Communicating what we do .............

Dr Montessori saw the child as engaged in a very serious work: The work of creating the adult that s/he will become. There has to be opportunity for the child to develop every aspect of her/his being and freedom to develop at her/his own pace and in her/his own way.

Aims and Objectives of our Service

The Montessori classroom aims to provide such an opportunity. The child learns to care for her/himself and his/her environment in order to develop discriminatory powers in all five senses as well as to acquire skills both indirect and direct in writing, reading and mathematics. The child progresses at their own pace.

At every stage, from learning to tie shoelaces to understanding the cube of ten, your child will discover the principles for him/herself through the learning materials and the interactive direction pervasive in the classroom. "Your child, this unique individual who joins each family at birth, takes from the environment whatever is necessary to form his/her particular person." quote from the book,The Absorbent Mind by Dr Maria Montessori

The child in the first plane of development (0-6) has to build him/herself first as an individual. He/She is a sensorial explorer, needing facts for her /his exploration.

The Montessori classroom provides many areas in which a child can work.

PRACTICAL LIFE: - these activities coordinate movement, self-control and lead to independence within the child's environment:

• CARE OF EACH OTHER eg. Replacing work where it belongs, helping younger children, taking turns.
• CARE OF SELF eg. Polishing shoes, cleaning, buttoning, tying laces, etc.
• CARE OF ENVIRONMENT eg. Washing up, watering plants, sweeping, etc.
• CONTROL OF MOVEMENTS eg. Pouring without spilling, walking on the line, closing and opening doors, moving quietly, speaking softly, etc.
• GRACE AND COURTESY eg. How to greet each other, how to listen in circle/group time, how to wait and consider each other, etc.

SENSORIAL these activities lead the child to order his/her perceptions: sight, smell, touch, taste and hear. The child learns to classify and discriminate and develops descriptive language.

LANGUAGE Language development is stimulated in all areas of the classroom, not only in writing and reading exercises. Spoken language forms the basis for the child's written work and later understanding of what is being written, which is true reading.

MATHEMATICS Materials here are designed to take the child from a physical concept of numbers to an abstract level of understanding of maths. Beginning with the meaning of numbers from 1 to 10, to the comprehension of the decimal system and the four processes of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.

CULTURE activities are various and include geography, history, animal and plant classification, simple science experiments, and foreign languages (as available).

OUTDOOR ACTIVITIES Form an important part of the daily program. These aid gross motor and social development. Gardening, digging, climbing, simple gymnastic exercises, ball games, etc. foster physical activity and social interaction.

HOW DO WE COMMUNICATE OUR MONTESSORI PROGRAMME TO PARENTS?

 Montessori Works provides children with a Montessori environment that supports their development from 2 to 6 years old in a mixed group setting. Children learn/observe from each other!

We enable children to come 2 or 3 days per week as well as 5 days per week in a long day setting. This is an important factor for some parents in selecting Montessori Works preschools as traditionally Montessori Preschools only have 3 and 4 year olds three hours a day usually from 9am to 12 noon for 5 days per week and those children over 5 years coming 5 full days a week. Different isn’t it?

We therefore may need to explain how our preschools function with extended hours and how we cater individually for the children in our care:

Hours earlier than 9.30am and after 3pm are times of relatively free play. Activities maybe set up indoors or outdoors and although children help pack them away this is a different type of environment from our prepared Montessori classroom experience from 9.30 am to 3pm. We are respecting the flow of children and parents on arrival/departure as children who come along each morning are not disturbing children in deep concentration, it is just free play with the emphasis on free. Interactions therefore are between the children themselves and staff do not need to interfere in the socialisation process. Staff are observers during free play! Watching from a distance allows staff to observe and to use these findings later in programming “grace and courtesy” lessons helping to empower children with necessary language to work through the challenges of socialisation.

It is much different when children line up to go into the prepared Montessori environment. We enter an environment where children need to be aware of others at work. We have one rule: to be kind to one another, we must respect each other!

In the Montessori environment the shelves are arranged with an array of hands on activities that children are encouraged to select for themselves and work with for as long as they like. (Independence and choice) Often these activities are repeated as children need this repetition to work through a process of mastering aspects/procedures of the activity/work. There is only one of each activity. There are distinct areas full of different types of activities: These consist of Practical life activities, Sensorial activities, Language activities, Mathematic activities, Geography and Science activities, Craft activities include collage, painting, cutting with scissors and drawing. Often play dough or clay is also included.

Everyday the staff observe children working and give new lessons to children. As we are open 49 weeks per year, all children receive at least one new lesson a week and are encouraged to become familiar with the letters of the alphabet through Sandpaper letters also each week as well as repeating work that they enjoy the staff are able to relate these activities to the Parents daily.

Every day a new set of focus children plus more are written in our communication book. This is for the parents to see how dynamic the classroom is and it also helps individual parents to go home and look up the Aims of the materials that your child just had a lesson on from our website. This is valuable written communication of what your child is working on, the area of work and you have individual feed back. These individual lessons, observations work samples and photos contribute to each child’s portfolio which are continually being updated. The Montessori day from 9.30 am to 3 pm is pretty full on with all staff working with and documenting observations/lessons of individual children or in small group activities.

As we work with children daily we see their needs, their strengths and weaknesses. This is often different from what you see as children act differently in our environment. We value independence, responsibility, a calm and happiness that come from inner confidence. Self esteem, self respect, self discipline and resilience are built up in this type of environment. 

Please come for an observation during our Montessori morning session to see the classroom in action. Ask the staff for an appropriate time to do this.