Independence
Children, with guidance, choose their own project, work independently or in small groups, and return the materials when completed.
Montessori education offers a broad vision of education as an aid to life. Education involves more than acquiring skills in math, language, science and the arts. Education must also provide our children with deeper skills that will enrich their lives, explore the meaning of life, the caring of self and others, the emotions of love, forgiveness and understanding, the ability to adapt to unanticipated developments, the fostering of curiosity and the love of learning.
Children, with guidance, choose their own project, work independently or in small groups, and return the materials when completed.
Successes are far more numerous than failures. Children learn to correct their own work.
Children learn to embrace rules and regulations that reflect a sense of respect for others and authority.
Children learn to pursue learning for the pure pleasure of it, rather than for short-term, arbitrary goals.
Children acquire the qualities to become “citizens of the world” and through civic virtue come to understand and cherish the world they live in.
Children learn how to learn. Children learn to pursue learning for the pure pleasure of it, rather than for short-term, arbitrary goals.
The focus is on the child’s learning, not on the teacher’s teaching. The Montessori learning environment is designed to…
The greatest sign of a success for a teacher is to be able to say, “The children are now working as if I did not exist.”
Montessori education develops a child’s potential by giving them hands-on experience with materials specially designed to stimulate learning. In the Montessori classroom…
Montessori classes are grouped across a three-year age span: ages 3-6, ages 6-9, and ages 9-12. This accommodates each individual child’s educational needs at each unique stage of development.
As the child gets older and develops more skills, they are encouraged to act as helpers, demonstrators and eventually mentors to the younger students. This mentoring approach not only develops leadership skills and confidence, it teaches children the importance of supporting and cooperating with others. This is in contrast to an attitude of competition where in order to be a winner others must be losers.
The benefits of the three-year cycle are perhaps most obvious in the Montessori Casa program. Starting a full year or more before traditional kindergarten, in Montessori, a child is given the opportunity to move from the physical world – where she can develop her motor skills, and all her senses with self-teaching, self-correcting materials – into the abstract world of ideas and concepts, all at her own pace.
During that critical third year of the Casa program is when all the learning absorbed by the child during the previous two years of Montessori suddenly fits together and makes sense; the child begins reading, writing, doing the math and showing other signs of intellectual growth. While some children may not start reading and writing during the third year, they usually do so the following year in their elementary class, seemingly without effort because they have gained the strong learning foundation they need.
We welcome the opportunity to answer your questions and show you our classrooms of actively engaged learners.