As opposed to most kindergarten classrooms, Montessori spaces are deliberately serene. They are exquisitely prepared to be esthetically spare. Cartoons are absent. Gaudy colors and designs are nowhere to be seen. The Montessori prepared environment does not impose rowdily upon the child’s senses but rather offers the child a quiet invitation to browse, explore, take an interest, choose, engage fully and enter into a long and deep concentration during a purposeful activity.

Montessori recognized and respected the child’s Absorbent Mind for its nature of taking in whole the physical, intellectual, emotional and psychological environment. She designed the Montessori environment to reflect to the child a respect for his nobility of spirit, his need for freedom of choice and movement, his propensity for learning through chosen activity, and his drive for independence and autonomy.

Montessori designed the environment to appeal to the child’s deeper nature and to engage his interest, not to titillate his superficial curiosity as distorted by pop culture. She recognized the Sensitive Periods with their drive to focus narrowly and concentrate energies deeply for the acquisition of specific skills, the establishment of certain sensibilities, or the development of particular abilities.

In a Montessori environment a child experiences himself quite differently than he does in the typical kindergarten classroom.
“Some educators have resisted the trend toward the ever-more embellished classroom. Montessori schools have long emphasized a calmer, understated look.”

http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/well/2014/06/09/rethinking-the-colorful-kindergarten-classroom/