Curriculum

Practical Life

Dr. Maria Montessori regarded the practical life as the most important, foundational area of the Montessori classrooms which helps in developing many essential skills and attributes including:

  1. Focus and Concentration: Practical Life lessons naturally foster longer periods of focus within the child because they are so attractive and require precision and detail.

  2. Fine Motor Skills: While dong lessons, the child strengthens his muscles through constant repetition of motions. He also perfects his eye-hand coordination and gains confidence in a particular skill.

  3. Order and Sequence: The Practical Life lessons help a young mind in constantly organizing and categorizing information.

  4. Success: The young mind overcomes the fear of “failing” and starts understanding that learning comes by returning to is over and over again.

  5. Responsibility and Respect: The child is given the opportunity to participate in real life activities at a young age. This teaches them responsibility and respect towards others.

Practical Life Sequence:

  • Care of Self: grooming, hygiene, dressing (zip, tie, button), hand washing etc.

  • Grace and Courtesy: conflict resolution, manners, communicating politely, precision of movement.

  • Practical Skills: transfer, pour, thread, twist/turn, squeeze

  • Care of Environment: wipe, scrub, polish, sweep, maintain neatness

  • Art and Gardening: Children are exposed to fine arts, famous artists and their techniques. This helps them gain appreciation for the person and process. Children learn to take care of their environment by taking care of plants and flowers in the garden. They engage in activities like digging, planting, watering, weeding etc. while using the equipments such as child sized-rakes, shovels, buckets etc.

Sensorial

This area of the Montessori classroom includes materials that help the child refine discrimination with all the 5 senses. The child discriminates differences pertaining to:

  • Height, Length, Width, Series, Form, Dimensions

  • Sound, Tones of Voice, Texture, Smell, Taste, Temperature

These materials and lessons help in preparing the child’s mind for later mathematical concepts, improving spatial skills, and enriching vocabulary.

Sensorial Sequence:

  • Color Grading

  • Tactile Discrimination

  • Auditory Discrimination

  • Olfactory Discrimination

  • Dimensions: Length, width, height

  • Geometric shapes and solids

Math

In this area, the child internalizes the concepts of numbers, symbols, sequences, operations, and basic facts by using manipulative materials. The children learn with greater ease when they get an opportunity to manipulate these colorful and dynamic math materials. Number rods, golden bead work, colored beads, cards and counters, and other lessons teach children to learn abstract mathematical concepts by manipulating concrete objects. For example, the children learn the concept of odd and even by manipulating “cards and counter” lesson.

Math Sequence:

  • Numeration: Identifying numbers, sort, count, match quantities

  • Linear Counting 1-100, teens, tens, skip counting

  • The Bank: Decimal System (unit, tens, hundreds, thousands, place value)

  • Large Operations: Conducting equations into the thousands

  • Simple Operations

  • Time, Fractions, Money

Language

Teachers introduce this area through poetry, songs, literature, story discussions, nomenclature, cultural vocabulary etc.

The students learn each letter phonetically by using tactile alphabets called sandpaper letters. This helps them combine sounds to form words. The other tactile equipment which helps in developing reading and writing naturally is called Movable Alphabet. The use of these concrete materials help the child in learning the abstract language naturally. They learn control of the hand and use of the pencil through many exercises and specially designed tasks. Soon, they are able to spell words, compose sentences, and work on punctuation and capitalization with the Movable Alphabets.

Language Sequence:

  • Auditory: Comprehension, opposites, rhyming

  • Visual: Pictures, word match, letters

  • Development of writing

  • Beginning sounds, vowels, ending sounds

  • Blending sounds and word buildup

  • Short vowels words

  • Sight words

  • Consonant blends

  • Long vowel words

  • Digraphs, phonograms

  • Grammar

  • Comprehension and Story Composition

Science

In a Montessori classroom, through various discovery projects and experiments, a child’s natural curiosity is stimulated. They study plant and animal kingdoms, as well as magnets, energy, weather etc. Science education helps a child with:

  • Observation of Phenomenon

  • Recording it in simple words

  • To draw conclusions

Science Sequence:

  • Zoology: Classifications, Body parts and functions, habitats, life cycles

  • Human Anatomy: Parts of our body, organs, systems etc.

  • Botany: Classifications, plants, life, cycles etc.

  • Earth, Ecosystems/Biomes

  • Water Cycle, Physical states

  • Machinery, Tools etc.

Culture

In a Montessori environment, cultural studies includes many different areas of learning such as: Geography, History, Social Studies, Zoology, Botany, and Foreign Language.

Geography focuses on the location of places around the world. Children explore the living continents of his/her environment with the help of representative materials. Through Montessori tailored maps and puzzles, students learn about the different continents, as well as the respective countries and states. They also learn about the customs, climate, and languages of the people around the world. By making clay model replicas, children learn about common land and water formations such as islands, peninsulas, etc.

Cultural Sequence:

  • Land/Water

  • Oceans

  • Seven Continents

  • 4 Seasons and 4 Directions

  • Countries around the world

  • Province and territories of Canada

Enrichment Activities​

At Casa de Montessori, we offer many enrichment activities which are listed below:

  • Music

  • French

  • Nature Study

  • PE (Physical Education); Yoga, Dance, Gymnastic

  • Arts/Crafts