Last night was a milestone of sorts: our first official event as parents of a school-aged child. We and other curious moms and dads gathered at Friendship Montessori School for parents night, to discover what our kids have been up to for the past few weeks.

If you don’t know, Montessori is an educational approach pioneered by Italian physician Maria Montessori in the early 1900’s. Montessori emphasizes mixed-age classrooms, student choice of learning activity, uninterrupted blocks of time for exploration, the idea of learning by working with materials.

I am a product of two years of Montessori kindergarten. At the end of the first year, I graduated with my class but was later deemed emotionally unprepared for the first grade. Subsequently, I attended another year and graduated again. This is why I have two graduation photos.

Along with other parents, we got a tour of the school. Montessori has all of the things you would expect a classroom to have:

Art projects.

More art projects.

Picture books. That sort of thing.

But it also has wonderful Montessori-type stuff, including an elaborate (yet stunningly simple) system for teaching children to count, do math, and understand how numbers work using beads.

The gold cube and gold bead string represent 1,000, the blue cube/string represent 81, and the brown cube/string represent 64 and so on. Multiplication simplified.

And then there was this beautiful wooden map of Mexico divided into the various states.

And sandpaper letters, a Montessori staple. Children learn letter forms by tracing the textured letters with their fingers and then learn the sound of each so that they can start to identify the words a given letter is used to spell.

Students have practical tools for learning shapes and color, size and texture. It’s all tactile and beautiful and yet so very practical.

During the presentation of the learning materials for shapes, each parent was given the opportunity to correctly identify solid shapes by name. Both Robbi and I got ours wrong. I think 10 of the 12 parents in attendance got their shapes wrong.

Robbi took her error particularly hard.

This is, apparently, an ellipsoid. And not, apparently, an “egg-shaped.”

My favorite learning tool might be this color puzzle.

A good part of each day is spent on “works.” Children are allowed to choose among a wide variety of projects, each of which is stored on its own tray, which is, in turn, housed in a specific place on the shelf. These are the “practical life” works, exercises designed to help children learn the simple motor skills we use in everyday life: pouring, sorting, tying shoes, unlocking locks, etc.

The idea of “works” sounded appealing to Robbi (who was also eager to leave the whole “egg-shaped” debacle behind her), and so she decided to give one a try. She selected a work that featured two small pitchers, one filled with an amber-colored liquid and one that was empty. Her task: to pour the liquid from one pitcher into the other, ideally without spilling.

Robbi spilled.

As directed by the head teacher Holli, Robbi did her best to feel no shame (everyone makes mistakes) and to clean up her mess using the small yellow sponge (provided).

When she resumed her work, Robbi opted to focus on her pouring instead of mugging for the camera. Lesson learned.

We were taught that a work is not complete until the tray is returned to the shelf. Eager to redeem herself from the unfortunate spilling incident, Robbi did as she was told. Though, at this point, she was back to mugging for the camera.

Somehow, improbably, she managed to return her tray to the shelf without embarrassing herself further.

Then it was my turn. As a proud Montessori double graduate, it was up to me to show Robbi how it’s really done. I surveyed the shelf and picked out a particularly challenging work, one that required the student to scoop beautiful shiny objects from one large bowl into three small glasses.

It was clearly advanced Montessori, but I was up to the challenge.

Summoning the deep-seated mojo of my Montessori roots, I lifted my first scoopful of beads.

And promptly spilled. Yep.

But I did not let it dampen my spirits. I picked up my spilled beads. I scooped again, and I scooped better this time.

It was all good.

The evidence of my good work.

To complete my work, I returned the tray to the shelf.

And that was that. If you are a parent considering school for a preschool or kindergarten-aged child (they serve 2-6-year-olds), I can’t say enough how impressed I am with Friendship Montessori. I love the philosophy, I love the beautiful classroom, and the teachers are just wonderful. It makes me happy to think of Alden spending her days there. I can’t wait to send the boys there in a year or two.

I’m hoping that one day, they will be even better at pouring and scooping than are Robbi and I.