A hallmark of Montessori education is its hands-on approach to learning. Students work with specially designed materials, manipulating and investigating until they master the lesson inside.

Beautifully crafted and begging to be touched, Montessori's distinctive learning materials are displayed on open, easily accessible shelves.

They are arranged ( left to right, as we read in western languages ) in order of their sequence in the curriculum, from the simplest to the most complex.

Each material teaches a single skill or concept at a time for ex. the various "dressing frames" help toddlers learn to button, zip and tie; 3-dimensional grammar symbols help elementary students analyze sentence structure and style. And, built into many of the materials is a mechanism (“control of error ") for providing the student with some way of assessing her progress and correcting their mistakes, independent of the teacher.

The concrete materials provide passages to abstraction, and introduce concepts that become increasingly complex. As students progress, the teacher replaces some materials with others, ensuring that the level of challenge continues to meet their needs.