Montessori Curriculum

Dr. Maria Montessori felt, that the goal of early childhood education should not be to fill the child with the facts from pre-selected course of studies, but rather to cultivate the child's own natural desire to learn. In Montessori classroom, this objective is approached in two ways; first by allowing each child to experience the excitement of learning by his or her own choice rather than by force: and second, by helping the child perfect his or her natural skills for learning so that the child's abilities are maximized for future learning. The Montessori materials have this dual, long-range purpose in addition to their immediate purpose of giving specific information to the child.

• Practical Life Exercises:
  Through these practical life exercises children perfect their coordination skills and become absorbed in an activity. They gradually lengthen their span of concentration. They also learn to pay attention to details as they follow a regular sequence of actions.
• Sensorial Exercises:
  The sensorial materials in the Montessori classroom help children to distinguish, to categorize, match and relate the new information to what they already know. Dr. Maria Montessori believed that this process is the beginning of the conscious knowledge. It is brought about by the intelligence working in a concentrated way as children apply their senses to learn.
• Language Skills:
  The child is exposed first to the sound of the alphabets, followed by word formation by joining the sounds together. Printing is initiated by tracing the sand paper letters followed by printing words freehand. Speaking and listening skills are constantly practiced.
• Mathematics:
  The maths programme is designed to give the child hand on experience with numbers. Children are introduced to numbers, sequence, quantity and concepts of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division and on to develop their problem solving skills.
• Science, World Geography is also covered as a part of the Montessori curriculum in the class.
• Art and Craft/Music:
  Art in pre-school environment brings a great joy to the child in creating something on his/her own. The creative music, movement and dramatics programme is an ongoing flexible process that integrates itself into the academic programme of the centre.
• French is introduced as a second language.