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Enrollment
Information Preschool
Program |
Why Montessori?
• It assists the development of concepts and language. • It assist the children to become independent workers and thinkers. • It recognizes that all children do not learn in the same way or at the same speed Montessori is a philosophy of education that was established by Dr. Maria Montessori in the late 19th century. She discovered through her observations of and work with the young child that the child has a remarkable ability to absorb knowledge from its environment. This is a simple and profound truth that inspired Montessori’s lifelong pursuit of educational reform to further the self-creating process of the child. In order to nurture this philosophy, she created a "Prepared Environment" with activities available to meet the child’s individual needs, build interest and nurture enthusiasm. The Montessori environment provides experience in Practical Life, Sensorial, and Didactic areas. The Practical Life area offers exercises in daily living - for example, care of self and the environment, exercises of grace and courtesy, and control and movement. This area prepares the child to enter the ‘real world’ and to function as a positive social being. The child lives in a world of senses. Through sight, sound, touch, taste and smell, the sensorial apparatus of Montessori is a key to the real world and is a basis for abstraction. The Montessori approach to math is special for many reasons. All operations emerge from the concrete manipulation of ‘materialized abstractions’, such as rods, beads, cubes, and symbols. The child does not merely learn to count, but is able to visualize the whole structure of our numeration system and perform the four operations with an overview in mind. The Montessori program at Katzenbach has grown steadily throughout the years. The well-planned materials and activities provided in the Montessori environment in the Preschool and Lower School programs allow for concepts and language activities to be introduced, reinforced and consolidated. Optimum language situations occur when children have the opportunity to select tasks of their choice. Children are exposed to new language in the Montessori class. Questions can be asked and answers given when a child is interested in a task. While the tasks provided in Montessori give children the experience of handling materials that educate their senses and develop concepts, a shift must be made from concrete materials to textbooks. In order to move smoothly into the use of symbolic information (e.g. printed materials, numbers, words, sentences), the Montessori director and teachers are constantly developing materials related to Montessori tasks. In short, Montessori activities are included in all areas of the Lower School and Preschool Program curricula.
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