Maria Montessori first saw the need to observe children and build on their interests and skills in 1907 when she opened the first Children's House in Rome. Since then, children in Montessori schools all over the world have been following her essential principle of 'help me to do it myself'.
Using her observations of children, she provided activities that continually developed their independence. She placed resources on low shelves to enable children to replace their activities once they had finished using them.
Dressing frames helped children to practise tricky shoe and coat fastenings, sandpaper letters created a multi-sensory approach to learning sounds and number, carefully designed concrete maths materials enabled a sound understanding of number.
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