Imagine your child blooms with a passion for dinosaurs and other mega prehistoric animals after hearing a story and seeing a timeline about life evolving on Earth. She spends the next two weeks with two friends collecting measurement facts and measuring out with a ruler and string a variety of megafauna measurements. They put on their own museum of drawings and measurements and invite their classmates to view and walk it. During this time, minimal practice is done on the lessons about measuring angles or working with prepositions in sentences. They’ll focus on that when the museum show is over.

Imagine your child has put immense effort over a couple of years into becoming a fluent reader. In fact, it seems like it’s taken a long time, longer than all the other children in the extended family. Suddenly, it seems he’s never without a book. Every day, he comes home for two weeks and says all he’s done is read. Is that okay? The Guide assures you that the flame is burning bright for reading, he’s gaining immense exposure, reinforcement, and wide-ranging background knowledge. This is a season of voracious, eager reading. Other work is happening, new lessons are being given, but mostly – reading. And more reading.

These are a few (True! Not imaginary!) glimpses of what we mean when we say Montessori learners have the gift of working at their own pace. The Montessori pace balances freedom, responsibility, individual need, and individual interest.

Yes, and, equally important, it also affords all children the time to go deep and wide in their self-chosen learning, for their self-construction and satisfaction.