CURRICULUM

Primary Program Curriculum

Practical Life
Practical Life is the cornerstone of the Montessori Method, providing practical experiences in everyday living. These activities are an aid to the development of fine motor skills, and also foster important life skills such as independence, concentration, order and ability to take care of ones’ self and the environment. Practical Life Work is made up of tasks that teach sequence and order. By practicing these activities the child develops a higher level of concentration while completing the work cycle. Practical Life work involves practice in the following areas: Care of Self, Care of the Environment, Primary Movements of the Hand, Body Management and Grace and Courtesy.

Sensorial
The Montessori Sensorial materials promote learning through the senses. The materials are designed to develop and refine the child's ability to observe and learn with all of the senses, and to think and reason. Students learn to distinguish and differentiate physical properties through auditory, visual, tactile, kinesthetic, gustatory and olfactory senses. These learning experiences serve them well as a foundation for later language and mathematical work as well as introducing vocabulary to describe things in categorical ways.

Language
Language in a Montessori class is woven through all content areas of the curriculum, allowing the student to develop an extensive vocabulary during the sensitive period of language development which occurs in a young child. The youngest children have a variety of language materials available to them which work with basic phonics (letter sounds), rhyming, and auditory language work to prepare them for reading. Speech articulation and expression of ideas are emphasized for all ages through continuous encouragement of conversational and communication skills.

Through the use of Montessori materials, primary students learn phonics and begin to read. The moveable alphabet is an integral tool for the child and allows them to manipulate the concrete letter symbol to create words phonetically, by sound. In this way the students learn to read by combining letter sounds and to develop encoding skills. As the child builds a repertoire of sounds through repeated practice with the moveable alphabet and other materials, the child becomes an emergent reader.

Even the youngest of students begin to develop writing skills in our primary classroom. Montessori materials which are designed to strengthen hand manipulation (such as pin pushing, scissors and practical life exercises) help to develop the student's pencil grip. As already mentioned writing is introduced initially through tracing sandpaper letters while learning each letter sound. In this way the child learns letter formation early and later will be ready to begin writing on chalkboard and paper. The joy of succeeding in this area then leads to an explosion into writing, which Dr. Montessori discovered in four and five year olds. Writing letters soon develops into making words.

Math
In our classrooms the child works with Montessori-designed hands-on materials to come to an understanding of concrete mathematical concepts. Repeated work in manipulating quantities of objects leads to a strong foundation of number sense. Later the child will be introduced to numeral symbol recognition and the association of quantity to symbol.

Our colorful and eye catching beautiful Montessori maths materials encourage the students to explore the association of quantity to numerical symbol all the way into the thousands. Instruction begins with numbers up to ten and then continues to the teens, tens, skip counting, hundreds and thousands. Children begin to learn to manipulate quantities through the operations of addition, using the materials created by Dr. Montessori.

Cultural Studies
Our culture studies program includes geography and the study of the cultures that make up our world. Students work with globes to first learn of our earth and its place in the universe. From there students are introduced to the earth's continents through the use of puzzle maps. Our Montessori materials introduce students to countries, states and capitals. Studies of culture introduce students to the diverse languages, traditions, holidays, food and lifestyle of other peoples. By embracing other cultures our students learn in depth about similarities and differences, fostering compassion, understanding and peace.

Science
Our pre-primary classrooms have an abundance of science materials. Areas of science studies include Botany, Zoology, Life and Earth Sciences, Ecology and Nature. With hands-on materials, our students learn to observe and classify things beginning with Living vs. Non-Living, Plant and Animal, and from there learn to classify animals into Vertebrates and Invertebrates by type. Further studies of the parts of plants and animals enrich the student's vocabulary with the names of living things and their anatomies.

Our students also learn about geology and Earth Sciences through the study of rocks, layers of the earth, land and water formations. Students learn scientific processes and language through work in which they compare, contrast and experiment with magnetism, gravity, physical attributes and their opposites. Life Science studies include human anatomy, animal habitats and life cycles. Nature studies include gardening, field lessons and nature walks. We emphasize our connection to the earth and all of its life forms along with our responsibility to care for the earth. Each year we study environmental concepts such as composting and Reduce, Reuse, Recycle through hands-on activities.