Practical Life

Practical Life is divided into two categories: care of person and care of the environment. The care of person teaches the child to care for himself/herself. Montessori jobs help and guide the child to accomplish the goals of cleanliness, to take care of oneself, and to be independent in daily life chores. Practical Life exercises enhance the child’s hand-eye coordination, fine motor skills, social graces, and focus of attention.

The care of the environment teaches the child to clean after himself/herself. The child will learn order and discipline in caring for the things around him/her. It develops control of oneself, thus being aware of other’s needs around them.

Sensorial

The Sensorial areas include: the sense of touch, the sense of smell, the sense hearing, the sense of sight, and the sense of taste. Dr. Maria Montessori said, “there is nothing in the mind that never passes the senses.” The sense of touch utilizes tactile materials to sensitize the fingertips to become aware of the difference between rough and smooth objects. The sense of smell teaches them to distinguish the good smell from the bad smell, like perfumes that smell good or rotten foods that smell bad. The sense of hearing will help them to decipher degrees of sound, from the softest to the loudest. The sense of sight makes them aware of the brightest to the darkest. The sense of taste makes them realize that there is sweet, bitter, sour, and salty in the different kinds of foods they taste. Our Montessori classroom is fully equipped as a prepared environment for the children to have a complete experience.

Mathematics

The Montessori math area has materials that help and teach the child to learn and recognize numbers both in quantities and symbols. They will learn to recognize numbers from 0 -100 with the counters, teen boards, and ten boards. They will learn odd and even numbers, greater than and less than symbols, and the hierarchy of numbers, specifically unit, tens, hundreds, and thousands. They will learn addition, subtraction, and fractions. All these materials are available for them to explore in the prepared environment.

Language

Maria Montessori believed that writing precedes reading in a child’s language development. Here, the child learns vocabulary through stories, songs, poems, and by simple conversation. We teach the child phonetic readings, starting with lower case, sand paper letters that are presented along with the sound of every letter. When two or three sounds are placed together, the child will form a word, thus teaching the child to read at a very early age. Handwriting skills are introduced on folded paper and later on a lined paper to distinguish the tall, tailed, and the small letters. Then, the child starts learning how to spell and form words on their own with the movable alphabet. When they put words together, they will form a sentence and ultimately create their own journals.

Cultural Arts

The cultural arts area is comprised of: botany, zoology, and geography. In botany, the parts of the trees and leaves are presented alongside the different shapes of leaves. The child will also learn the different habitats of plants and animals.

In zoology, the child is familiarized with vertebrates and invertebrates. The mammals, reptiles, birds, and amphibians are also introduced.

In geography, the children will learn the map of the world, the seven continents, and the land forms that make up the earth. They will learn the universe, the solar system, and the planets. They will learn day and night, the days of the week, months of the year, and the changing seasons.

We also have scientific experiments that are conducted at circle time, for example, the study of buoyancy with things that float and things that sink or, the study of magnets with things that attract and things that repel.

Extracurricular Activities

The importance of art in the Montessori curriculum is to develop the hand as the “prehensile organ of the mind” (Dr. Maria Montessori). Practical Life within a Montessori curriculum is naturally artistic, for example, cutting, weaving, sewing, use of stencils, etc. These tactile tools help with the child’s hand-eye coordination that develops skills not only in art but, also in writing. We incorporate painting and seasonal art projects as mediums of free expression of one’s self.

Occasional field trips expose the child to new and exciting natural scenery, environments, community, and culture, just as the classroom activities are designed to lead them into further interaction in the world around them.