Montessori vs Reggio Emilia vs outdoor education: a parent's guide to the early years

Montessori, Reggio Emilia, outdoor education, forest kindergarten: looking at nurseries and kindergartens around Lugano, you will meet these labels often, rarely explained. This guide covers where each approach comes from, what a day actually looks like, how they differ, and what to ask when you visit.

Montessori vs Reggio Emilia vs outdoor education: what is the difference?

In short: Montessori focuses on each child's independence, in a prepared environment with purpose-designed materials. Reggio Emilia focuses on small-group enquiry, on the "hundred languages" of children and on documentation. Outdoor education makes nature the main learning environment, whatever the season.

They are not opposites. All three see the child as active and capable, give the environment a central role and ask adults to observe before stepping in. That is why many settings draw on more than one. The label matters less than what happens every day.

Montessori: origins and core ideas

Maria Montessori (1870–1952) was one of the first women in Italy to qualify as a doctor, graduating in Rome in 1896, and first worked with children with disabilities. In 1907 she opened the first Casa dei Bambini, or Children's House, for 3- to 6-year-olds in Rome's San Lorenzo district. In 1929 she founded the Association Montessori Internationale (AMI), which still trains teachers worldwide. As Italy's Treccani encyclopaedia puts it, the aim was to make school not a house for children but the children's own house.

• Prepared environment: child-sized furniture, order, materials within reach and freely chosen.
• Self-correcting materials: designed so children can spot their own mistakes.
• Sensitive periods and the "absorbent mind": up to age 6, children take in experiences, relationships and images from their surroundings with ease, with phases of particular openness to certain skills.
• Mixed ages: the Children's House brings together 3- to 6-year-olds.
• Freedom within clear limits: children choose their work, with respect for people and the environment.

The adult is above all an observer, who introduces a material when the child is ready and then steps back. For the youngest, AMI describes a Nido for babies who are not yet walking (roughly 2 to 14 months) and an Infant Community from about 14 months to 3 years.

A morning in a Children's House

The heart of the day is the work period. AMI standards set three uninterrupted hours every morning for 3- to 6-year-olds and two hours for the Infant Community. Each child chooses from practical life, sensorial, language and maths activities, works alone or with a friend, and puts the material back afterwards. The teacher moves between children, giving short one-to-one presentations.

Reggio Emilia: origins and core ideas

The Reggio Emilia approach began just after the Second World War, when men and women in Villa Cella, near Reggio Emilia in northern Italy, built a school for their children together. Its central figure was Loris Malaguzzi (1920–1994), an educationalist and psychologist. The city council opened its first municipal preschool in 1963 and its first municipal infant-toddler centre in 1971. In 1991 Newsweek named the Diana preschool among the ten best schools in the world, and in 1994 Reggio Children, a company controlled by the municipality, was set up to promote and protect the approach.

Reggio Children describes it as an educational philosophy based on the image of a child with strong potential and rights, who learns through the hundred languages and grows in relationships with others.

• The hundred languages: the phrase comes from Malaguzzi's poem "No way. The hundred is there"; all languages, verbal and non-verbal, are given equal dignity.
• Atelier and atelierista: a workshop for research with many materials and tools, and a dedicated professional working alongside the teachers.
• The environment as educator: connected indoor and outdoor spaces that change with the projects.
• Documentation: photographs, notes and children's words make learning visible.
• Progettazione, not programmes: work grows out of observation rather than a pre-set curriculum, and families take part.

A Reggio-inspired day

After arrival, children and teachers gather to talk about what has caught their interest. Then they split into small groups: some in the atelier, some in the garden watching shadows, some building. A question, say about how a plant grows, can become a project lasting weeks. The teacher listens, prompts and documents along the way.

Outdoor education and forest kindergartens: origins and core ideas

Outdoor education is an umbrella term for practices that treat outdoor space as a learning environment in its own right, from regular garden time at nursery to the forest kindergarten (asilo nel bosco in Italian, Waldkindergarten in German-speaking Switzerland), where children spend most of the day outside.

Friedrich Froebel, who in 1837 founded the institution in Germany that he later named the Kindergarten, the "children's garden", already put play at the centre. The first forest kindergartens appeared in Denmark in the 1950s: Ella Flatau took her own children into the woods every day, neighbours asked her to take theirs too, and a parents' initiative founded the first skovbørnehave. In the UK, Forest School spread from 1993, after nursery nurses from a Somerset college visited Danish preschools. According to the Forest School Association, good practice means regular sessions over a long period, ideally across the seasons, supported risks assessed together with the adult, and specifically qualified practitioners.

A day outdoors

At a forest kindergarten, children meet, walk to their usual spot and greet each other in a circle. Then comes plenty of free play: climbing, building with branches, watching insects, playing with water and mud. Snack, stories and songs all happen outside. At nursery, with babies who may not be walking yet, outdoor education looks more like regular time in the garden, on different surfaces and with natural materials.

