Whole Child

Cultural Subjects:
Geography, Geology, Zoology, Science, Astronomy, History, Anatomy, Botany

Interest:

• To be able to identify and judge the difference between plants, animals, and human beings.

• To understand the needs of plants, animals, and human beings.

• To understand the function of the living parts of plants, animals and human beings.

• To be able to recognize that planets, solar systems and Earth are interrelated.

• To understand that the planet Earth is a special place. The child will understand how to care for our planet.

• To understand and appreciate other people and cultures.

• To understand and appreciate the formation and changes in rocks.

• To enhance the interest in dinosaurs and fossils.

Cultural subjects:

Children begin with globes and then study maps using jigsaws. They can trace and color the shapes of each continent as well as placing them in the right place in the puzzle. They go on to name and put the shapes onto blank maps of the world and to recognize flags. Looking at countries individually they will use picture cards of mothers and babies, families and their daily lives and handle and examine artifacts from other cultures - a Japanese fan, chopsticks, a sari or an African drum. We have cultural boxes, one for each country, filled with all the exotica teachers can find to bring new places alive. On festival days we celebrate with tastes of exotic foods, learn songs from other countries or invite a guest or parent to show and tell about special costumes and celebrations.

The land forms teach geographical features. They are a set of models showing islands, bays, capes, peninsulars and isthmuses and lakes for children to fill with water and perhaps float a little boat or put an animal on the land. Many classrooms now have wonderful scale models of the planets and the solar system and a take-apart model of the earth which reveals its layers and core.

Science materials give opportunities to experiment with magnets, light, air, and even build simple circuit boards to light a tiny bulb. Most classrooms have a nature table or pets corner and in many areas of the cultural curriculum children use classification cards for naming, matching or identifying anything and everything from leaf shapes to different kinds of stone to different stages of a tadpole's metamorphosis into a frog. The breadth of children's knowledge of their world when they leave Montessori school can be quite astounding.