Beyond What You See!
Rebecca Lingo • July 1, 2024

Do you remember your surprise when you saw our gym for the first time? Our buildings are bigger than they appear from Gary Avenue. It’s not only our main building that is surprising. Our whole campus is larger than it appears! Our campus includes a native rain garden and a 1-acre wetland. 


Our wetland offers great opportunities for students to run experiments, have science lessons, identify native and invasive plant species, and discuss and observe wetland restoration. Students are always eager to find and study native amphibians (American toads, bullfrogs, leopard frogs, and the elusive tiger salamander).


We use our wetland to cultivate an awareness of and rethink our relationships within natural communities locally and beyond. We can investigate the history of human impact (settlement, development, etc.) on these environments, ecological succession, loss of biodiversity, and how they are being managed/restored today.  


This environment has also been the focus of classroom work. Elementary students have headed to the wetlands to search for butterfly eggs and other insects, survey invasive plants, and help clean up litter and debris that lands in the environment. One adolescent student project this past year researched nature and its relationship to mental health. Whether it is academic or service-based in focus, our students always benefit (like all of us) from time spent outdoors observing and enjoying nature. 


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: 
A child working with number rods on a mat. Text: After Number Rods: Growing a Felt Understanding of Mathematics.

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.