The Little Log Cabin Montessori School is a small nature-based school in a hand-built log cabin on eighteen beautiful acres of meadow and woodlands in Cross Plains, Wisconsin.
Our Philosophy
A Montessori education focuses on the unique needs and interests of each child. As they explore their environment, a child’s natural thirst for learning and their joy and wonder at the world around them is supported by the day’s chosen activities. “Help me to do it myself!” is a leading principle of Montessori education, and independent, yet guided, exploration is at the center of your child’s day.
Biography
Hi! I am Susanne Smebak. After three decades as a preschool teacher, director, and later Montessori teacher in the Madison area, I was able to realize my dream of providing in-home daycare for a small number of children in a Montessori classroom environment. As a child, I spent some years in West Africa, where my American father worked to update the teacher training for the elementary schools of Nigeria. My post-grammar schooling was at a private boarding school in Yorkshire, England, where I again experienced life in a very different culture. In my twenties, I trained in early-childhood development and designed and directed the child-care program for the well-known Raphael House Family Shelter in San Francisco. This love of adventure, service, and the wonder of our wide, diverse world has stayed with me until now, and there is nothing I love more than sharing this with our young students.
I am fully certified as a Montessori teacher by the internationally recognized North American Montessori Center. In addition, I have a Master Gardener Certification from the University of Wisconsin and am a certified member of the Permaculture Guild. As an avid gardener, I look forward to gardening with your child and helping him or her experience the wonder of nature right outside our door at The Little Log Cabin Montessori School.
Overview
The Little Log Cabin Montessori School is a small, nurturing in-home daycare, situated within a fully-equipped Montessori classroom. The owner and director is a certified Montessori teacher. Children will benefit from the enriching atmosphere of the classroom as well as outdoor activities in a beautiful natural environment. Your child will interact with other students in group activities, while having the freedom to independently discover and develop his or her unique talents in a safe and loving environment.
About the Little Log Cabin
Our family – my husband, myself, and our son and daughter – built our multi-storied log home over several years. In the early 1970s, neighbors planted a large hillside of pine saplings as a source of future timber. Forty years later, when the stand of trees was ripe for harvest and we were ready to build, my husband Michael Smebak and a local woodworker cut and trimmed the trees that we needed to begin. Family and friends came out to help peel and stack the huge logs, and later assisted in constructing the house. These years of building were a labor of love – a process that I think of now as “from sapling to home.”
Today, we are located on eighteen beautiful acres of marsh, meadow, and woodland, and our students have nature walks and outdoor play times each day as the weather permits. Lessons and inside activities are held in the purpose-built Montessori classroom on the walkout lower level of our log home.
The Little Log Cabin Montessori School serves children from three to five years old.
Full-day enrollment is 8:00 am to 5:00 pm, Monday- Friday.
Please contact us to set up an interview
Email: Grow@littlelogcabinmontessori.org
Phone: (608) 516-4810