A Sprinkling of Holiday Ideas

We have seen how children feel more grounded and cooperative when they have a role to play. Thus, whenever possible, it’s helpful to find little (and sometimes big!) ways for children to help with holiday preparations. Children’s active participation helps them develop important life skills and also helps them better adapt to changes in holiday rhythms and routines.

We would like to share some ideas on how to integrate the Montessori principles practiced at Wheaton Montessori School into your holiday celebrations and family time this festive season. Above all, we advocate for keeping the holiday season a time to enjoy togetherness! We offer this sprinkling of options during a time when we have a lot going on in our lives and with our families. If even one can help sweeten your time together, fabulous!

Children’s participation can take a variety of forms. Choosing meaningful activities that don’t cause more stress and strain is important. Here are a few of our favorites!

Holiday Decorating

If your family enjoys decorating, consider creating a child-sized decoration station, perhaps with a small tree or table at your child’s height. They can practice placing candles, arranging decorations, and generally having a hand in creating their own festive space. Of course, if it feels right, they can also add to the general household decorations!

Gift Wrapping

When preparing gifts for family and friends, consider setting up a simple wrapping station with materials appropriate to your child’s age and abilities. They can help tape, cut paper, add ribbon, decorate tags, or even add colorful scribbles to butcher or white paper. Child-decorated wrapping paper tends to be a family favorite! Plus, the skills involved with wrapping encourage fine motor development! Older children might appreciate step-by-step instructions on measuring the wrapping paper, folding it around a gift, and taping it securely. The youngest ones might appreciate a simple process of placing items into fabric gift bags and tightening the drawstrings.

Baking and Cooking

Allowing children to participate in creating, baking, and decorating treats often provides a huge sense of pride and accomplishment. There are all sorts of simple, manageable steps in this process, from pouring remeasured ingredients into a bowl, to kneading dough, to adding icing or sprinkles.

Setting the Table

Children can also help create or select a centerpiece for the table. If possible, they can even use natural or found items. A little collecting walk may uncover natural beauties, like pine branches or pinecones. Table-setting is a big part of the Montessori experience, so placing utensils, napkins, and dishes is a natural way to involve children in getting ready for guests or a meal! Children like learning the correct placement of each item (at neutral times), and table setting is a great opportunity to reinforce counting and one-to-one correspondence.

We recommend modeling for younger children how to carry one item at a time, for example, making multiple trips to get one fork and then the next. Once children learn this process, they can be quite independent and thus can stay focused and busy as they go back and forth. If time is of the essence, an adult can bring a tray of forks to the table for children to place at each setting. Older children prefer to find more efficient ways to manage the process.

Making Handmade Gifts or Donation Decisions

We can also support our children in making handmade gifts, which can foster their creativity and thoughtfulness. Depending upon the intricacy of the process, handmade gifts can include:

beaded jewelry
friendship bracelets
hand-drawn cards
framed artwork
freezable meals
baked goods
baking kits
homemade decorations created from clay or salt dough.

We can help our children learn our values of giving and gratitude by involving them in decisions about charitable giving and donations. They can help pick out toys or clothes or assist in preparing gift baskets for families in need.

Ultimately, the goal is to encourage generosity and thoughtfulness while including children in gift-giving.

Overall Goals

Children are especially sensitive to routines and changes to routines, so choose the exciting pieces that are important to you, remember fun traditions are built over time, maintain your key routines, and know that all meltdowns, and arguments are simply not avoidable.

Children appreciate hands-on experiences, real-world activities, and a sense of belonging. These three aspects are what they have within their classroom community. By involving children in preparations, we can create meaningful memories, independence, responsibility, and creativity and bring school experiences into our homes.

Current families with children of all ages and prospective families with children under 4.5 years of age are invited to attend our Open House on January 16, 2025, at 6:00 p.m. This event will offer comprehensive insights into our school, highlighting the benefits of completing our Primary, Elementary, and Adolescent Community programs, as well as providing a chance to interact with our dedicated teachers.

