The AIA Community Connection
Mrs. Prosser on the Montessori three-year cycle, Coffee & Chat takeaways, our first AIA Community Poll, Best of Georgia voting, a last call for after-school registration, and moments from around campus.
Every classroom is a small community, and every year each child’s place in it changes. This week we watched those new roles begin to take shape.
In this issue: Coffee & Chat takeaways and our first Community Poll, a last call for after-school registration, Best of Georgia voting, and a look at learning and life across campus.
Dear AIA Families,
It has certainly felt like an Atlanta summer this week! We continue to monitor the heat index and modify outdoor recess and activity times when necessary. Our staff make sure students have access to water as often as they need it throughout the day.
Despite the heat, the excitement around campus is still palpable. Students are settling into their routines and beginning to navigate the new dynamics of their classroom communities.
One of the things I love about our Montessori three-year cycle is watching children grow into new roles. Students entering the third year of their Primary or Elementary community become the experienced members of the classroom: the role models and leaders who help newer students become acquainted with their environment. For our Kindergarteners, third graders, and sixth graders, this capstone year is something they have watched others grow into, and they are understandably proud when it is finally their turn to take on greater responsibility.
Then comes the following year.
Imagine going from being the wise sage of the classroom, the student who knows where everything belongs, understands the routines, and can confidently help others, to suddenly being the newcomer again!
That transition can bring some hesitation and a healthy dose of humility. But learning to harness those feelings and move forward into a new environment is part of the growth we want for our children. They are learning that confidence does not mean always knowing the answer. Sometimes confidence means being willing to begin again.
By around the sixth to eighth week of school, in most cases, we see students fully settling into these new roles and environments. Thank you for giving your children the time, patience, and space to make that adjustment. Along the way, they are developing resilience, self-confidence, independence, and an understanding that being a learner, and sometimes a beginner, is a very good thing.
Yesterday afternoon brought a welcome break from some of our recent heat, so I took advantage of the pleasant temperature and moved some of my planning outside to the lovely shaded gathering area on Upper Campus.
There is something wonderfully rejuvenating about working outside. Sitting there gave me an even greater appreciation for the open spaces our students have to wander, explore, observe, and simply be outdoors. I thoroughly enjoyed having part of my own afternoon work cycle outside!
I would also like to recognize and thank the Parkash family for their generous donation of this shaded gathering area to AIA. We are fortunate to have a community that supports the school in so many different ways, through time, talents, ideas, resources, and care for one another.
Perhaps the children are onto something.
$350 · 2nd Grade and up
$380 · Kindergarten and up
$220 · Primary, half-day
$380 · Kindergarten and up
$360 · 3rd to 6th Grade
$250 · 1st Grade and up
For four consecutive years, AIA Montessori has been recognized by the Georgia Business Journal’s Best of Georgia awards, including statewide Best of Georgia honors in 2023 and 2024 and Regional Winner recognition in 2022 and 2025.
Those honors mean so much because they reflect the support of the families and community who know AIA best.
Voting is now open for the 2026 Best of Georgia Awards, and AIA is once again nominated in the Private Schools category.
If AIA has made a difference for your family, we would be grateful for your vote. You can vote once per day, per email address through October 31, so let’s make it five years in a row!
Look closely and you may spot your own child in the middle of something wonderful.
Thank you to everyone who joined our first Coffee & Chat with the Head of School, both in person and online. Mrs. Prosser enjoyed hearing your questions, ideas, and experiences, and the conversation took us in several thoughtful directions.
One of our most interesting conversations was about homework and why Montessori approaches learning at home a little differently.
Especially before Upper Elementary, much of Montessori learning happens through hands-on materials that children can touch, move, compare, build, and manipulate.
A child working with bead chains, for example, is not simply being asked to memorize that one number multiplied by another equals a particular answer. They are physically seeing quantity, pattern, sequence, and relationship. The goal is to help the child understand why the mathematics works before eventually relying on abstraction and memorized facts.
There will certainly come a time when children memorize multiplication facts and work increasingly in the abstract. But Montessori tries to give them something first: a deep foundation underneath the answer.
That is one reason traditional worksheets at home can sometimes miss the point of what a younger Montessori child is doing during the school day. The materials, environment, and sequence of lessons are an important part of the learning itself.
