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Cassia HouseMontessoriBook a tour

Small hands. Real work. A school built at your child's height.

Children here pour, sweep, button, and build. Independence is the curriculum — not a poster on the wall.

Tours run weekly, children mid-work. Four families at a time.

Now enrolling · Toddler & Primary · 2026–27

What we hold

Four quiet convictions.

  • Independence, practiced

    Coats on their own hooks, tables wiped by their own hands. Help me do it myself — one real task at a time.

  • Concentration, protected

    A three-hour uninterrupted work cycle, because focus is a skill you protect — not interrupt.

  • Grace & courtesy

    How to greet, wait, offer help, and disagree — taught as carefully as letters and numbers.

  • Real work

    Glass pitchers, real brooms, bread that needs slicing. Children know the difference, and rise to it.

A morning at Cassia

What will my child's day actually look like?

Scroll through one morning. The sun keeps the time; the children keep the rhythm.

One morning, kept at a child's pace

  1. 8:15

    Arrival

    A handshake at the door, a coat on its own hook. Children walk in on their own two feet — that's the point.

  2. 8:30

    The work cycle begins

    Three uninterrupted hours. A child chooses a material, carries it to a mat, and works until the work is done.

  3. 9:45

    Snack, when ready

    Apples sliced and bread buttered by small hands. Snack is a task children serve each other — not a bell everyone obeys.

  4. 11:45

    Garden & lunch

    Watering cans, worm sightings, and lunch at tables the children set themselves — then clear themselves.

  5. 12:30

    Rest, or more work

    The youngest sleep on low cots. Older children return to the room for an afternoon of the same unhurried work.

Programs

Two rooms, one unhurried arc.

Children stay with the same guide for the length of the cycle — years, not semesters.

Toddler Community

Ages
18 months – 3 years
Hours
8:30 – 12:30 · Mon – Fri
Ratio
1 guide : 6 children

Language, movement, and first independence — pouring, dressing, helping — in a room that expects capability.

  • Gentle, gradual first weeks
  • Toilet learning, unhurried
  • Daily outdoor time, all weather
Tour this room

Primary

Ages
3 – 6 years
Hours
8:30 – 3:00 · Mon – Fri
Ratio
2 adults : 24 children

The full three-year cycle: practical life, sensorial work, language, and mathematics — with the kindergarten year as the harvest.

  • Three-hour morning work cycle
  • Mixed ages, by design
  • Extended day to 5:00 available
Tour this room

Mixed-age rooms are the method, not a compromise: the younger ones watch and reach; the older ones lead and consolidate.

Our guides

Trained to step back.

Every lead guide holds an AMI diploma — a full year of training in observing first and intervening last.

  • Primary Guide · Directress

    Mara Okafor

    Founded Cassia House after a decade guiding in public Montessori. Keeps a notebook of what each child chose, and when.

    AMI DIPLOMA (3–6) · 11 YEARS IN THE ROOM

  • Toddler Guide

    June Weaver

    Runs the toddler community at a volume just above a whisper. Believes every eighteen-month-old deserves real bread to butter.

    AMI DIPLOMA (0–3) · INFANT MENTAL HEALTH CERT.

  • Primary Guide

    Theo Lindqvist

    Built half the shelves in the primary room to the centimeter. Gives the quietest, most exact presentations in the house.

    AMI DIPLOMA (3–6) · FORMER CABINETMAKER

The printed Cassia House parent guide: What to Look For in a Montessori Classroom.

PARENT GUIDE · 14 PP · PDF

Free parent guide

What to Look For in a
Montessori Classroom

The name on the door isn't protected — anyone can print it. This short guide shows you how to tell a real prepared environment from a themed daycare, in one ten-minute observation.

  • The ten-minute observation checklist
  • Five questions to ask any school director
  • What the materials teach — a shelf-by-shelf tour
  • Red flags: when “Montessori” is only the sign
  • A parent's glossary, jargon-free

One email, no drip campaign. Use it at every school you tour — ours included.

Outcomes, without the hype

What a Cassia child can do by six.

No percentiles, no promises of genius. Just what independence looks like after four years of daily practice.

  • Pour from a glass pitcher without spilling — and mop it calmly when they do

  • Prepare and serve a snack, then wash the dishes it made

  • Dress themselves, buttons and zippers included, with time to spare

  • Write their own stories in cursive, and read their friends' back

  • Count into the thousands with golden beads they can hold and weigh

  • Keep a plant, a pet, and a promise alive for a full school year

  • Work alone, uninterrupted, for an hour — by choice

  • Set a table, seat a guest, and carry a conversation with an adult

None of this is a race, and none of it is guaranteed on a schedule. It's what we practice, every day, until it's simply theirs.

Admissions

Four steps, no gauntlet.

We're choosing a fit, not ranking children. There is no test — there is a morning, and a conversation.

  1. Two parents walking with a guide as she tours them through the classroom, children mid-work around them.

    Tour a morning

    Watch a real work cycle, children mid-task. Bring your questions.

    45 minutes
  2. A parent filling out a short application at the desk in the school office.

    Apply

    A short application about your child and your hopes — not a screening.

    same week
  3. A mother holding her child's hand as they walk through the playroom, other children playing nearby.

    Child's visit

    Your child spends part of a morning in the room, at their own pace.

    one morning
  4. A mother waving goodbye as her child walks to the schoolhouse door with a small backpack.

    Begin, gently

    A phased first two weeks — shorter days first, a parent nearby, no rush.

    term start

Admissions are rolling; toddler places for fall are usually spoken for by spring.

Parent questions

Asked at nearly every tour.

It's the opposite — the structure is just built into the room instead of the schedule. Every material has one place, one purpose, and a right way to use it. Children choose freely within that order, which is why the freedom works.

Book a tour

Come see a morning in motion.

Three steps and a stamped card. Tours are small — four families, one guide, children mid-work.

CASSIA HOUSE MONTESSORI

ADMISSION FOR ONE MORNING

WEEK
—
MORNING
—
FAMILY
—
CHILD
18 mo – 3 yrs

TOUR NO. 0117

Tours are observation-first: twenty quiet minutes at the edge of the room, then all your questions answered in the garden.

  1. Pick a week
  2. Pick a morning
  3. Confirm
Pick a week