Current parents are also welcome to schedule a level-up observation to see what your next step is in our partnership.

In addition, prospective families, with young children can schedule a preschool tour and discover how from ages preschool to 9th grade engage in a lifelong journey of learning and discovery. Our waitlist is closed for students in kindergarten through 9^th grade for prospective families unless your child is transferring from an AMI Montessori school with continuous Montessori experience.

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People in a classroom setting, the Lighthouse Parenting & Montessori with the guiding the child tag line below it.

Lighthouse Parenting & Montessori: Guiding the Child

By Rebecca Lingo • November 10, 2025

In a world where parenting and education often default to over-scheduling, micromanaging, and high-stakes achievement, two philosophies stand out for their balance, wisdom, and deep respect for the child: Lighthouse Parenting, coined by Dr. Kenneth Ginsburg, a pediatrician and adolescent medicine specialist. The Montessori Method, developed by Dr. Maria Montessori, an Italian physician and educator. At first glance, one is a parenting model and the other an educational framework. But look more closely, and you'll find they share a profound common ground: both recognize that children thrive not when they're controlled, but when they're guided with care, clarity, and trust. The Shared Philosophy: Respect, Trust, and Autonomy Lighthouse Parenting teaches us to be the calm, steady presence in a child’s life. Like a lighthouse, a parent offers safety and guidance—but doesn’t steer the ship. Children are allowed to make choices, face challenges, and learn from experience, while knowing there’s a safe harbor when needed. Montessori education emphasizes the prepared environment, freedom within limits, and the role of the adult as a guide, not a director. The child is seen as naturally curious and capable, needing space, not pressure, to reach their full potential. Both approaches believe that children learn best when: They feel safe and supported (emotional security). They are given appropriate freedom (autonomy). They are trusted to be capable of growth (respect). How Lighthouse Parenting Mirrors Montessori Principles Let’s explore specific parallels between the two approaches:

After Number Rods: Growing a Felt Understanding of Mathematics

By Kelly Jonelis and Rebecca Lingo • November 3, 2025

In Montessori classrooms, mathematical understanding begins long before symbols or equations appear. It begins in the body. When young children carry Number Rods—red and blue wooden bars of increasing length—they are not merely learning to count. They are internalizing what quantity feels like. The rods show quantities in a fixed, linear, and measurable form—not loose, individual, or separate units. This difference is subtle but powerful. In many conventional early math settings, children are shown three buttons or four apples and asked, “How many?” Montessori children certainly have those experiences too, through materials like Cards and Counters. But the Number Rods introduce something more abstract: quantity as something continuous and measurable. A rod of six is one solid piece, not six separate ones. It represents a fixed magnitude that can be compared, combined, or measured—laying the foundation for the number line, for operations, and for the idea that numbers express magnitude as well as count. “This concept can be compared to an eight-ounce glass of water: you don’t have eight separate ounces, you have a glass that is eight ounces. It’s a whole quantity, not a sum of parts. Likewise, the Number Rods offer children an experience of number as a unified magnitude. The “six” rod is not three twos or two threes; it is simply six. That understanding, that a number can be both composed and whole, bridges a crucial conceptual gap for later mathematics.” Kelly Jonelis, Adolescent Program Director and Math Teacher Through countless experiences—carrying, comparing, building stair patterns, and making “ten combinations”—children begin to feel relationships between numbers. They see that five is longer than three by exactly two, and that these relationships are consistent and reliable. This concrete sense of equivalence and proportion quietly becomes the basis of estimation, measurement, and algebraic thinking. Even extensions like “memory games” or exploring one meter in length serve a larger purpose. The child’s repeated interactions with fixed quantities help them internalize what Montessori called “materialized abstraction.” They are learning, through movement and perception, what it means for a quantity to exist in space and time—a step far deeper than counting individual items.