Summertime is Coming...

Our weekly summer program, Ponte Montessori, is truly not to be missed, and registration is right around the corner!  Each week, forty lucky 3-6 year olds will get the opportunity to revel in the wonders of summer in a fully Montessori House.  From fencing to pizza making, golf to rocketry (it will be 50 years after all!), our children, guides and adjunct faculty will share remarkable days that won't soon be forgotten.  And, YES, all of our advanced developmental programming will still be in force.  Your child's growth doesn't take a vacation.  Neither do we.  Click here to learn more...

“Mi piace l'ora di pranzo!”

Even for those of us who love our corner of Penn’s Woods, February’s mid-winter gray can challenge the soul. So we travel. All of Maria’s House. Travels. Every Wednesday. As the cukoo in our hall clock marks each hour before lunch, the air becomes warmer, the breeze more mild, the light clearer, colors more defined, music more lyrical, until...

Until a broad hat and vivid scarf appear outside our atrium window, then on our porch, and then, finally, at the entrance to the Great Hall, which echoes with a friendly, chaotic chorus of "Buon giorno!... Come stai?..." and our favorite, "Mi piace l’ora di pranzo!" Because we really do like our lunch hour at Maria’s House, especially on winter Wednesdays.

As one of our Montessori cultural attaches, Signora Cinzia is a weekly guest in our House, and the embodiment of all things Italian, from stories and songs to foods, places, customs, and (of course) language. Our Cultural Anthropology approach is a pilot Montessori research program of Maria's House, in partnership with Frau Dr. Anna Shantz (Institute for Foreign Languages) and the Princeton Center for Teacher Education. Our explorers and staff are introduced to languages, traditions and more in an organic, immersive way, guided by gifted native pedagogues who (using almost no English on our campus) communicate the breadth and scope of their particular culture with joy and respect.

So, do you need a mid-week retreat? Take a minute on Wednesday and remember the children and guides of Maria’s House. Whatever the weather, we'll be basking in the warmth of the Caput Mundi, speaking in dialects of the Apennine Peninsula, and enjoying one more lunch in the City of the Seven Hills, lively, eternal, Rome. Ci vediamo a Casa di Maria. Ciao!