Primary
PRIMARY
The Primary (preschool/kindergarten) environment is divided into four main categories: practical life, sensorial exploration, language, and mathematics.
- Practical life activities help develop the skills of concentration, following a process, and motor coordination. They also teach children to care for themselves and their environment, helping them to become more independent. These activities are the foundation for all future learning.
- The Sensorial materials increase powers of discrimination and thus help children become more aware of variations in the tangible world. They sort, classify, match, grade, and therefore develop the mathematical mind.
- The Language materials include sandpaper letters, the moveable alphabet, and a phonics-based approach to reading.
- The concrete approach to mathematics through varied manipulatives is the foundation for mathematical understanding, and the springboard for later abstract work.
Our program also includes art, music, geography, science, history, foreign language, and physical education.
Children aged 2 3/4 through 4 years old attend Monday through Friday during the morning hours. At age 5, and at the invitation of the teacher, children may also attend in the afternoons. (MSM does not offer childcare, but we share our facility with the Chesterbrook UMC Preschool and After Care Center, which provides after care for a portion of our student population. Their website is www.ChesterbrookPreschool.org.)
Our Montessori Primary classrooms excite children's natural curiosity in themselves and the world.
We provide an environment that:
- is child-sized
- is multi-aged
- is well prepared
- encourages self-direction
- empowers independent thinking
- allows children to work and develop at their own pace
- encourages respectful relationships
- allows children to recognize and solve problems
- develops coordination, concentration, independence, order, and self-esteem