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Early Childhood
The child’s mind from birth to age six is truly the “absorbent mind,” to use the description of Maria Montessori. During these early years, children unconsciously absorb and accumulate impressions from which they will later develop their conscious life. Each child eventually brings these impressions to consciousness through movement. It is at this stage that the child enters the Montessori environment and follows a planned program of self-education.
Every child passes through successive stages of limited duration in which the sensitivity for acquiring certain knowledge and skills is at a peak. The abilities mastered in a “sensitive period” become the foundation upon which new skills are based. In the Montessori classroom a child learns, for example, to manipulate small inset puzzle pieces at 1 ½, thereby strengthening the hand muscles needed for writing at 3 ½ or 4.
By nurturing the child’s own capacities for concentration, perseverance and thoroughness, the Montessori approach fosters feelings of security, self-esteem, competence and pleasure in accomplishment. The aim for the young child is to establish foundations for a lifetime of creative and joyful learning.
Elementary
The Montessori Elementary receives children already accustomed to being independent, self-motivated learners and encourages them to use their maturing reason and will to become highly productive and skilled individuals, cooperative with others, and appreciative of the world in which they live.
Children of the elementary years have remarkable intellectual powers which are enhanced by educational resources and by the imagination of the adults around them. Responding to the boundless learning capacities of the elementary age, the Montessori curriculum aims not only to prepare children to perform at an arbitrary grade level, but to achieve the highest level to which they themselves aspire. Therein lies its distinguishing feature:
The curriculum follows the child and not the other way around. |
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