Montessori, Reggio Emilia and outdoor education compared

What does the research say?

The evidence is encouraging but needs reading with care. A 2023 systematic review of 32 studies found small-to-moderate positive effects for Montessori compared with conventional schooling, in academic results as well as in executive function and creativity. A study by economists including James J. Heckman found that Reggio Emilia's municipal services brought benefits compared with no formal childcare, but no marked difference compared with other nurseries and preschools, whose practices had grown more alike over time. A 2022 review of 36 studies found positive associations between nature-based early education and self-regulation, social skills and play, though the certainty of the evidence was very low. These are averages: no study can tell you which setting is right for your child.

Four common myths

"Montessori means no rules"

Not so. AMI speaks of logical limits to activity, mutual respect and responsibility towards the community. Some rules are built into the environment itself: there is only one of each material, and if it is in use, you wait your turn. Montessori believed this was how respect for others becomes a habit.

"Reggio is just art"

The atelier is striking, but the hundred languages are not only paint and clay. In Malaguzzi's poem, the child rejects precisely the idea that play and work, science and imagination, do not belong together. Words, numbers, scientific observation and movement are as much part of the projects as drawing.

"Outdoor means only when it's sunny"

Quite the reverse: outdoor education carries on in rain, wind and cold, with the right clothing. Caution still applies. In the canton of Bern, for example, authorising a forest kindergarten requires, among other things, a heated room that is always accessible, an emergency plan and a safety review involving bodies such as the Swiss accident prevention office (BFU), the fire service and the forester.

"Children learn nothing in the woods"

It is an old prejudice, as the magazine of Bavaria's state forestry institute notes: outside, children count, sing, cook, paint and experiment. In Bern, where a private forest kindergarten can replace compulsory kindergarten, applicants must explain how they work towards the goals of the Lehrplan 21 curriculum.

Are "Montessori" and "Reggio Emilia" protected names?

It depends on the country. In the United States the name Montessori is not a trademark: as AMI/USA warns parents, any school can use it, whether or not it follows Montessori's principles.

Switzerland is different. According to AMI, the Swiss German association Assoziation Montessori Schweiz owns the trademark "Montessori" for the whole country, and the Association Montessori Suisse, which covers French- and Italian-speaking Switzerland, holds a sublicence. A school that explicitly wants to present itself as Montessori must therefore be licensed. In 2003 the Federal Supreme Court dismissed an appeal by a kindergarten using the name without the association's recognition, rejecting the argument that it had become a generic term.

"Reggio Emilia Approach" is also a registered trademark of Reggio Children, which invites anyone to check the authenticity of initiatives with its international office. Outside Reggio Emilia, it is more accurate to speak of Reggio-inspired settings. Outdoor education has no single label at all.

How to recognise serious practice

• Training: what specific training do the staff have, and who awarded it?
• Consistency: can you see the approach in the spaces, materials and timetable, not just on the website?
• Time: how long is free play left uninterrupted? How much time is spent outside, and in which seasons?
• Outdoor safety: where do children shelter, and what happens in a thunderstorm or strong wind?
• Balance: be wary of anyone promising extraordinary results or presenting one method as the only right one.

Ask to read the educational plan as well. You will find more questions in our guide on how to choose a nursery in Lugano.

Why many settings blend approaches

Because they share more than it seems. All three see children as builders of their own knowledge and ask adults to observe. All three take the environment seriously: for AMI, the prepared environment includes indoor and outdoor spaces; for Reggio Children, caring for spaces is an educational act; outdoor education takes that care beyond the walls.

Blending is nothing new. From 1908, Teresa Bontempi, Ticino's cantonal inspector of kindergartens, was in direct contact with Maria Montessori and introduced her method in the canton's kindergartens; Montessori later criticised her for not applying it faithfully. And in Emilia-Romagna, the region that is home to Reggio Emilia, guidelines adopted in February 2026 promote outdoor education from birth to six.

Blending should not mean improvising: a setting that draws on several models should be able to explain what it takes from each, and why.

Honeycomb's approach

Honeycomb School, a bilingual Italian-English setting for children aged 0 to 6 in Muzzano, near Lugano, draws on outdoor education and on Montessori and Reggio-inspired practice, without adhering dogmatically to a single label. The common thread is what the three approaches share: a well-cared-for environment, respectful rhythms, essential materials and the relationship between adult and child. In practice, that means a childhood home immersed in greenery, bright spaces, natural materials and routines that alternate movement and quiet; in the space for babies up to 12 months, separate areas for sleep, care and free movement. You can read more on our about us page and about our kindergarten; on a visit, we walk you through a typical day and the team's work.