Upon admission to the Forest Drive Montessori our children are given the opportunity to develop important life skills which allow them greater freedom in the classroom; an opportunity to further develop their self-esteem; social skills; concentration and independence.

The activities are generally grouped into four areas of learning

Children interact with the physical world through their senses. The Sensorial curriculum is designed to help the child to focus his/her attention more carefully on the physical world, exploring with each of his/her senses the subtle variations in the properties of objects.

Each material isolates one concept for the child to discover such as height, width, aroma, taste, weight, texture, temperature, shades of color and sound. Each exercise has a built in ‘control of error’ that allows the observant child to check and correct his/her own work. Problems are solved independently without unnecessary adult intervention. This builds the child’s self-confidence, critical thinking skills and gives the satisfaction that only comes from accomplishment.

The young child enters school during a period of great sensitivity to language. Language development, its usage and vocabulary are therefore woven throughout the classroom. Conversations with peers and adults are a natural part of classroom life and time is devoted every day to the reading of books, singing of songs and stories and sharing. The child moves freely within the Forest Drive Montessori environment. Combining the child’s natural curiosity with hands-on activity helps the child internalize information. The language program encourages the development of oral language, auditory, writing and reading skills.

Opportunities for oral expression are provided daily. The children listen to and participate in familiar and new stories, rhymes, and songs. These activities also lend themselves to dramatic expression. Sharing and talking about group and individual experiences allow the children other opportunities for conversation.

Reading is presented with a phonetic base, sight word vocabulary and group language activities which encourage the children to become aware of words, sentences, beginning punctuation, content, authors, illustrators and publishers.

Each child enters school with different language experiences and abilities and adds to them daily. Montessori’s individualized approach and developmentally appropriate lessons help the child build cognitive language skills. The absorbent mind of the child readily soaks up these experiences and brings about a natural maturation in language. We welcome children who are multi-lingual in our setting.

Children must have a multitude of sensorial experiences with size, dimension, and form before they are introduced to any mathematical concepts of quantities and their symbols. Before formal lessons in math, children need to be able to compare, classify, pattern, map, and be familiar with the idea of sets. Many exercises are thus designed to lead the child to discover similarities and differences – to sort and arrange objects in one-to-one correspondence, and to manipulate sets of objects. The child needs to experience many opportunities to rote count after which he or she is ready to begin working with materials to associate quantity with mathematical symbols.

In the Cultural area, the child is introduced to aspects of the world using a hands-on approach. This allows the child to absorb information in a natural manner, encourages the child to observe what goes on around him/her, and helps the child to begin to make sense of it all. In addition, learning the true names of real things and seeing relationships is a meaningful way for the child to begin to understand and view the world.

In Life Science the child uses models, specimens, pictures, classroom pets and plants to begin to identify, match, and classify things in the environment. There is some investigation of the external parts of vertebrates and plants using observations of living samples and specimens and nomenclature materials. Life cycles of plants and animals are introduced through classroom observations and sequence cards.

The children have access to a diverse range of materials with which to express themselves. Drawings, painting, crayon work, collage, working with clay, cutting, pasting, designing, modeling and many other activities help them to explore their imaginations and to share their thoughts and feelings with others.

In the Forest Drive Montessori the physical well-being of our children is paramount. We are very committed to helping all children develop their fine and gross motor movement. At pre-school age this is typically through movement, dance and exercises that promote balance and physical control.

Our children learn the basic food groups and their names through hands on activities and classification cards with real food. They also prepare a variety of foods monthly from different parts of the world to try as snacks during the day.