Montessori Toddler Program in Winnetka, CA

Ages 2 to 3 Years

Two-year-olds want to do it themselves. Every parent knows this, usually at the least convenient moment. Our toddler classroom is built to say yes to that impulse rather than manage around it.

Practical Life: Real Work, Real Tools

Toddlers in our classroom pour their own water from small glass pitchers. They carry their plates to the sink. They wipe a spill with a cloth kept at their height, hang their own coat on a hook they can reach, and put on their own shoes — slowly, badly at first, and then well.

These are not activities invented to keep children busy. They are the actual work of the household, sized down and made accessible. A child who has spent a morning transferring beans with a spoon has been practicing the same hand control that will later hold a pencil. A child who has buttoned a dressing frame twenty times can button his own jacket.

We use real materials — glass, ceramic, metal — because a child who is trusted with something breakable learns to move carefully. Plastic teaches nothing about consequence.

The Language Explosion

Between two and three, most children move from a handful of words to hundreds. Our classroom feeds that expansion with naming cards, picture books, songs, and adults who speak precisely rather than in baby talk. A ladle is called a ladle.

Grace and Courtesy

Toddlers are not naturally polite, but they are natural imitators. We teach the small social mechanics directly and repeatedly: how to ask for a turn, how to say excuse me, how to wait, how to offer help. Children practice these in short lessons and then use them all day with each other.

Toilet Learning

We support toilet learning as a collaboration with you at home, following your child’s readiness rather than a deadline. Our bathroom is child-height, and children move between the classroom and the toilet independently.

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