Our lead guide and co-founder, Noelle, has long desired a hard floor throughout the Montessori children’s house. Practical life has needed it especially.

Many of the works have small parts that may get scattered. Or, until the children learn to be careful with them, they can tend to make a mess.

Practical life includes many works of this sort. Children learn to use a spoon to transfer items like corn kernels from one bowl to another. Children use water in many works. Children learn to cut flowers and arrange them in vases. Lentils get poured from one cup to another.

These works, and so many others, can get away from children who are learning — through these very actions — how to control their motions to accomplish the task well.

And when they make a mess, the hard floor makes cleanup so much easier.

So the Tuesday before our sessions began for the 2021-22 school year, our president and co-founder, Tom, installed a laminate floating floor in half of the classroom. It took him most of a day, but the improvement in the look and feel of the classroom, not to mention the improvement in the programs now that the children have that hard, smooth surface beneath them, made this one-day task a real benefit to our children’s house.

Please support ongoing improvements like this at Hilltop Children’s House by becoming a Hilltop Children’s Champion today!