Language:
Listening, Speaking, Pre-reading, Writing, Reading, Penmanship
Interest:
- To support
and refine the child's vision, hearing, speech, and sensorimotor skills
for formal learning.
Language
Writing often comes before reading in a Montessori classroom
with children building up their first words phonetically using cardboard
letters.
The reading programmed
progresses through three levels: pink, blue and green - reading materials
are color coded for each level. Inside a small pink box a child finds
a tiny toy dog. She takes it out, says the word, listens to the sounds
in it and then seeks out the letters which make those sounds to build
the word. Writing skills are learned by coloring intricate shapes drawn
with insets, and sandpaper letters are experienced by touch as well
as by sight and sound. A wide range of story and reference picture books
are always available in the classroom.
Mathematics:
Symbols, Quantities, Simple Operations Facts, Decimal System and Memorization.
Interest:
-
To satisfy
the child's need for exactness. This goal will give the child a
basis for counting, judging relative length and measurement.
-
The child will
be able to realize the difference between odd and even and the counting
by 2's.
-
To learn the
association between a number's numeric symbol and it's written form.
-
To understand
the sequence of numbers
-
To provide
a reinforcement of the decimal system
-
Give an opportunity
for the repetition of the child's addition and subtraction skills.
- Establish an
understanding of a place value and the power of ten.
Mathematics
Children gain a physical impression of size and quantity long before
they begin to manipulate numbers by handling number rods, counting out
beads, counting spindles into boxes and arranging colored counters in
patterns - odd and even numbers. Numbers are built up using glass or
wooden beads and their sandpaper symbols traced with the fingers. Pie-shaped
frames with inset pieces give concrete grounding in fractions which
the child can refer back to for years to come.
