The Montessori Curriculum

The Montessori curriculum encourages children to proceed at their individual pace, learning through their senses, their intellect and their associations with the adults and peers around them. 

Children are encouraged to express their own needs and feelings, as well as to develop an awareness of the needs of the group. 

The curriculum encompasses the following areas of development:

• Practical Life
  The Montessori curriculum emphasizes the practical. This helps children gain confidence and independence in their ability to deal with their day to day worlds. 
  
  They learn practical tasks such as pouring, washing, polishing and general care of themselves and their environment. 
  
  Coordination and concentration in the child increase steadily as more challenging tasks are tackled and mastered.

While working in this area, the children often complete cycles of activity such as, washing, drying, folding and replacing the cloths in our classroom.  All of these are separate activities on their own, but the child is free to complete the entire cycle thus gaining an appreciation for the amount of work it takes for clean fresh cloths to be on the shelf at their disposal. 

The Practical Life area is a stepping stone to more academic areas like Math and Language by providing the child the opportunity to work through a logical sequence, e.g.:  washing dishes requires a specific, logical order of the steps otherwise your goal will not be achieved.  Likewise with mathematical operations and word or sentence structure.

• Sensorial
  
  Maria Montessori recognized that a child's first knowledge of the world is gathered through the senses. It is also through the senses that the child later develops powers of discrimination. 
  The Montessori curriculum includes some 26 sensorial exercises grouped in categories of sight, sound, taste, smell and tactile sense, each of which gives the child the freedom to explore, learn and refine their senses.
• Language
  
  When a child comes to a Montessori environment, they are given the opportunity to further develop his/her language by utilizing and consolidating what they know already. The adults and the children in the environment speak clearly, accurately, freely, and logically with each other, always listening to what the other person has to say.
  
  Many verbal activities help the child consolidate their oral skills and facilitate the child's arrival at reading and writing. The child is encouraged to listen to the sounds in words and thus language is developed through the phonic sounds and is further developed through the use of sand paper letters.

Once the child has a concrete understanding of the phonetic sounds, the child is given the opportunity to explore the formation of words and stories with the moveable alphabet.  The child is invited to practice the formation of the letters on chalkboards and eventually on paper.  When the child begins to read, there are plenty of fun games we play in the classroom to encourage the love of reading and foster the development of ‘total reading’ a concept where the child fully understands the words they are reading rather than just linking sounds together.   

• Mathematics
  
  Using a variety of activities and materials, the Montessori Method introduces the child to mathematics as a whole, including the linear, the numerical, the geometric and the algebraic forms. The child learns to take up one challenge at a time, master it and move on to the next.
  The child's experience with mathematical concepts progresses step by step from the concrete forms to the abstract concepts. An understanding of mathematics is taught through the introduction of five main groups of activities:
  
  »  Quantities and Symbols 1-10 
  »  Decimal System of Numeration 
  »  Linear Counting with Traditional Names 
  »  Memorization of Tables 
  »  Passage into Abstraction 
• Culture
  
  A variety of activities and materials stimulate the child's interest to the natural and cultural world. Globes, puzzles maps, land and water forms introduce geography. 
  The concept of history is introduced by means of an events chart and time line. The child's interest in the natural world is stimulated by caring for plants, planting seeds and bulbs, and sometimes caring for a class pet. 
  Models and pictures of animals and birds stimulate the child's interest in other living creatures. Field trips taken throughout the year are planned to allow children to observe the seasons and the cycle of life in nature.
• Music
  In our "Kodaly" music program, the children learn a repertoire of folk songs, children's songs, rhymes and games with movement as a natural accompaniment to the singing. Simple percussion instruments, puppets, pictures and stories are used from the early levels, though the primary instrument remains the singing voice. This direct musical participation creates a reservoir of melodic and rhythmic motives from which musical concepts are made and conscious through the child's own discovery. This provides a solid foundation for musical literacy.

Family Montessori offers a Kindergarten program that is monitored by the Independent Schools branch of the Ministry of Education and as such follows the curriculum standards set out in the School Act. www.bced.gov.bc.ca