Goals Goal 1 Ensure a loving and nurturing environment. Goal 2 Instill the love of learning. Goal 3 Facilitate in building self-esteem. Goal 4 Respect the unique learning style of each child. Goal 5 Foster a natural compassion for others and the environment.
Dr. Maria Montessori discovered a good deal about the nature of the learning process in young children. She came to believe that every child delights in spontaneous activity directed toward intellectual discovery. A carefully prepared environment in a Montessori classroom nourishes and encourages a child's natural development. Attitudes and 5 | P a g e confidence developed during these formative years will serve them throughout their lifetime. For a confident child, new activities are not only a challenge but also a delight. A child is most apt to retain a positive attitude toward learning and acquire confidence in a relaxed atmosphere where they set their own pace, follow their own interests, and are freed of criticism and competition. The following are some basic Montessori concepts: 1. The small child is a lover of work--spontaneously chosen and carried out with profound joy. 2. The child needs to learn by doing. At each stage in a child's mental growth, corresponding physical occupations are provided by means of which they develop and refine their movements. Their natural wish, "Help me to do it myself", is respected. 3. Based on a profound respect for the child's personality, there is room to grow in biological independence. The child is allowed a large measure of liberty (not license), which forms the basis of real self-discipline. This is a higher discipline, which originates within the child as they gain practice making their own decisions and exercising their own will. It is not a discipline, which is imposed from without and based on rewards and punishments. 4. Since the children are free from competition and they do not work for praise or rewards, learning becomes its own true reward, and the sharing of learning naturally follows. Children help each other and learn from each other; they do not compete against each other. This results in a positive social community within the classroom. 5. Finally, the Montessori Method develops the whole personality of the child, not merely their intellectual faculties but also their power of deliberation, initiative, creativity, and independent choice. The children are helped on both the emotional and intellectual levels to gain skills, confidence, and awareness in order that they will become the mentally, physically, and spiritually healthy and happy adults they are meant to be.
Areas of Learning For over 100 years the Montessori Method has proven that if we prepare an environment that is rich in activities that match the interest of the child at different stages of development, the child will reach a deep level of concentration, instill a love of learning and at the same time exceed the academic level that is expected in a traditional school environment. Dr. Montessori designed materials and activities to fulfill the inner needs of the child. The Montessori environment prepares the child in the following areas:
Practical Life
It is the most important educational area for life preparation. The activities generally include – care of the environment, care of the person, grace and courtesy. Much of the Practical Life has to do with adapting to one’s own culture; children practice dressing themselves, sweeping, spooning, pouring, using good manners and much more. By means of these activities, children learn to make intelligent choices, to become physically and mentally independent and responsible. They learn to concentrate, to control muscles, to move and act with care, to focus, to analyze logical steps and to complete a cycle of activity. This lays the groundwork for mental and physical work in all other areas of work in the future.
Sensorial
The young children are taking in impressions of the world through all their senses. Classroom activities such as The Pink Tower, The Color Tablets and The Sound Cylinders can be found in the Sensorial area. They illustrate concepts such as large and small, dark and light and loud and soft. These materials have a specific way to be used because it is in this way that the child develops an understanding of the concept each is designed to teach. They are intended to order, classify, refine, explore and realize the sense of impressions that the child already has. Each piece of material also has a built in control of error. Language In the Montessori environment language flourishes through the use of all the activities in the classroom. We give the language as we present the objects and activities, which lay the foundation for many future academic studies. Children learn to trace the Sandpaper Letters and the phonetic sounds of the alphabet. By using the Movable Alphabet, children construct words and later compose sentences. By their own initiative, they discover writing and reading as young as three years old. Our aim is to delight them by using various enrichment materials and fun games with the learning of language.
Mathematics 7 | P a g e Dr. Montessori demonstrated that if children had access to mathematical equipment in their early years, they easily and joyfully assimilated many skills of arithmetic. She designed concrete materials to represent various quantities and observed that once children became interested in counting, they liked to touch or move the items as they enumerated them. By combining, separating, counting, and comparing, the children demonstrated the basic operation of mathematics. Children in a Montessori class never sit down to memorize math facts. They learn by actually performing the operations with concrete materials - “Hands-On Math” - and they learn the quantities and symbols for numbers into the thousands. They often learn addition, subtraction, multiplication and division with the decimal system. Children choose their work and repeat each step with joy and enthusiasm until they are ready to move to the next level.
Science
Science is divided into natural science with the study of plants and animals and physical science through age appropriate discovery projects and experiments.
Cultural Studies
Geography, history, art and music are all integrated into each other, which serve as a whole in the learning experience of the child. In geography, puzzle maps are used to present the concrete image of the world. Children also learn the different types of land formations and features. They also gain the awareness of the world around them by exploring other countries, customs, foods, music and language. They begin with an introduction to the idea of history by making a time line of their own lives, starting with their baby pictures. The children have the freedom to explore with their imaginations using a variety of art medium for self-expression. The importance of the process is stressed, not the end product. The musical element that appeals to young children is rhythm, and the natural response to rhythm is physical movement; therefore, the body is the child’s first instrument through which a response to music is reflected and interpreted. Music also benefits the development of language in young children.
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