Pre Casa - 18 months to 30 months

Upon entering our Pre Casa classroom the nurturing staff and secure setting encourage the children to develop their individuality through the manipulative exploration of Montessori materials, facilitating their growth in both independence and self-confidence.

The prepared environment welcomes young children to experience and understand routines and limits as they are introduced to their first structured interaction with other children.

Five main areas of study are introduced in our Pre Casa Classroom:

Practical Life: Simple exercises which allow children to do activities of everyday life. Exercises such as pouring dry/wet materials and spooning content from one container to another encourage children to become independent and assist in the establishment of good work habits.

Language: Language surrounds the classroom. Casual conversation is a large part of this area through songs, stories and poems. The growth of the children’s vocabulary is the basis of this area with the aid of various resources such as models, labels and photos.

Sensorial: At this young age textures and touch are a large part of children’s learning methods. Exercises in this area emphasize opportunities for the children to explore the physical world around them using their senses. Since this is such an integral part of learning for this age group unstructured sensory play such as sand, water and modelling clay is also incorporated in the daily program. 

Mathematics: With a hands on method through the use of concrete materials children are introduced to math concepts such as geometric shapes, numbers and sizes.

Culture: An introduction to this area is presented through arts & crafts, music and simple lessons in geography, zoology and botany.

Casa - 30 months to 6 years

Following the Montessori tradition our Casa classroom is a multi-age classroom organized in a three year age grouping of children between the ages of 2 years 9 months through to 6 years. With this collaboration we are able to foster the feeling of a true community where we encourage the children to treat each other with respect and kindness as they teach and learn from one another.

Five main areas of study in our Casa Classroom:

Practical Life: Activities of everyday life will encourage children’s independence and foster the establishment of responsibility, good work habits and self discipline. Some activities children exercise include polishing, fine motor activities, sewing etc.

Language: Language is taught phonetically. Beginning with the introduction of letter formation and sound using methods such as sandpaper letters and metal insets. Children learn to put sounds together to make words, words together to make sentences and sentences together to make stories. As a result children enthusiastically discover their writing and reading skills.

Sensorial: This area allows children to make use of their senses to explore their physical environment. With mathematically graded materials the introduction of math concepts easily follows.

Mathematics: Math manipulative materials focus on the concrete to clarify abstract math concepts. These methods allow the children to manually explore and better visualize and understand the logic behind the concepts.

Culture: This area entwines various subjects such as geography, history, biology, zoology and music to enhance the children’s global perspective.