Akron Montessori School’s Toddler Program cares for children from ages 1 to 2½ in a safe, nurturing environment. Children learn practical life skills (including toilet training) in a warm and caring setting. The teachers guide the children through the comprehensive Montessori toddler curriculum, which addresses all aspects of a child’s development - nurturing the whole human being, intellectually and emotionally. By providing young children with meaningful work, we help them to understand their very important place in the human community.

Every human being goes through a period of rapid growth and development that is nothing short of miraculous. From birth to the age of 2½, the human brain grows more rapidly than at any other time of life. The infant’s neurological system develops new connections crucial to muscle control, sensory awareness, visual discrimination and language. During the early toddler years, from age 1 to 2½, the child has gained basic control over his or her body, and has begun to communicate through language. The toddler is ready for new experiences, for social interaction, and for the first formal training of the mind, body and senses. The Montessori Toddler Community is a nurturing and beautiful environment designed to awaken the young child’s potential for curiosity, activity, logic, compassion, independence and wonder.

Above all the toddler is ready to exercise the senses. The Montessori toddler environment is full of textures and colors that invite the child to look, touch and explore. Most children who walk into the classroom for the first time instantly want to pick things up off the child-sized shelves and use them. Curiosity is the first step toward becoming an active learner instead of a passive watcher.

Montessori activities are designed to guide the toddler through the stages of neuromuscular development. The Knobbed Cylinders teach visual discrimination while exercising the child’s pincer grasp. The "walking on the line" activity teaches awareness of the body’s movement. When a child goes through the full range of Montessori activities, she exercises the full range of large and fine motor skills, and teachers are able to pinpoint and work on skills with which the child needs help.