Montessori Activities

The Montessori classroon creates a special environment by the provision of Montessori Apparatus, which is divided into 4 learning areas;

• Practical Life
• Sensorial
• Language
• Mathematics

Practical Life

These activities are designed to enable the child to feel secure. Practising skills such as buttoning or polishing, children develop confidence and a belief in their own ability to control their environment.

There is also plenty of opportunity for the children to practise a variety of differing tasks including washing up, sweeping, mopping up spills, washing and hanging up of small items of clothing and cloths.

Children are encouraged to tidy and clean up after themselves, putting them in control and enabling them to become independent.

Sensorial

This equipment takes children a step further in their learning . Each piece isolates a single concept - such as length, breadth and seriation.

Children learn through activity. Using the sensorial apparatus, which contains its own control of error, children are free to learn without fear of failure. The sensorial equipment aims to develop the child's knowledge and understanding of the world as well as their own fine/gross motor control.

The materials foster independence, concentration, self awareness, self esteem, self mastery, intellectual process and the development of language.

Language

Montessori materials are available for early language activities. Children progress from auditory and visual perception games to sandpaper letters.

They learn the common speech sounds of the alphabet and then how to build words, before going onto reading activities. The process is structured carefully to lead children forward enthusiastically.

Mathematics

Number materials take the child from the very early stages of recognising numbers and counting objects to more complex activities, such as the four mathematical processes and the importance of numbers in technologies.

Children have many opportunities to practise pre-maths skills through practical activities. They gain confidence in counting and have an understanding of addition and subtraction. They learn to use mathematical ideas to solve problems and use comparitive language such as big and little, heavy and light, less than, more than.

They also develop a good understanding of shapes, positions, patterns and sizes, using appropriate language to descibe these concepts.