Toddlers love our small community filled with toddler-sized furniture and materials specifically designed for them. Our prepared environment for the Toddler community provides children with a calm, orderly space that encourages discovery.
Teacher–Student Ratios
Our toddler community teacher-to-student ratios are 1:6 during the Montessori Work Cycle and 1:8 during nap time and outdoor recess.
FIVE LEARNING PATHWAYS
Our toddlers learn through five learning pathways that include Practical Life, Sensorial, Math, Language, and Culture.
1. PRACTICAL LIFE
Practical Life activities help children to develop independence and to acquire a sense of responsibility. We focus on caring for the environment and caring for the person. Learning activities focus on developing fine motor skills, independence, concentration, and learning basic activities that are important for daily living.
Gross Motor, Kitchen Skills, Self Care, and Care of the Environment
Gross motor activities include rolling/unrolling a mat, walking around the mat, carrying objects and liquids, on a tray, carrying a chair, stacking a tower with blocks, clapping to the music, outdoor play (climbing, swinging, running), and many other skills.
Self-care activities include washing hands, feeding self, using the toilet, brushing teeth, clip clothespins, rolling a pair of socks, folding towels, pegging clothes onto a washing line, tweezing beads onto a soap pad, and various other skills.
Kitchen skills activities include opening/closing lids, pouring water from a pitcher, sponge water transfer, washing dishes/tables, setting a table, pouring/spooning beans/rice/salt, stirring/sifting/ladling/baking/cooking, knife skills, and buttering bread, using a rolling pin and cookie cutters, sitting at a table, scraping one’s plate, and using table manners at meals,
Caring for the environment activities include using a dustpan/small brush, sweeping with a child-sized broom, wiping up a spill/using a mop, using a hand-held vacuum, dusting, planting vegetable seeds, cleaning a window/mirror, arranging flowers, and returning materials to the shelf.
The teacher introduces many other PL materials that are developmentally appropriate for the children.
2. SENSORIAL
Sensorial activities are uniquely created to develop the five senses of sight, listening, touch, taste, and smell. Our Montessori sensorial materials are attractive and provide opportunities to match shapes, colors, textures, dimensions, weights, and smells. When an error is made, items are leftover unmatched.
The Pink Tower, the Brown Stair, and Red Rods are used to develop discrimination of differences in three, two, and one dimension respectively. Cylinder Blocks (Knobbed Cylinders) are used to develop the child’s to discriminate size and strengthen the hand for writing. Knobless Cylinders teach children to recognized gradations of size in a series and help with coordination and concentration.
The Color Boxes teach darkest to lightest and color identification. The Geometric Cabinet uses plane figures that aid visual discrimination of shape/naming shapes.
3. MATHEMATICS
Montessori maths activities are all ordered from simple to complex, and concrete to abstract. The child uses hands-on concrete sensorial materials such as the pink tower, brown stair, and red rods to teach the concepts of “large versus small” and “long versus short.” The child understands abstract concepts by using concrete materials. We use a process of introducing a quantity, followed by a symbol, and lastly using a symbol to label a quantity. Children enjoy learning math with the pink tower and brown stairs. Constructive Triangles are used to form plane figures and teach geometry. Binomial and Trinomial Cubes assist with teaching form.
4. LANGUAGE
We teach phonetics as part of learning to read.
Children identify letters of the alphabet and their associated sounds. They touch letters on the sandpaper letter board, use the large movable alphabet and other reading materials. They learn to classify, to use geometric metal insets, to complete the pink reading materials (three-letter phonetic words), the blue reading materials (four or more letter phonetic words), and finally the green-reading materials (phonograms e.g. ee, th, sh, ay, ie etc). Teachers present the Montessori Metal insets with increasing difficulty over time. The child learns how to trace different patterns with the insets.
5. CULTURAL
Children learn to receive and express grace and courtesy. Our children learn to love our natural world through Geography, History, Art, Music, and Science. We teach children how to differentiate between living and non-living things. They learn that the earth is made up of water, land, and air by using Botany and Zoology nomenclatures and continent puzzles.
UNIQUES
Self-Correcting Materials. Our Modern Montessori method provides learning materials that are designed to provide immediate feedback to the child. Essentially, these “self-correcting” works help each child to master learning skills.
ASL. Children add new ASL signs to their foundational terms learned in the Infant Community.
