Thank you so much to everyone for this wonderful information! I am really pondering Montessori for our little guy, and I'm in information collection mode!
I initially thought Montessori preschool would be best for my older DS because I thought it would be the one opportunity to mix with older ability-peers. Unfortunately, the only programs near us were 5 day a week/all-day programs. I gave up my career to be a SAHM, and it would've broken my heart to send him away all day. If I had still been working, it would've been perfect. (Turns out we put him in a mommy-and-me when he was 2 and Catholic preschool for 3 and 4, where the teacher was AMAZING in working with him!)
With my 26 month old, who seems to be following in his brother's GT footsteps, I'm pondering it again. Now that we're homeschooling, though, I can't decide if he actually needs a preschool. (I know, I can't even believe I'm thinking this way!) He is very social, works on "circle time" behavior at music, library, etc., can cut/paste/etc and knows all his letters/phonics/etc that they'll work on as 3s, and what he doesn't already have now will surely come in the next few months. He'll be tagging along with DS6's co-op groups for the music appreciation and Spanish segments, I'll be co-teaching his 2.5-3s preschool co-op class one day a week in the Fall(that will incorporate group sharing, etc), and he's in a weekly playgroup plus a great playcenter for an hour every day at our sports club. Will Montessori give them a lot more than we can when we're homeschoolers who have these types of outside activities?
