Practical Life
This is always popular with the children as many of the exercises involve household items that are familiar to them, from polishing to pouring. The activities direct the children towards ro natural independence. Your child will learn how to tie their shoelaces and pour their own drinks, whilst at the same time, develop their fine motor skills.
Practical Life encourages concentration and your child will be delighted to take responsibility for cleaning their own shoes and polishing the silver as it satisfies their love of role play. We combine Practical Life with cultural and seasonal themes, for example using noodles and rice during Chinese New Year celebrations.
Sensorial
The Sensorial equipment concentrates on shape, space and measure, sound, texture and colour. As the name suggests, sensorial materials support children in learning through their senses. Natural materials are used as their warmth and tactile qualities make learning fun, practical and inviting.
Mathematics
Your child will have already been prepared for the early maths materials, having developed their understanding of concepts such as height, breadth and patterns, through the use of sensorial materials. The Montessori materials have been proven exceptional in explaining and illustrating mathematical concepts. Your child will have the opportunity to learn numeral recognition as well as understanding quantities and number patterns. Our materials help to provide them with a good foundation on which to build on as they move into school.
Cultural Awareness
An important aspect of the Montessori philosophy is that a child learns where their place is in the world. Through a colour system, your child will learn where the continents are on the globe and engage in activities and themes developing their understanding of different cultures.
We encourage respect for all living things through care of plants and the environment. It is through these activities that we aim to nurture the spiritual and moral characters of our children. This area of learning links to Knowledge And Understanding Of The World and includes exploration of science; making volcanoes and other such cause and effect activities. This area of learning also includes investigating technology and questioning why things happened and how they work.
Language
The Montessori Language materials take our children on a visual and practical journey from learning how to recognise and form letters through to building and reading phonetic words. Through the children’s exploration of the Sensorial and Practical Life materials they will have gained an indirect understanding of the concept ‘left to right’ and will learn to recognise subtle differences in shape and sound. Through the use of sandpaper letters our children learn to recognise and form the letters of the alphabet. We adopt a phonic reading scheme, enabling your child to fully understand the way words are formed. This scheme lays a good foundation for pre-school children and follows a progression and that builds on previously mastered learning.
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Creativity
Our children are encouraged to express themselves in many different ways, encouraging them to find their preferred form of expression. The children are supported in activities using language, drawing, junk modelling, music, movement and malleable materials to inspire their creativity. They engage in music, movement and singing every day.
Importance Of Play
As adults we tend to categorise play in a very specific way. However, children find joy and fun in most activities if they are delivered with enthusiasm and energy. Your child will be in an environment especially designed to fulfil their needs socially, emotionally, physically and cognitively through play of all kinds. We implicitly believe in the need for free play and its importance in allowing your child to express themselves.
Our children have every opportunity to dress-up, use the home corner and a wide range of small and imaginative resources. Imaginative play is such as important aspect of a child’s development and we fully support them in using this area to development both language and social skills. We encourage our children to play and socialise with other children, free from the constraints of the adult world allowing them to fully embrace and enjoy their childhood.