Children’s House (OVERVIEW)
The Children’s House classroom, for children between the ages of three to six, is a carefully prepared environment that encourages children to learn individually, at their own pace. At this age the child has extraordinary powers of mind. He or she possesses a once-in-a-lifetime ability to simply absorb information from his or her environment like a sponge. Dr. Montessori called this phenomenon “the absorbent mind”.
We have prepared a dynamic learning environment with a wealth of concrete, manipulative materials that encourage the child to discover and learn throughout this unique period of her life. Montessori teachers are trained to observe each individual child and to put her in touch with things she is most interested in learning. The results are immense satisfaction and excitement about learning.
Because we are interested in promoting the development of the “whole child”, we help children understand their feelings and how to express them appropriately to get what they need. Through “grace and courtesy” exercises, we teach children how to solve conflicts, how to act politely, and how to be kind and helpful to their friends.
The multi-age classroom allows younger children to look up to older children as well as providing the older children opportunities for leadership. Grouping children by age, as most traditional education does, fosters leadership based on outgoing personalities. In the Children’s House classroom, even the shyest 5 year old is thrust into a leadership role, because the younger children look up to him and ask for his help and assistance.
During the third year (the traditional kindergarten year) many things come to fruition for the child. Reading, writing and mathematical understanding blossom from the many seeds that were planted in the previous two years. The child leaves the program with a strong set of academic skills. But, far more importantly, he has developed the attitude that learning is fun, exciting and boundless. For a Montessori program to be most beneficial, we strongly recommend completion of the three-year cycle. She is now ready to move on to a traditional first grade setting or continue on with us in the Montessori elementary program.