““The goal of early childhood education should be to activate the child’s own natural desire to learn.””
Primary Curriculum
The Montessori Primary Curriculum consists of five interwoven areas including practical life, sensorial, mathematics, language, and cultural subjects for our children age 3 to 6 years. Children in the primary environment stay in the same class with the same teachers for three years allowing their development to be supported throughout the various stages.
Practical Life
The Practical Life activities are the foundation for all future learning through indirect preparation. The exercises focus on learning how to care for oneself, for others, and for the environment which promotes physical independence, concentration and body control. The activities include many of the tasks children see as part of the daily routine in their homes as well lessons on grace and courtesy. Each is introduced in a sequential, ordered and logical manner, providing the foundation to approach more academic exercises and develop executive functions necessary for all future tasks. These activities help children to internalize order, sequence, and the experience of completion of a task.
Sensorial
Young children internalize the world around them through their senses. Using the sensorial materials, the children develop the skills for observation, comparison and judgment. The exercises promote the development of the senses using materials designed to assist the child in discriminating shape, size, color, sound, taste, scent and texture. Each set of materials isolates a single quality or sense and draws attention to increasingly fine sensorial distinctions. These activities also contain many indirect preparations for later work in language and mathematics.
Mathematics
The math materials provide the children with tangible experiences to move from the concrete to the abstract. Children are first given materials that represent the quantity before quality is introduced. When the child has a firm grasp of quantity, the symbol is then associated to recognize the one to one correspondence of numbers. Children move through the decimal system, skip counting, units through thousands, until the passage to abstraction working with addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.
Language
The Montessori approach provides a carefully thought-out program to facilitate the natural language, reading and writing development that occurs in children from birth to age 6. The Language component is comprehensive, focusing on spoken language, vocabulary, written language, reading, word study, function of words, and language extensions. Specific exercises build skills in discriminating and analyzing sounds, laying a foundation in phonetic skills that prepare a child for reading. Stories, poetry, songs and social conversation are important components of building vocabulary and organizing thought.
Cultural Subjects
These exercises expose children to many different countries and cultures through music, dance and artistic expression. Abstract scientific and cultural concepts are made tangible as children investigate the natural world and manipulate materials and objects in response to images and experiences. Basic nomenclature of biology, geometry, physical science, and geography are also presented. Children gain an awareness of the physical world by exploring materials such as the puzzle maps and geometric solids. Through this work of learning about other cultures and countries, children develop an authentic experience of the diverse world around them.