Our Montessori Nursery program is tailored for children aged 1.8 years to 3 years old. Children at this age are at a stage of rapid development, both physically and cognitively. The Montessori approach to education at Casa Bambino focuses on providing a safe and stimulating environment that encourages exploration and discovery.
Activities in Nursery Classroom:
Movement:
Maria Montessori believed that the ability to absorb and retain information is optimized when a child’s body is in motion.
The Nursery classroom is designed to encourage and facilitate movement as an essential component of learning. When we allow children to roam, move, and explore the world around them we create opportunities for deeper understanding, spontaneous social interactions, and a space where children can pursue their own areas of interest.
Movement is incorporated into every Practical Life exercise (indeed, almost every classroom activity)- from the fine dexterity needed to spoon tiny beans from one container to another to the gross motor work of carrying a heavy pitcher of water from the sink.
Outdoors, enhance their large motor skills through play with balls, hoops, and balance beams, fostering physical poise and independence. They also enjoy nature walks and engage in gardening activities.
Practical Life:
Practical Life activities form the foundation of the Montessori Nursery classroom, nurturing children’s innate desire for independence. The activities of Practical Life bring the child closer to independence, fostering feelings of security, confidence, and self-worth.
One of the key focuses of the Montessori ‘Practical Life’ activities is also to enhance children’s ability to concentrate and to systematically carry out multi-step processes. Activities like spooning tiny beans from one container to another to the gross motor work of carrying a heavy pitcher of water from the sink, food preparation, pouring, flower arranging, sweeping, and dishwashing help children care for themselves and contribute to their classroom community. Through Grace and Courtesy lessons, children learn to serve snacks, greet visitors, and practice social etiquette.
Language:
Language development is a central focus of the Montessori curriculum. In a Montessori classroom for toddlers aged 18 months to 3 years, the language area is designed to nurture early language development through a rich, interactive environment.
Each area of the room provides an opportunity for toddlers to learn new words from books, objects, nomenclature cards, and other activities like music and movement. Activities like sound games, naming everyday items, and singing action songs help build phonetic awareness and vocabulary. Story-telling sessions with captivating picture books encourage participation and comprehension.
Peer interaction is also emphasized, with opportunities for social play and role-playing, enhancing communication skills among children. Overall, the focus is on creating a nurturing space that encourages exploration, expression, and a love of language through hands-on experiences and meaningful social interactions.
Sensorial:
Young children learn and understand the world around them through the use of their senses. Sensorial development is unique to the Montessori way of learning. These elements are the roots of the Montessori curriculum. Dr. Maria Montessori designed the sensorial materials to give children the opportunity to experience their 5 senses: Visual (sight), Tactile (Touch), Auditory (Hearing), Olfactory (Smell), and Gustatory (taste)
Montessori materials, such as the Pink Tower, knobbed and knobbles cylinder blocks, Colour Tablets, and Texture Touch boards provide a hands-on learning opportunities that engage their senses.
This sensory input supports toddlers in the great task of organizing, integrating, and learning while refining fine motor development and fostering concentration.
Math:
Montessori math for toddlers aged 18 months to 3 years focuses on hands-on, sensory experiences that foster a natural understanding of mathematical concepts. Children naturally have the ability to observe, measure, and categorize their surroundings.
Key elements and activities:
- Concrete Learning: This approach focuses on using physical objects to explore numbers and quantities. For example, sandpaper numbers provide a tactile experience that helps children form a muscular memory of number shapes.
Sorting and classifying activities lay a strong foundation for numeracy, while stacking and nesting cubes, number blocks, and puzzles help establish one-to-one correspondence and counting skills.
- Sensorial Activities: Engaging the senses to help children understand concepts like size, shape, and volume.
- Exploration and Discovery: Encouraging children to explore at their own pace fosters curiosity and promotes independent thinking.
Sorting and classifying activities lay a strong foundation for numeracy, while stacking and nesting cubes, number blocks, and puzzles help establish one-to-one correspondence and counting skills.
Science and Culture :
Children have a natural fascination with the world around them, showing curiosity about plants, animals, and their immediate environment. Providing access to outdoor spaces, such as a garden, allows them to connect with nature. As they grow, these interests can be further developed into formal studies in science, geography, and history.
Through structured thematic learning, children can delve deeper into science topics through experiments and hands-on art and crafts.
Children are also immersed in a variety of rich cultures through celebrations and culturally-focused activities, such as cooking traditional dishes from different countries or creating crafts that reflect the heritage of specific communities.
Art, Music & Movement, and Thai:
In the Nursery classroom, art and music are woven into the daily routine.
Art for toddlers is a very sensorial experience. Tactile art-making stimulates learning in different ways than visual or audio learning. For a developing child, tactile exploring can also lead to better fine motor function and control which eventually develops better cognitive academic performance in the later grades.
Music is key for refining a child’s auditory sense. Music and movement refer to activities that combine musical elements with physical movement. These can include singing, dancing, clapping, playing instruments, and other rhythmic activities that engage children in active participation.
These activities are designed to be enjoyable and stimulate various developmental domains, including cognitive, physical, social, and emotional growth.
The Thai language is scheduled once a week. The children learn through songs, stories, and activities.
