Nido Program
12 months – 19 months old
The Montessori Nido Program is a calm, cozy, homelike environment for babies. “Nido,” which means “nest” in Italian, captures the idea of warmth and security. Maria Montessori used this word to describe the infant classroom, within which little people feel cared for and loved, so that they will feel safe to explore and grow!
Bambino Program
20 months to 40 months old
Toddlerhood is a time of astonishing growth. In the short span of a year or so, your child experiences an explosion of language, along with a dramatic advancement in fine and gross motor control, problem-solving ability, independence, and social interaction. The Bambino classroom offers an environment and a community keyed to nurturing these skills.
Children’s House
3.4 to 6 years old
Children’s House is our Junior and Senior Kindergarten Programs.
A scientifically designed program for children ages 3.4 to 6 years old. Students direct their own activities, building knowledge, confidence and social skills along the way. Teachers empower children to use all the materials available to them, which range from practical life activities to geography to mathematics.
Developing Independence through Practical Life
When a child joins Children’s House class, their first experiences will be with the practical life activities. These lessons inspire the child with real-world, purposeful tasks and tools, helping the child see them self, correctly, as capable and competent.
Developing the Scientific Mind Through the Sensorial Materials
Children at this age use their senses to explore the world. They enjoy the beautiful sensorial materials learning to compare, contrast and discern slight differences while placing things in order. Both the artist and the scientist needs the ability to really look at what is in front of them: to notice the small details about the world that has significance for their work.
The sensorial materials also highlight mathematical relationships that exist in the real world, providing the foundation for understanding arithmetic, geometry and algebra. These materials allow a child to develop mastery over their observational powers; sensorial mastery of the scientist, the artist, and the mathematician.
Reading and Writing
The Montessori approach to language study makes learning appear effortless, because it recognizes the individuality of each child. Maria Montessori noticed that in each child’s development there is a moment, occurring at a slightly different time for everyone, when the child suddenly becomes interested in written language.
Your child will first be introduced to a rich and varied vocabulary, and will later analyze words into sounds. They will then learn to associate each phonetic sound with its corresponding letter, and trace the letter to internalize the movements made in writing. Older children use the “Moveable Alphabet” to put those sounds together into words and sentences. Five and six-year-olds in our Montessori typically write beautiful true “stories,” illustrated in colour pencil.
Mathematical Fluency
Maria Montessori believed that the human mind—every human mind—is fundamentally disposed to mathematics. Human beings measure things (number, quantity, volume, weight, shape, time), order things, and compare things. Our mathematical minds solve real world problems and help us to invent tools that assist us in living our lives.
Math Through the Senses
Montessori children experience the wonder of math through engaging materials that inspire concrete understanding and joyful problem-solving, paving the way for a smooth transition to abstraction.
In the Children’s House, children are exposed to rich and varied mathematical materials that build skills gradually. Each child will work with the decimal system into the thousands. They will be exposed to addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division— through this , they will develop a keen number sense, the foundation for a lifetime of quantitative and analytic fluency.
Montessori’s beautiful golden bead materials introduce the child to the concepts of the decimal system, place value, quantity, and the four operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Slightly more abstract and symbolic, the “stamp game” uses colour-coded tokens (where colours express place value) to revisit the same four operations.
Your child will gradually move from performing mathematical operations with the concrete objects, to the pure abstraction of numbers on a page. In your child’s mind, basic mathematical understanding will become intuitive, and grounded firmly in concrete reality.
The Foundations of Culture and Science
Geography and culture lessons in our classrooms offer the inspiration for a child’s future study of history and science. Children’s early experiments with physical properties, land and water forms, natural objects, gardening, sorting, parts of animals, and parts of plants inspire them to fall in love with the scientific world. A child’s work with puzzle maps, flags, cultural items, and beautiful cultural photographs help to compare, categorize and introduce them to various geographies and cultures that represents the first steps on a path which will later lead to the study of history.
Afterschool Program
Grades 1+ / 6+ years old
Our out of school care program will have limited spaces available for those families that have a younger sibling in one of our Programs. We will assist the children with their homework if they need help.
