Our Curriculum
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(619) 698-2903 La Mesa
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(619) 669-3944 Jamul
PRACTICAL LIFE ACTIVITIES
Dr. Montessori wrote: “An adult works to perfect the environment but a child works to perfect himself.” These activities are very familiar to adults: sweeping, pouring, polishing, food cutting, doll washing and more. The child enjoys choosing and performing these familiar activities. But, unaware to the child, these activities lengthen the attention span and develop the power of concentration as the child performs the activities over and over. These major skills are valuable in learning how to read, write and compute math problems. An added benefit, children learn to care for the environment and themselves. Finally, good work habits are learned as each task is finished and properly put away before beginning another activity.
SENSORIAL MATERIALS
The Sensorial Materials in the Montessori classroom help the child become aware of details by offering materials that isolate one defining quality such as color, weight, shape, texture, size, sound, smell, etc. The equipment emphasizes this one particular quality by eliminating or minimizing other differences. The materials help distinguish, categorize and relate new information to that already learned. Eventually these skills will help in academics such as distinguishing between a ‘b’ and a ‘d’ or the sound difference of a ‘c’ and ‘s’.
MATH
Montessori math materials are all concrete experiences. She designed material to represent all types of quantities. Children not only see the symbol for 1, 1000 or 1/2, they can hold each in their hands.
Language
Reading instruction can begin on the day when the child wants to know what a word says or when interest is shown in using the Sandpaper letters. The Sandpaper letters and metal insets lead to spontaneous writing. An example: a child touches a sandpaper letter ‘s’ while he is looking at it and hearing the sound before being taught the letter in print.
ADDITIONAL MATERIALS
Geography, Science, Art and Music materials are utilized in each classroom. In addition there are “hands on” unit studies presented monthly during the entire school year: Dinosaurs, Nutrition, Music, Planets and many more.