Curriculum

The Montessori Primary Classroom, often referred to in Montessori terms as "The Prepared Environment", is for students ages 2 1/2-6yrs old and consists of 5 areas: Practical Life, Sensorial, Language, Math, and Cultural.

Montessori uses a "hands on" approach to learning, therefore each area has specifically designed activites and materials called "works" which have a true purpose and teach a specific concept. Each "work" in the classroom requires a "lesson" from the teacher before the student may choose to do the "work".  The majority of these lessons are given on an individual basis, although there are some small and large group lessons as well.

Practical Life: The "works" in this area are simple everday activities that adults do in their daily lives, brought down to the child's level. When you sweep, polish wood, wash dishes, tie your shoes, clean windows etc ...you are working to perfect the environment, however when a child does these activites, his purpose is quite different, he is working to perfect himself.

The Practical Life area has four areas of focus:
1.  Care of the Person which include activities such as buttoning, snapping, zipping, washing, and pouring.

2. Care of the Environment activites include polishing wood, washing windows, sweeping, mopping, folding, and gardening.

3. Grace and Courtesy, these activities pertain to appropriate social behaviors such as greeting a guest, using "please" and "thank you", apologizing etc.

4. Movement, this includes both elementary movements such as walking, sitting, standing, opening and closing a door, as well as advanced movements. There are two exercises in advanced movement, walking on the line and the silence exercises. These activities require more focus and control of movements.

Sensorial: This area provides concrete ways of teaching abstract ideas dealing with the various senses; sight, tactile, auditory, olfactory (smell), baric (weight), thermic, and gustatory (taste). They allow students to feel rough or smooth, to see big and small, to hear loud and soft. These materials are designed to focus the child's mind on a particular quality whether its, size, length, color, texture, etc. The Sensorial "Works" are not designed to give the child the various senses, but rather they serve as an aide in helping him to order, organize, and classify the many sensorial impressions he receives from the world around him.

Language: Although language is incorporated into each area of the classroom as well as into each of the "works" themselves, this area focuses on the aquisition of learning to read and write. Here the student will find exposure to poetry, riddles, and tongue twisters.  He will play sound games helping him to identify beginning, ending, and middle sounds. Through the use of the sandpaper letters the students will learn the sounds that the letters make, rather than the name of the letters as this will assist him when he begins to blend the sounds to "read". Multiple senses will be engaged as students are introduced to the sandpaper letters; they will be able to hear the sound, see the sound, and feel the sound. While the "pincer grip" (the way in which we hold a pencil) is being developed through use of the materials in all areas in the classroom, the metal insets are the specific work designed to develop writing skills.  Students will be able to explore their creativity through use of various colors and designs while developing pencil control.

Math: Through the use of scientifically developed materials, students will first be introduced to the quantity of 10.  Most children can rote count to ten but they typically do not understand what 10 actually is. Once they are able to identify the quantities up to 10 we move on to teaching them the symbols of numbers 1-10 (what the numbers look like when we write them). We do this with the sandpaper numbers. From there we teach them the association of the quantities up to 10 with the numerals 1-10. Once the 1 to 10 concept is mastered we can introduce the student to place value (units, tens, hundreds, and thousands). Using manipulatives they will be able to form and read complex numbers and eventually begin to perform the various operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division). They will also be introduced to the teens and tens which lead to skip counting and memorization of math facts.

Cultural: This area is designed as an extension of the other areas and is used to enhance students curiosity of the world around him. Here you will find continent puzzle maps, science activities, botony, solar system, etc.  Unlike the other areas of the classroom, these activites will be rotated in and out from time to time depending on the students interest. For example if students are asking questions about mars, the teacher would take this opportunity to put some activites out having to do with the solar system and let them explore that interest and learn all they can while they are excited and curious about it.