Montessori defined her method as an influence of the whole life of the child with its aims to be the total development of the personality, a harmonious growth of all the potentialities of the child, as well as the physical and mental development according to the laws of nature.

“All our innovations can be summed up in these two principles: the preparation of the environment and the limitation of the intervention of the teacher.” (Montessori, Maria, Communications, “La Maestra Lecture 1” 2002, 1, p.28,) “…The Children's House is not a preparation for the elementary classes but forms a beginning of education which goes on uninterruptedly. With our method we can no longer distinguish the pre-scholastic from the scholastic period. Indeed, we have not in this case a programme governing the instruction of the child but a case in which the child himself, whilst living and developing himself with the help of physical and intellectual work, indicates stages of culture corresponding to generally speaking, to successive ages.... The children of the Children's Houses have begun four branches of learning – drawing, writing, reading, and arithmetic, all of which will be continued by degrees in the elementary schools. Our recent experiences may add to these: Geometry, Biology, Geography, Grammar and others. (Chapter XXVI, The Triumphal Chariot, Grazzini, Camillo, Grazzini, Baiba, Communications, 2001, 4, p. 30, “On The Subject of Subjects”)