The Montessori Method was created by Maria Montessori, Italy's first female physician. Through her direction, meticulous observations, and work with children in low-income apartment complexes in the early 1900s, she refined the use of experimental materials and created a revolutionary way to teach children that is still used worldwide in many private and public schools.
Simply put, a Montessori environment allows children to learn about the world around them through the use of their senses. The aim is not to teach facts, but to cultivate a life-long love of learning.
Montessori materials often concentrate on a single function or mechanism. These individual concepts build upon one another rather effortlessly, and so concrete objects aid the child to easily understand abstract ideas. Children work independently and focus on one task at a time.
When I give my kids these liberties to mold their environment, I really see how internally-motivated they get. You see the desire in their eyes to dig deeper into a topic that interests them.