The other thing that I love about my kid’s Montessori school is, they teach them both Spanish and Mandarin from the very beginning. So, they get immersed in the languages very early. That alone is something public school can’t match. My kid is still only three, yet he knows his 0-10 in 3 languages as well as various other common words in Chinese and Spanish. I think exposing them to foreign language early will help them later on. I imagine that by the time he finish elementary school, his Spanish and Chinese will be good enough that he’ll breeze through foreign language classes in HS.

I disagree with CAR that only self motivated / self-directed kids will take full advantage of the montessori program. When you walk into any of the four preschool classes at my kid’s school, you’ll see ALL of the kids are busy working on something. Some work alone while some work in pairs. I’m pretty sure not all of those kids are self motivated. Yet, they all seem busy learning/working. I think peer pressure is a great thing. When you see all of your friends/classmates working, you’ll want to do the same. Also, having older kids teaching the younger ones how to do some of the work is very helpful. My kid loves to work with older kids on stuff that he doesn’t really know how to do. But he wants to learn from his older classmates. It’s like have 30 teachers instead of just 3.