Montessori Class Size (method, parents, activities, son)

[Momof3nOH]

Hello all,

I recently enrolled my 5 yr old in a Montessori school after observing some of the students that seem very advanced for their age. However, I'm concerned with the classroom size as she is 1 of 5 students in the afternoon class. The morning class (which is what I initially wanted) has approximately 24-28 kids and that's the maximum that she is allowed to have in a classroom. Now, I'm very new to this style of education and wondered if 5 students were enough to make this work. Does the size of the class matter? I would appreciate if someone could shed some light and I can stop worrying about this.

Thank you

[CD's Only Mrs. X]

Is the class size different because parents decided to do half a day instead of full day? If so then I would be inclined to be happy with the smaller class size in the afternoon. The teacher can focus more on each individual child rather than the larger class size in the morning. I understand that Montessori training is much different, but I wouldn't mind the smaller class size in the afternoon.

[lauramc27]

I would love it if my daughters class only had 5 kids. This way she would get more individual attention.

[nana053]

Montessori works for individual children, so the class size does not need to be large. If it is a true Montessori school, then most activities are done individually or in small groups.

The Montessori Method - The Classroom

[icibiu]

My son just started kindgarten this week, I work full time and my town only does half day kindergarten. I had the option of either full day enrichment at a private school or half day enrichment at private school and half day kindergarten at public school. I would have preferred the full day enrichement so he didn't have to be shuttled all over the place but the class only had 7 students, which I felt was too small. I chose the half day at each school option, while I like personal attention 7 kids was just not big enough in my eyes.