Primary Program
The Primary program is a community comprised of children between the ages of 2 1/2 or 3 to 6 years. Each child moves at their own pace through the materials in areas of mathematics, language development, practical life, art, music, geography, nature, and more. As the child becomes acquainted with material in the classroom through individual lessons given by the teacher, he can choose work independently.
Language
Oral Language: The child by nature picks up language. Oral language is the basis of our communication with each other. A child must learn to express his feelings and thoughts clearly and simply. In order to learn this, a child must not only hear clear and simple thoughts spoken, but be allowed to practice speaking. Conversations are one way to practice this, stories and poems another, and of course singing activities. Reading aloud to children is an essential aspect of not only oral language but reading readiness. Names of objects, feelings, and thoughts must be given freely for a child to acquire the vocabulary to express himself and communicate easily. Good articulation is encouraged in order to build an awareness of sounds as being the basis of words.
Written Language: The hand of a child must be prepared indirectly to be able to comfortably move into the written letters and numbers. Many exercises in the classroom incorporate the development of this muscular skill within them. Written language is used often as an extension of other work in the classroom when the child’s hand becomes ready to comfortably control a pencil. As the reading process progresses, the child is naturally lead into the desire to correctly form the letters and numbers.
Reading Readiness: A child comes to reading through many avenues. Developing visual discrimination and auditory processing skills are necessary as pre-reading activities. There are many materials in the classroom that help develop these skills. Montessori uses a phonics approach to reading. The sounds of the letters are being introduced with spoken language and with the sandpaper letters. Gradually the child begins to blend these sounds into words using the moveable alphabet and the basis for reading begins. After early reading is established, letter names become part of the child’s experience, but early learning is done with the sounds the letters make and short vowel sounds.
Mathematics
The beginning math materials are designed to help the child learn to recognize and name the number symbols and quantities from one to ten, match the quantities and their symbol, and to sequence the numbers. This is done in a variety of concrete activities. These concrete exercises carry on through the teen numbers, then tens numbers, the decimal system layout and on to addition, multiplication, subtraction, and division. Dr. Montessori was remarkable in her ability to offer the child concrete materials that represent abstract ideas.
Practical Life
The exercises of practical life are designed to help a child develop small and large muscle control, eye-hand coordination, left to right sequencing and basic organizational skills. Through the purposeful activity of these materials, which encourage care of self, care of the environment and other skills, each child brings himself closer to that amount of control, which leads to physical and eventually to mental control and self-discipline. Practical life goes much deeper than learning the skills of each exercise. The great aim is to develop physical coordination and mental control and to focus and lengthen the attention span of the child through purposeful activity. The personality is manifested through the movements of the body, so we begin on this foundation for bringing the child into command of himself. The child develops not only patterns of behavior but also patterns of thinking and reasoning with things in the world.
Sensorial
These exercises focus on developing the senses, each of them, by directing the activity of the sense to what each sense can bring to knowledge. These materials are designed to develop the ability to make comparisons and distinguish differences in size, shape, color, texture, smell, sound, weight, etc. First the child is guided to observe the various aspects of the senses, then he learns to discern among their many details so that his perceptions can bring in intelligent knowledge and understanding and thus allow for reasoning. This understanding in turn brings clarity of mind for the child to be able to distinguish each little detail and to know where things belong. He then learns to classify, categorize and catalogue his sensory impressions. The sensorial exercises give the child a frame of reference from which to look out upon the world. As he develops in this area his stronger sense of discrimination and differentiation will allow him to quickly analyze and classify things around them. This becomes a solid base for academic work.
Science and Culture
Throughout the year, the child is exposed to many different experiences introducing them to geography, botany, biology, other cultures, and sciences. We present prepared unit studies during group time, provide materials on the shelf that reinforce these concepts, and encourage spontaneous activities initiated by the child’s curiosity.
Fine Arts
We have many outlets for creative expression within our daily work cycle as well as planned group activities. Not only do these exercises aid in the development of fine and gross motor skills, visual perception and auditory processing skills, but they also help the child to achieve self-confidence and a positive self-image.
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