Want to understand this more deeply? We will be sharing a new Parent Education article exploring why Montessori does not rely on traditional homework and what parents can do at home instead.
None of that means learning has to stop when children leave school. If your child enjoys doing more at home, some of the richest opportunities can come from ordinary family life without turning the evening into another school day.
Turn a game of War into a math challenge by adding or multiplying the cards. Hide coins or dollar bills around the house and let your child total what they find. Give an allowance in cash and have them figure out what they can afford and how much change they should receive.
Cook together. Measure ingredients. Double a recipe. Plant seeds in a clear bag and watch the roots emerge. Build something. Take something apart. Ask, “What do you think will happen if...?”
The goal is not more assignments. It is to keep curiosity alive and help children recognize that mathematics, science, reading, problem-solving, and discovery are already part of the world around them.
Another idea that generated a lot of interest was the possibility of offering families an optional hot lunch program available Monday through Friday, with healthy meal choices from a licensed outside vendor.
Several parents shared how much easier mornings could be without having to prepare and pack lunch every day. The strongest message we heard was that families would value the option to participate on the days that work for them, rather than having lunch included automatically. We would love to hear what the wider AIA community thinks.
Tap an answer to open the poll with your choice already selected, then press Submit. It takes less than 30 seconds, and one vote per family, please. We hope to make this a recurring part of the newsletter, one quick question each week that helps us learn what matters to our community.
We also spent time talking about something that reaches far beyond academics: how we help children learn to treat one another with kindness and respect.
Parents raised thoughtful questions about teasing, unkind behavior, personal boundaries, and what children can do when someone says or does something that makes another child uncomfortable. These conversations matter.
At AIA, kindness and respect are not simply words we use. They are habits children are learning every day: respecting another person’s space, recognizing how our words affect others, speaking up appropriately, repairing relationships, and understanding that being part of a community comes with responsibility for how we treat one another.
School and home are strongest when children hear that message from both places.
Have a favorite game, activity, experiment, or creative way your family turns everyday life into a learning opportunity? Send it to admin@aiamontessori.com. We will collect some of our favorites and share them with the AIA community.
And if you missed this Coffee & Chat, there will be more. These gatherings are meant to be exactly that: a place to ask questions, exchange ideas, and continue strengthening the connection between home and school.
This week, our Middle School students spent time with Karla Ramírez, LCSW, AIA’s School Counselor, focusing on skills that support every part of their development: learning how to pause, reflect, and better understand themselves and one another.
Karla joined AIA in 2024 and brings more than a decade of experience in trauma-informed care. Through classroom conversations, small-group activities, and moments of mindfulness, she helps students build self-awareness, resilience, emotional regulation, empathy, and healthy ways to navigate challenges.
These skills do not live in a separate part of a child’s education. They influence how students learn, communicate, solve problems, handle conflict, and participate in a community.
We are grateful to have Karla as part of AIA and to be able to support the whole child, academically, socially, and emotionally.
August is the height of mosquito season in Georgia, and while AIA has regular mosquito treatments performed when students are off campus, some of those little suckers can be persistent.
Our Upper Elementary students have taken the matter into their own hands, academically speaking. They have been researching whether certain mosquito species feed during the daytime, how far mosquitoes travel to feed, and what we can do, collectively and individually, to help prevent bites.
We are hoping our budding researchers might allow us to publish some of their findings in a future newsletter. Stay tuned.
This is a very special year for AIA, and we would love to celebrate our 45th Anniversary with a spring gala bringing our community together. We are beginning the planning process and would love some help from our families.
Do you have a lead on a potential venue? Are you someone who loves planning parties, decorating, organizing events, finding sponsors, or simply making celebrations happen? We would love to hear from you.
Forty-five years of AIA is certainly something worth celebrating.
with no limit on successful referrals
Offered to currently enrolled families and employees who introduce a new family to AIA and that family completes enrollment. To qualify:
Referrals do not apply to siblings of currently enrolled students, and gifts cannot be applied retroactively once enrollment is complete.
Thank you for helping us introduce more families to the kindness, diversity, creativity, and innovation that make our AIA community special.
See you at school,
Sarah Prosser
Head of School, AIA Montessori
