, your child’s growing sense of confidence, capability, and belonging. Children who feel balanced and respected naturally behave with greater care for themselves, others, and their environment. This sums up Dr. Montessori’s limits in three rules: care for yourself, care for others, and care for your surroundings. The true outcome of this work is human development: your child and adolescent’s identity, agency, purpose, and love of learning. When they understand big ideas and see themselves as capable contributors, they grow in ways that last a lifetime.