Primary Class
Primary Curriculum
Dr. Montessori based
her method on the belief that no one individual is
educated by another. One must do it by one’s self or
it will never be done. A person that is truly
educated continues learning long after leaving the
classroom because he or she is motivated by a
natural love of learning and a quest for knowledge.
The
goal of early childhood education, therefore, should
be to cultivate the child’s own natural instinct to
learn.
In the Montessori classroom, this goal is achieved
by allowing the child to experience the thrill of
learning by choice rather than force while at the
same time encouraging the child to perfect his or
her own skills, so that the child can take full
advantage of future learning situations.
The areas of Practical Life, Sensorial, Mathematics,
and Language make up the central “core” of the
Montessori curriculum.
Through the lessons in each
of these areas, the children learn to perfect their coordination, to increase
their
independence, to develop their span of
concentration, to classify and organize all types of
information, and to read and write with a joy that
motivates them to constantly improve their skills.
The Geography, Science and Art areas of the
classroom supplement the core areas and provide the
children with a creative outlet so important in
encouraging their natural curiosity about themselves
and their world.
Primary Enrollment Policy
The
Montessori method is based on the premise of the
multi-year cycle. This cycle begins when a child
enters the Primary class at age two-and-a-half to
three and is completed when a child finishes his/her
kindergarten year. Depending on a child’s birthday
and particular needs, this cycle, can last
three or four years.
During these years, each
student is moving through the Montessori curriculum;
simultaneously developing the social, physical and
emotional skills, as well as the self-discipline,
that go hand-in-hand with the academics in a
Montessori classroom. So much of what a Montessori
child is exposed to (through observing the older
students) is unattainable to them until the age of
five or six; it is part of what motivates the
younger child to challenge him or herself so that
they will someday be able to do the work of the
older child. Therefore, the final year of the
primary cycle, the kindergarten year, is the most
important.
This is the period during which
everything comes together for the child: it is the
culmination of two or three years of developing into
kind, resourceful, self-directed students who then
lead the class and set an example for the
younger students.
