What Makes Our School Special?
The success of "Montessori children," such as the founders of Google, Wikipedia, and Amazon, has focused a lot of attention on Dr. Maria Montessori's system.
In a classical Montessori environment such as ours, children naturally and joyfully reach their full potential. Rather than being forced to follow a set curriculum, they learn at their own pace, according to their choice of activities.
At Montessori Fountainhead, children are not bored, because they are free to delve as deeply as they wish into any subject that interests them. Likewise, they are not frustrated, because they are free to take as much time as necessary to master each lesson. This is the exact opposite of traditional education, and the results - happy, well-adjusted children, consistently performing at high academic levels - speak for themselves.
Classroom Structure
The children in a primary Montessori classroom are of a mixed age group, ranging from 2.5 to 6. The environment contains developmental materials designed to provide absorbing learning activities for varied ages and abilities. With mixed ages, the children learn to work as a family, yet develop at their own pace.
There are five categories of activities in the primary classroom:
1. Practical Life Exercises
These constitute the foundation of the program, and include such activities as pouring water, tying bows, sweeping, food preparation, and buttoning. These activities lay the groundwork for the general atmosphere of the Montessori environment. They help the child develop independence, concentration, and good work habits.
2. Sensorial Exercises
Using sensorial Montessori materials, the child achieves a concrete understanding of concepts such as size, weight, and texture, gradation of colors, differences in smells and sounds. Each exercise focuses on refining a specific sense, and serves as a key to other areas of learning.
3. Language
Many of the primary language materials are dependent on the young child’s sensitivity to sensory experience. Children trace the “sandpaper letters” with their fingers, then write them in the sand tray. These activities lead directly to writing mastery. As with all learning in the Montessori environment, reading occurs quite naturally at an early age.
4. Mathematics
In mathematics, as in other areas, manipulation of concrete materials are used, rather than abstract language. For younger children, who have an intuitive interest in counting, addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division are learned by manipulating a variety of materials made with beads. The understanding of mathematical concepts comes naturally.
5. Cultural Subjects
The Montessori classroom contains many materials that foster a child's variety of interests. Geography, sciences, botany, and zoology are learned by concrete materials, like puzzle maps of the continents, and through activities such as scientific experiments, planting and gardening, caring for animals, frequent field trips, etc. Children learn foreign languages very easily at this young age, and Russian is an intrinsic part of our classrooms.
Although much of the work in a Montessori classroom is done individually or in groups of two or three, there are also daily full class activities, which include singing, games, sharing of experiences, discussions of the country studied during the week, "show and tell," and talking about current events. Music, yoga, and martial arts teachers provide special classes on a weekly basis.