Mozart (3-6 Years)

There are four major areas in Montessori education: Practical Life, Sensorial, Language, and Math, also an Enrichment or Cultural Area is included.

Practical Life: These are the first activities introduced to the child. The tasks are familiar ones he sees every day like cleaning and cooking. These real life experiences satisfy the child’s inner needs and desires, while also building vocabulary skills. They learn self care, environment protection, and hand-eye coordination.

Sensorial: The bright, attractive materials in this area encourage the children to touch, see, hear, taste, and smell. Sensorial is the gateway to the Language and Math program in the classroom. The hand explores, communicates to the brain and gradually forms the mental connection between the tangible appearance and the abstract idea.

Language: This area provides the opportunity to develop skills such as listening, speaking, writing, and reading. In the first step the child is presented to the awareness of sounds in language by: naming, classifying, sorting, and rhyming. The next progression is the sound to symbol relationship. Then the child begins to analyse the sounds that make up a word and starts to build the word on his own. Writing these words then creates the bridge to reading.

Mathematics: The child has been prepared for math through sensorial Materials, so he already has sensorial memory of classification, order, and precision. Then, the Math Program carries on to introduce the child to the recognition of numbers up to ten and their relationship to quantity, the decimal system, counting teens and tens, numerical patterns, and continues in this sequence (as long the child’s progress allows it) to more abstract concepts using concrete materials.

Cultural: The Montessori classroom offers many opportunities for the young child to explore the world around him. The materials available in the primary curriculum provide a hands-on foundation for understanding the world in which he lives.

Da Vinci (6-9 Years)

This group corresponds to the first elementary level within the Montessori Method. The areas are presented in the following manner:

Practical Life and Language: Practical life is encouraged through the care of the environment in the classroom. Reading is a major aspect of this area, the children are introduced to poems: reading and composition.

Mathematics and Geometry: The decimal system, addition, subtraction multiplication, and division are reinforced; and the program continues with more abstract concepts, such as: problem-solving, fractions, divisions, and geometry. This is a fascinating area in which the students learn the names of geometric figures, both planes, and solids.

Cultural studies: The cultural area covers a variety of studies. Geography, science, botany, and zoology are included. The Montessori curriculum encourages an early understanding of these subjects in order to foster culture awareness in the children.