Elkridge Landing Middle School

After watching Montessori education work for their own son, the owners opened Alphabets Montessori School in 2019. The privately run school and daycare is at 6050 Meadowridge Center Drive, Suite #100 in Elkridge, Maryland, and the family still runs it with Maria Montessori's methods. Children attend from infancy through the kindergarten years. The school is open Monday through Friday, 7:00 AM to 6:00 PM, and visits are by appointment. Care is organized into three age-based programs in a single Elkridge location. The infant program takes children from roughly 6 to 10 weeks up to 18 months in a quiet, home-like room built around early sensory and motor development. The toddler program covers about 18 months to 3 years and focuses on independence, self-expression, and peer interaction. The Children's House (Primary) program runs from about 3 to 6 years and uses multi-age classrooms where older children model for younger ones and the work shifts toward early academics, practical life skills, and social development. Teaching follows AMI principles. Day to day, the school emphasizes small, personalized care, certified teachers, and family partnership rather than a large institutional setting. Meals are organic and non-GMO, and the building is kept nut-free for allergy safety. Staff speak several languages, including English, French, Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, and Spanish, which can help families who use those languages at home. Families come from Elkridge and the nearby Ellicott City and Columbia areas, and new families see the classrooms on a scheduled visit.

Children's Magnet Montessori School in Elkridge is one campus of Children's Manor & Children's Magnet Montessori Schools (CMMS), a Maryland Montessori group that has operated since 1993. The Elkridge location opened in 2016 at 6135 Old Washington Road, off Route 1 and minutes from Route 100, Interstate 95, BWI Airport, and UMBC. It sits on a 9-acre campus shared with a sister school, the Maryland International School, a grade 1 to 12 International Baccalaureate World School. The site includes a large library with an indoor playground, a gymnasium, an auditorium and multipurpose room, a secured entry system, and a large outdoor playground. This campus offers Montessori preschool and kindergarten, so it serves children from roughly age 2 through kindergarten rather than the full infant-to-elementary range found at some other CMMS locations. Programs run from Pre-Primary (about ages 2 to 3.5) and Primary (ages 3 to 6) through an Honors and Kindergarten program, plus a summer program. Classrooms use authentic Montessori materials in a hands-on setup, and teaching follows the Montessori method built around the five learning areas of Practical Life, Sensorial, Language Arts, Mathematics, and Cultural Studies. CMMS layers its own Montessori Links curriculum on top, tying each month to a theme and a continent study across character development, STEM, and the arts. Beyond daily classroom work, students get enrichment in STEM, Spanish, Music, and Yoga. The Montessori approach, with mixed-age classrooms and individualized pacing, naturally accommodates a range of abilities and learning styles, and the school emphasizes the development of the whole child and active partnership with families. CMMS participates in the Maryland EXCELS quality-rating program through the Maryland State Department of Education. To help with affordability, the Elkridge campus accepts the Maryland Child Care Scholarship (CCS), Child Care Aware of America (CCA), and Military Child Care in Your Neighborhood (MCCYN).

Three connected programs share one Elkridge campus at 6855 Deerpath Road, Suite D. Sanabil Schools is a private Islamic school that runs from infancy through 8th grade. The Sanabil Learning Center serves children 12 months to 5 years using a hybrid of Montessori and the Creative Curriculum, layered with the school's STREAM approach. Sanabil Elementary covers kindergarten through 5th grade, and Sanabil Frontiers International Academy is the middle school, which opened 6th grade in the 2025-2026 year and plans to add one grade each year until it reaches 8th grade. It is the first Islamic STREAM school in Howard County and the first Islamic school in Maryland to use the approach. The STREAM model stands for Science, Technology, Reading and Religion (Islamic Studies), Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics, taught through project-based, hands-on work. Elementary and middle school subjects are taught by specialized teachers rather than one generalist per class. Arabic language, Quran, and Islamic Studies (grouped as AQI) run through the daily schedule at every level, with Quran work focused on age-appropriate memorization and tajweed. A separate Sanabil Hifz Academy supports students pursuing Quran memorization. Classes are small, and social-emotional growth sits alongside academics. Sanabil is a nut-free campus and asks families to pack halal lunches, since no lunch program is offered. Admission for the early childhood program centers on a required Discovery Day, where a child spends a full or partial day in a classroom while teachers observe readiness. New elementary and middle school students take a STAR placement assessment, and applicants submit health forms, immunization records, prior school records, and a birth certificate or passport copy. Re-enrollment for current families closes March 31 and new enrollment closes May 1. Tuition for kindergarten through 5th grade is $8,500 per year, payable in full, as $850 per month over ten months, or as $425 bi-weekly, plus annual fees of $400 for textbooks and $150 for resources. Pre-K runs on weekly rates that vary by age group and number of days. There is a $100 annual re-enrollment fee and a 10% sibling discount for each additional child. Before-care and after-care are available for added weekly fees. Financial aid includes BOOST Maryland scholarships, Maryland MSDE child care vouchers for the Pre-K program, and flexible payment plans.