The Primary Montessori program is for children between the ages of 3 to 6 years: preschool to kindergarten. The mixed-age grouping fosters opportunities for collaborative work, social engagement and for older children to learn to help the younger children. The continuity of returning to the same room each year makes for a strong classroom community, for children and parents alike.
Each 3 – 6 classroom has a selection of activities of daily life that aid in the development of coordination, concentration, order and independence. The environment in this classroom is designed to encourage each child to move, touch, and manipulate. The specially designed, hands on Montessori didactic materials invite children to engage in learning activities of their own individual choice. The children have freedom to work independently, based on their own initiatives with gentle and respectful guidance from their teacher.
Little Gems Montessori embraces Dr. Montessori’s ideal that the child’s learning experience should occur naturally and joyfully at the proper moment in the prepared environment.
Primary Montessori Curriculum
• Elementary movements
o Pulling out a chair, carrying a tray
• Gross and fine motor skills
• Use of activities that promote concentration, coordination, independence, and order
• Indoor and outdoor
• Recycling
• Caring about others
• Problem solving
• Conflict resolution
• Peace table
• Care of person
• Health and safety
• Nutrition and food preparation
Community service
• Developing an awareness of needs of others
• Participating in several service projects throughout the school year
The Sensorial Curriculum is the key to knowledge in the Montessori classroom. It builds on the foundation of the Practical Life Curriculum and prepares the way for children to progress into academic work through development of observation and problem-solving skills. The sensorial materials are designed to develop and refine skills that help young children learn how to think, reason, make distinctions, make judgements and decisions, observe, compare, and better appreciate their world. This is the beginning of conscious knowledge. Students learn to distinguish and differentiate physical properties through:
Auditory learning
• Sound
Visual learning
• Color
• Size
• Shape
• Gradation
Tactile learning
• Texture
• Weight
Olfactory learning
Gustatory learning
Maria Montessori proposed that logical thought stems from the human mind's ability to organize and categorize. The aim of the math curriculum at Little Gems primary level is to help students develop their thought processes, not to simply teach math facts at an early age. With hands-on materials, students begin to understand the concrete through manipulation, experimentation, and invention, which prepares them for abstract study at the elementary level.
Numbers 0-10
Goals: Establish numbers one to ten. Understand quantity and sequence of numbers using manipulatives. Establish recognition of numerical symbols. Learn relationship of quantity to symbol.
- Number rods and cards
- Set baskets
- Spindle boxes
- Sandpaper numbers
- Cards and counters
Decimal System
Goals: Understand the concept of base ten. Learn composition of numbers, including place value and equivalencies.
- Introduction tray
- Tray of nine
- Golden Bead (or 45) layout
- Numeral
- Bead and numeral layout
- Number fetching
- Bank game
Numbers 11-99
Goals: Ability to recognize teens and tens.
- Bead stair
- Teens’ board
- Tens’ board (or 45) layout
Linear Counting
Goals: Develop ability to recognize and count to any number. Learn skip counting.
- Hundred board
- 100 (square) chains
- 1000 (cube) chains (or 45) layout
Operations
Goal: Provide a concrete introduction to the four basic arithmetic operations. Moves into abstract work with operations.
- Golden Beads
o Addition
o Multiplication
o Subtraction
o Division
- Stamp Game
o Addition
o Multiplication
o Subtraction
o Division
- Bead Board
o Multiplication
o Division
- Bead Frame
Continued Operations/Passage to Abstraction
- Addition
o Snake game
o Addition strip board
o Addition charts
- Multiplication
o Bead bars
o Multiplication boards
o Multiplication charts
- Subtraction
o Negative snake game
o Subtraction strip board
o Subtraction charts
- Fractions
o Names (wholes-ninths)
- Money
o Denominations
Geometry
- Geometric solids
- Geometry cabinet
o Regular polygons
o Quadrilaterals
o Triangles
o Circles
o Curved figures
Language
• Conversational speech
• Identifying and discriminating sounds
• Storytelling
• Sequencing
• Repetition
• Poetry
• Rhymes and finger plays
• Listening skills and comprehension
Visual preparation
• Recognizing patterns
• Matching and sorting
Motor preparation
• Eye-to-hand coordination
• Strengthening of the hand
• Handwriting
o Manuscript
o Introduction to cursive in the third year
Analysis
• Phonogram sounds
• Blends
Reading on word level
• Phonics
• Reading in context
Correct expression
• Vocabulary of objects, attributes, and actions
• Informal discussion
Function of words
• Beginning writing
• Introduction of noun identification
• Introduction of verb identification
• Botany-plant care, tree and leaf studies, flowers, gardening
• Zoology-animal husbandry, animals kingdoms, vertebrate/invertebrate
• Magnetism
• Sink and float
• Weather/seasons
• Observation skills
Through sensory experience and the use of imaginative stories, children in the Montessori 3-6 environment learn about their physical world. They can touch a sphere and compare the shape to the globe. They build landforms using play dough and fill water forms with water. Montessori puzzle maps are meant to be taken apart and put back together again as children develop an understanding of continents and oceans. These Montessori hands-on activities build long term memory by physically engaging the hand.
Discoveries are made about the people who live on different continents. Montessori students learn about food, music, clothing, traditions, holidays, customs, housing, as well as the plants and animals of the region as they compare their lifestyles to others. They learn about the flags of the world and reverently carry them as they “walk the line” in the Montessori prepared environment. They learn to appreciate the wonder found in the similarities and differences found around the world.
• Keep a steady beat
• Matching pitch
• Singing in unison
• Introduction to aspects of drama
• Basic locomotor and axial movement activities
• Creative self-expression through movement
• Basic manipulative skills with movement props
Skills
- Vocabulary
- Numbers
- Games and songs
- Questions and answers