Red Oak Montessori School

Accepting registrations for the   2023-24 school year
space is limited.
Please call or email to schedule a tour!

YES!   We have OPENINGS in our pre-school/kindergarten program! (Ages 2.9 to 6 years)

Click on the RESOURCES tab to view or download our 2023-24 Tuition, Daily Schedule and  Registration Application.

Enriching lives through guidance, observation and self-directed discovery…

Call 934-1002  or email Director@redoakmontessori.org today
to learn how Montessori education can be a part of your child’s success.

“Our family spent 5 years at Red Oak. My daughter attended for 3 years and my son attended for 2 years – only leaving because we moved out of state. For both, it was the first place they were on their own and it was easy to let them go at Red Oak! Things were calm and safe. I knew they would not be lost in the shuffle or overstimulated or smothered with structure and activity. I knew they would be held in that important balance of being allowed to explore yet also being attended to. My daughter was really ready to step out from family and home and it was the perfect way to widen her world. My son was more hesitant at first but he quickly made Red Oak his own place. I cherish the preschool years! It is a magical and significant time and I am forever grateful to Red Oak for holding our whole family during this time.”
Selina Rossiter and Sandy Calhoun

Red Oak Montessori School, established in 1998, is located in Franklin, NH and currently serves families from several surrounding communities. We are a non-profit preschool and kindergarten educating children ages 2.9 to 6 years old. Red Oak offers full-time 8:00am-3:30pm or part-time from 8:00am-12:00pm — each with three, four or five days per week options. We offer an after care program that runs from 3:30-5 for families in need of childcare.  Please contact our school if you are interested in learning more about what we have to offer.

At Red Oak, we follow the tried and true philosophy of Dr. Maria Montessori. We believe that each child has an intrinsic desire to learn. Our prepared environment encourages children to explore, create and feel pride in all that they do. Children are free to work independently, cooperatively or with a teacher. Our goal is to foster caring, thoughtful self-directed learners. The heart of our school follows in Dr. Montessori’s words: “Help me do it, by myself”.

To aid life, leaving it free, however, to unfold itself, that is the basic task of the educator.

“My experiments, conducted in many different countries, have now been going on for forty years (ed. now eighty-five years)….We then found that individual activity is the one factor that stimulates and produces development…

“Ours was a house for children, rather than a real school. We had prepared a place for children where a diffused culture could be assimilated, without any need for direct instruction…Yet these children learned to read and write before they were five, and no one had given them any lessons. At that time it seemed miraculous that children of four and a half should be able to write, and that they should have learned without the feeling of having been taught.

“We puzzled over it for a long time. Only after repeated experiments did we conclude with certainty that all children are endowed with this capacity to ’absorb’ culture. If this be true – we then argued – if culture can be acquired without effort, let us provide the children with other elements of culture. And then we saw them ’absorb’ far more than reading and writing: botany, zoology, mathematics, geography, and all with the same ease, spontaneously and without getting tired.

“And so we discovered that education is not something which the teacher does, but that it is a natural process which develops spontaneously in the human being. It is not acquired by listening to words, but in virtue of experiences in which the child acts on his environment. The teacher’s task is not to talk, but to prepare and arrange a series of motives for cultural activity in a special environment made for the child.”

Dr. Maria Montessori, The Absorbent Mind

Our Mission
Red Oak is a traditional Montessori program. Our staff is committed to the Montessori philosophy. At Red Oak we believe that each child is an individual and should be treated as such.  We take the time to learn about each child and to create a prepared environment that supports  individual student choices. These choices allow the child the freedom they need to learn, grow and strive for each of their developmental stages.

The children who attend Red Oak Montessori are encouraged to teach, collaborate and help each other. The teacher’s role is guided yet unobtrusive so that the child actively participates in his/her learning. Mixed age groups give the child room to grow as his/her interests lead from one level of complexity to another. Grouping children ages 3-6 together permits the younger children a graded series of models for imitation, and the older students an opportunity to reinforce their own knowledge by helping the younger students.

History

cropped-67751811_2363011057078312_8799869058670395392_o.jpgRed Oak Montessori School was founded in 1998 by the Miller family. The school was an addition to a farmhouse that had been added to their home in Sanbornton, NH. The school operated out of the 1800’s farmhouse for three years, until the growing enrollment was more than the one room addition could hold. The current location at 241 Sanborn Street was purchased in the summer of 2001. Our students come from Tilton, Northfield, Sanbornton, Franklin, Danbury, Andover, Bristol and surrounding communities to attend the wonderful program at Red Oak.

Red Oak is a nonprofit, 501(c)(3) organization.