Montessori schools are small close-knit communities of children, teachers, and parents. They are like an extended family. Everyone knows everyone else. Children become close and remain friends with their teachers and both younger and older classmates. They grow up and study together for many years. While there may not be as many other children in the school to form your children's circle of friends as they would find in a larger school, their friendships will tend to be closer and will last a lifetime. 

The social life of the Montessori elementary is defined by the fact that students can move around. They don't have to sit at a desk all day long. Students work together most of the time, either helping one another master skills or information, or working together on group projects. 

Dr. Montessori was convinced that children are born curious, creative, and intelligent. In designing the elementary program, she was attempting to cultivate this human potential, nurture the spontaneous curiosity with which all children are born, and inspire a sense of wonder in their spirits.

There are many reasons why Montessori classes group children of several grade levels together:

• Since Montessori allows children to progress through the curriculum at their own pace, there is no academic reason to group children according to one grade level. 

• To accommodate the needs of individual learners, Montessori classrooms have to include curriculum to cover the entire span of interests and abilities up through the oldest and most accelerated students in the class. This creates a highly enriched learning environment. 

• In multi-level classrooms, younger children are constantly stimulated by the interesting work that the older ones are engaged in

• At the same time, in multi-level classrooms older students serve as tutors and role models for the younger ones, which helps them in their own mastery (we learn things best of all when we teach them to someone else) and leaves them with a tremendous sense of pride.

• By working with children for three years, teachers get to know them extremely well.

• And, finally, there is a strong sense of continuity in the elementary Montessori class because two-thirds of the children return each fall for either their second or third year with the same teacher. Most of the children know one another and understand the culture of the class. This makes it much easier to orient new children into the group.

At the elementary level, Montessori students learn to think for themselves. They are encouraged to do their own research, analyze what they have found, and come to their own conclusions. Montessori teaches students to think, not simply to memorize, feed back, and forget. They literally learn how to learn, discovering that the process of learning can, and should, be as natural as breathing! Students become fully engaged in the learning process.