Where Learning Grows
Rebecca Lingo • August 18, 2025

One of the many beautiful and empowering aspects of Montessori education is how it helps children understand themselves as valued members of a community. A key way this happens is through Care of the Environment, a form of Practical Life work that provides children with the opportunity to tend to the spaces they live in each day. 


By participating in and building these skills, children begin to feel at home in their classroom, school, and community. They have a sense of ownership and take pride in their surroundings. In the process, they develop deep senses of responsibility and connection.


The Outdoor Environment


We consider the outdoors to be a natural and essential extension of our prepared, indoor classroom spaces. For young children who are absorbing everything from the world around them, time spent outdoors supports development in profound and lasting ways. For older children and adolescents, outdoor spaces can be a place for self-regulation and deep focus. We value being the outdoor extensions of our classrooms.


Did you know we have an additional 1-acre natural area on the west side of our campus? It’s true and we are excited to share more about this space in over the course of the school’s 25th year.


Did you know that our students have daily outdoor recess as toddlers and all the way through the end of 9th grade? 7-9th grades often go to nearby parks for their recess time. 


Did you know that older elementary and all adolescent students take annual camping trips? Adolescents are encouraged to plan and execute a second camping experience, also!



Why Being Outdoors Matters


We know natural spaces are vital for promoting the physical, emotional, and cognitive health of everyone, regardless of age. Research supports this, including Richard Louv’s book, The Last Child in the Woods. Louv highlights a growing body of evidence that time spent in nature is critical to the healthy development of both children and adults. 


In Montessori, we recognize that outdoor time is not a break from learning. Rather, the natural world is a powerful space for movement, language, social development, and sensory integration. Time spent outdoors is learning time. 


Nature nourishes the whole child. Plus, the natural world’s beauty, order, and rhythm speak to our deepest human tendencies to explore, understand, and belong.


Opportunities for Adults


Outdoor spaces become a rich environment for observation, guidance, and connection. Children are often more socially expressive outdoors, making this a critical place for observing group dynamics and supporting social-emotional growth.


Time spent outdoors also models joyful, playful behavior. Children need to see that being human includes lightness and laughter. Being outside with children offers perfect opportunities for us to play alongside them while still maintaining an appropriate level of guidance.


As children gain different experiences, they come to understand how to conduct themselves with grace and courtesy, whether on a woodland trail, at a community park, or in a garden bed. Activities like fort building or group games help them navigate the intricacies of collaborative work and group dynamics, which sharpen social skills. Montessori children learn to move through different scenes and scenarios with increasing awareness, sensitivity, and confidence.


Getting Outdoors 


Wheaton Montessori School values time outdoors; we incorporate movement and outside into every school day. We believe this time outside is an extension of classroom work and academics. Students in grades 4-9 often have P.E. outdoors, all grades have daily recess, and our all-day PLUS wrap-around students have extended play after school, which seeks to offer activities similar to neighborhood play of the past


This fall, when you come to observe your child’s class, take a peek at the outdoor spaces: open play spaces, Gaga ball pit, sandboxes, chicken coop, gardens, conservation area, rain garden, and beehives. Our playgrounds are ready for your children’s imaginations to soar next week!

