Primary 3-6 years
Montessori Primary Program
The best description of the Montessori Primary Program (ages 3-6) comes from the North American Montessori Teachers’ Association. The Montessori preschool classroom is a “living room” for children, where they can choose their work from self-correcting materials in specific work areas.
The five distinct areas that make up the prepared environment in a Montessori classroom
- Practical life enhances the development of hand-eye coordination gross motor control, and cognitive order through care of self, care of the environment, development of social relations, and coordination of physical movement.
- Sensorial areas enable the child to order, classify, and describe sensory impressions in relation to length, width, temperature, mass, color, pitch, etc.
- Mathematics makes use of manipulative materials to enable the cxhild to internalized concepts of number, symbol, sequence, operations, and memorization of basic facts.
- Language arts include oral language development, written expression, reading, the study of grammar, creative dramatics, and children’s literature. Basic skills in writing and reading are developed through the use of sandpaper letter, alphabet cut-outs, and various presentations, allowing children to link sounds and letter symbols effortlessly and to express their thoughts through writing.
- Cultural activities expose the child to basics in geography, history, life sciences, and earth sciences. Music, art, and movement education are part of the integrated cultural curriculum.
The primary environment unifies the social, physical, and intellectual functioning of the child.
Its’ important function is to provide children with an early and general foundation that will enable them to acquire more specialized knowledge and skills throughout their school career.