Pre-Primary

SUBJECTS & SKILLS

Our Pre-Primary classroom is an extension of the Toddler classroom. Our Pre-Primary staff is warm, engaging, and friendly. Nurturing and Safety are our first priorities. The adults in the environment act as guides to support learning in the following areas:

1) Care of self and environment

Practical Life materials are reality-based activities that you might take part in during the day-to-day or within the home. Use of these materials builds independence, intrinsically-built concentration, coordination, and a sense of order. They include:

– Elementary movements, which are refined utilized exercises in pouring, spooning, folding, sponging, opening, and closing.

– Care of self, in the form of hand-washing, buttoning, tying, zipping, or sewing.

– Care of the environment, demonstrated through activities such as table washing, caring for plants or animals, polishing metals, or cleaning up spills or dishes.

2) Socio-emotional health

Sensorial materials are an access point for growth in perception. They have built-in control for error and range from simple to complex. They focus primarily on:

– Visual senses discerning size, color, shape, and pattern recognition.

– Tactile senses such as space or weight negotiation and recognition of texture and temperature.

– Auditory and olfactory stimulation and differentiation.

– Sensorial materials are also used in interdisciplinary capacities with Math materials in the classroom.

3) Language and cognition

Even before birth, many babies react to sounds they perceive going on in the outside world. Often, Montessori parents take care to sing, talk and read to their children before their ‘arrival’. After birth, babies find themselves in a world of sounds and often, their greatest interest is in the sounds of human speech coming from their parents. Infants intently watch the mouths of the people around them and begin moving their own lips in imitation. Soon, they begin to explore their own ability to create different kinds of sounds and develop a fascinating repertoire of syllables that they will repeat over and over, trying to perfect the control of their throat, tongue and lips.

4) Sensitive Period for Order

According to Montessori, the sensitive period for language development happens between years three and six. During that time, Primary students work to build the following three skill sets:

– Spoken Language, which can include anything form basic vocabulary.

– Written Language, starting with a study of a letter’s shape and correlating sound, rather than its name, then progressing toward use of a moveable alphabet and materials that bolster pencil grip and handwriting.

4) Fine and gross motor skills

Fine motor skills are small movements — such as picking up small objects and holding a spoon — that use the small muscles of the fingers, toes, wrists, lips, and tongue

– Gross motor skills are the bigger movements — such as rolling over and sitting — that use the large muscles in the arms, legs, torso, and feet.

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