What’s So Great About the Great Lessons Part II: The Story of the Coming of Life

By Tracy Fortun • October 7, 2025
Where it All Began: The Story of the Universe In the first Great Lesson, the Story of the Universe, students were introduced to the concept that as the universe formed, every particle was given a set of laws to follow. As each speck of matter set about following its laws, they gathered together into groups and settled down into one of three states: the solid, the liquid, and the gaseous. The Earth gradually cooled into a somewhat spherical form with a surface marked by lots of ridges and hollows. The ridges are the mountains, and the rains filled in the hollows to make the seas. The Coming of Life: A New Beginning The Story of the Coming of Life picks up here, with the sun looking down at the Earth and noticing some trouble going on. As the rains fell, they mixed with gases from the air, which introduced a lot of salt into the seawater. Additionally, the rocks were being battered by the sea and breaking off, adding more minerals and salts to the water. Dr. Montessori anthropomorphizes the sun, the air, the water, and the mountains very entertainingly as they each blame one another for all the trouble. The Timeline of Life: Evolution Unfolds Then, an answer appears in the form of a little “blob of jelly” which arrives in the sea. This bit of jelly is given a special set of directives that none of the others have: the ability to eat, grow, and make more of itself. Gradually, the blob of jelly divides into multitudes of creatures who set about eating the minerals from the sea and developing into increasingly complex organisms. Some of these animals ate one another, while others used the minerals in the sea and the light from the sun to make their own food. Our Timeline of Life accompanies the story. Dr. Montessori purposely does not try to show every type of animal that has ever existed on this timeline. She selects just a few examples to show the progression of life from the single-celled organisms and trilobites to the first animal with an internal skeleton (the fish) to the first animal to try out life on the land (amphibians – also the first voice!) to the reptiles, who worked out a way to live independently of the water by cultivating scaly dry skins and eggs with shells. The children hear about how the reptiles grew in size and in number to become the masters of the earth, while some enterprising small creatures learned to survive on the fringes, raiding the reptiles’ nests and developing warm body coverings to survive in the colder temperatures that the reptiles couldn’t tolerate. These birds and mammals also learned to care for their eggs and babies. These adaptations helped them to thrive while those giant reptiles…well, we don’t have them around anymore, do we? Wonder, Curiosity, and Ongoing Discovery  The childr en are fascinated by this story, which sets up for them the basic laws that govern all living things, providing a framework for the biology work they will undertake in the elementary classrooms at Wheaton Montessori School. It also serves as an epic tale of how the earth was prepared for the coming of one very special animal that was unlike any other…us! From here, the students will pick up on any number of details to investigate further. Already, I’ve had first graders studying the fossils of trilobites and crinoids (sea lilies) and others embarking on dinosaur research. The key concepts that were introduced in this story will be refined throughout their time in the Elementary community by lessons on the parts of the plants and their functions, the classification of plants and animals, and the systems of an animal’s body. And these ideas are further integrated as they apply them in their research projects about plants, animals, fossils, rocks, minerals, and limestone, oceans, rivers, and mountain.
The First Great Lesson: Big Bang Meets Elementary Learners

The First Great Lesson: Big Bang Meets Elementary Learners

By Rebecca Lingo • October 6, 2025
The First Great Lesson: Big Bang Meets Elementary Learners At Wheaton Montessori School, we begin elementary education with a bang. Literally. Known as The First Great Lesson, this powerful introduction to the Montessori elementary curriculum is more than just a lesson. It’s an experience. Often called The Coming of the Universe , it’s a sweeping, story-driven journey through the cosmos. But here’s what makes it unique: it’s not just a science lecture packed with facts and figures. It’s told as a dramatic, awe-inspiring story, beginning with a moment of complete stillness, followed by: “Once upon a time... there was nothing. Then—BOOM—everything.” A Story That Sparks Curiosity The First Great Lesson captures the big picture of how the universe began, moving through the formation of stars, planets, and the laws of nature. But the goal isn't to deliver every scientific detail. It’s our goal to ignite wonder and plant seeds of curiosity that lead students to ask why and how. Why do stars shine? How did volcanoes form? What forces shaped our planet? That spark of curiosity is what drives meaningful learning. Why Tell It as a Story? Dr. Montessori’s use of storytelling is intentional. First through sixth graders are in a stage when their imagination, sense of morality, and desire to understand everything are expanding. The First Great Lesson taps into these characteristics by offering a narrative framework that makes room for wonder. It gives children a reason to care, to question, and to dig deeper. The Gateway to Everything From this one lesson, an entire world of study unfolds. At Wheaton Montessori School, you’ll see students: Exploring states of matter through experiments Creating models of volcanoes and Earth's layers Studying star formation and black holes Building timelines of Earth's history Diving into physics, chemistry, geology, geography, and beyond And it all starts with that initial story. From Inspiration to Investigation of Your Place in the Universe The First Great Lesson doesn’t try to teach everything. It gives an impression, an experience that opens the door to deeper, more focused learning. After listening to this story, learners research, experiment, and explore subjects in greater scientific depth. The First Great Lesson inspires children by conveying: “You are part of a huge, beautiful, ordered universe, and your work is to explore it.” Wheaton Montessori School, your teachers, and your community are here to support you every step of the way! We can’t wait to watch your research, presentations, and experiments develop! Because at Wheaton Montessori School, education isn’t just about information, it’s about inspiration.