Pre School

PreSchool Programme

Your toddler has a once in a lifetime opportunity to absorb information from the environment, like a sponge. That’s why Montessori for toddlers is more than just childcare: we provide a toddler with the ideal environment to make the most of this irreplaceable period of time.

Dr. Montessori discovered that during the toddler time, a young child has a special aptitude for learning certain things:

Enrolling your child in a Montessori toddler program, rather than at a childcare center, has many benefits. Here are just a few for you to consider:

What and How We Teach

The Montessori toddler classrooms are simpler and slower paced than the Montessori preschool rooms for three to six year olds. Tables and chairs are smaller and the teacher-child ratio is lower (1:6 or 1:8 all the way to 36 months.) The atmosphere is positive, supportive and non-competitive – and includes a lot of singing and physical movement. The toddler Montessori materials are specifically structured to meet the developmental needs of toddlers and to support their need for purposeful activity. The Montessori toddler classroom focuses on two main areas, language development and acquiring skills for independence and social interactions, supplemented by select, simplified Sensorial materials.

LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT

Toddler age children have a special sensitivity for learning language they hear spoken around them. The toddler classroom offers many creative and intriguing linguistic concepts to expand their growing vocabularies. By participating in conversations, listening to stories, classifying objects and learning songs and poems, they nurture their budding language skills. Older toddlers even get introduced to phonetic awareness through games that ask them to isolate and repeat beginning sounds of words—an advanced skill often taught in kindergarten in other settings!

SKILL FOR INDEPENDENCE

A toddler spends a large amount of time learning the self-help skills that lead to independence from constant adult help. In our classrooms, we facilitate this development in several ways. Special “practical life” exercises break down daily tasks into manageable steps, and enable repeated practice to achieve mastery. Toddlers often are in a frustrating position: they want to do things for themselves, but do not know how. Many tantrums can be avoided by enabling a child to do things for himself at a time when he is eager to do so. Thus, we offer our toddlers endless opportunities to practice daily tasks – from washing a table to watering plants; from dressing themselves in simple clothes to mastering buttons, bows and zippers. By performing one step at a time, a child is easily able to master new skills, giving her a great sense of personal achievement and pride. The crown jewel of the independence curriculum is our elaborate snack routine. Parents regularly comment how they are amazed that 2 ½ year olds can independently serve, jointly eat, and clean up after their daily snack.

SOCIAL SKILLS DEVELOPMENT

We encourage him to problem-solve rather than say “I can’t.” Because children this age have a strong tendency to imitate what they see, our teachers constantly model appropriate social skills, good manners and consideration for others. Our skilled teachers also show your child how to use words to identify the feelings they experience in themselves and that they see in others. In these ways we are able to help smooth their initial social interactions.

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