I didn’t expect sorting boxes of Montessori materials to feel so much like returning to my roots. As a classroom assistant, I spent time sorting, organizing, cleaning, and labeling. In one of my current consulting contracts, I’m doing familiar work at the scale of a whole school. A box can contain mixed nomenclature, different subject areas, several levels, and materials from different publishers. Pulling it apart means figuring out what belongs together, what’s complete, where it fits in the sequence, and how someone will find it again. Then there’s the inventory: connecting the digital record to the actual materials and photos, identifying gaps, and helping the school make purchasing decisions. It is complicated, repetitive work. Sometimes tedious. And I’m enjoying it so much. The most gratifying part has been seeing children use materials in the areas I’ve finished. Those materials were already there, but they had been stored in boxes in closets. Now I get to see them becoming part of the classroom’s everyday work. That’s a very satisfying kind of progress.