This article argues that the Montessori method can be recast as a viable contemporary, constructivist programme for early childhood education. Montessori believed that children in the crucial years from birth to age six possess extraordinary, innate mental powers to "absorb" the environment. This view was typical of the now outdated zeitgeist within which Montessori developed her innatist account of learning in children and put forward the concept of sensorial activity. Critiques of Montessori along anti-innatist lines developed by both Piaget and Vygotsky in the 1930s provide the possibility of a break with static, innatist conceptions of learning. The suggestion here is that while Piaget and Vygotsky both held Montessori in high regard, they were unhappy with her construal of "sensory education". Each wanted to use her method and materials as a vehicle for the constructive activity that children engage in when they learn. The paper argues that Montessori's early notion of activity can be the basis for a contemporary reappropriation of her work in the terms of cognitive developmental constructivism.