Children construct themselves and develop their potential through interaction with the environment.
Our mixed-age classroom usually accommodates children from ages 3 (toileting independently) to 6 years. Children who have been in the Montessori environment from a young age are usually able to move to the children’s house by two and a half. We offer a full day program starting at 7.45am to 3.30pm.
A Montessori environment for 3 to 6 year olds is designed to entice children to activity. Each carefully prepared activity within the environment ensures optimal opportunity for development of independence, confidence, self-esteem, consideration for others as well as basic cognitive understandings.
There are five curriculum areas within the 3 – 6 environments, which are:
Practical life activities encourage the development of independence and foster the child’s adaptation to the social context of his / her classroom. Practical life activities include care of self, care of the environment, exercises of grace and courtesies, and control of physical movement.
The sensorial materials enable the young child to discriminate, order, and classify sensorial impressions in relation to length, size, colour, pitch, smell, etc. The addition of language gives the child a beginning “scientific vocabulary” to describe and compare qualities of objects.
The Montessori math materials are called “materialized abstractions.” Through the manipulation of concrete materials, the child internalizes concepts of number, symbol, sequence, the operations of the decimal system, and memorization of basic facts.
Language is interwoven throughout all aspects of the curriculum. Specific language activities include oral language, written expression, and reading. The preschool child builds upon oral language to discover the relationship between sound and symbol. This discovery enables the child to make his or her thoughts visible (writing) and to decipher the thoughts of others (reading). Further activities spark conscious awareness of the order and function of words in language.
These include art, music, history, geography and science. The child orders simple classifications of non-organic and organic forms and identifies basic parts of plants and animals. The young child discovers the richly varied way in which people meet the same basic needs in relation to differences in topography, climate, and natural resources. Art and music are integrated into the daily life of the classroom.