Programs

Sensorial activities focus on developing and refining the five senses: seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, and smelling. Montessori sensorial materials are designed to help children isolate a specific quality so that they can distinguish, categorize, and relate new information to things they already know.

Primary students are introduced to reading and writing initially through materials such as sandpaper letters, metal insets, and the moveable alphabet. Children begin learning and matching initial sounds to objects, and gradually move toward putting words together. Unique to the Montessori method, initial introductions to letters focus on the sounds they make, rather than the name of the letter. For example, when Montessori students learn to spell “cat,” they will likely say “k-ah-t” instead of “see-ay-tee.”

Math in the primary classroom focuses on sensorial work to ensure that children can use their sense of touch to grasp concepts of quantities, and then relate those quantities to symbols. Many of the math materials are made of wooden cubes or glass beads so that they have weight that helps demonstrate a concrete understanding of quantity. By the third year in primary, students have usually been introduced to the four mathematical operations at a basic level.

Primary students begin learning the physical geography of the earth - water, continents, and landforms. Children have the opportunity to put together wooden puzzle maps of continents, countries, or states. Geography also includes the study of cultures and ecology, and primary students are introduced to the people, plants, and animals that inhabit the earth.

The Montessori science curriculum teaches children about the world around them and engages their sense of wonder. Primary students begin by classifying items, such as living or non-living, plant or animal, etc. and then learn to name the parts of living objects. Students also learn about life cycles that coincide with the seasons. The science activities focus on capturing a child’s interest with simple activities that lay a foundation for more complex material.

The sandpaper letters are cut outs of lower case letters made from sandpaper that the child traces with his fingers. They are presented three at a time and are a direct preparation for reading and writing. The lessons teach fine motor skills, letter formation, letter recognition, and the association of phonetic sounds with the corresponding letter symbol.

The moveable alphabet consists of individual lowercase letters that are kept in individual compartments in a large box. Vowels and consonants are made of contrasting colors. The child is able to “write down” words as he or she determines the component sounds. Exercises begin with very simple 3-letter words and progress to longer words containing phonograms and letter combinations.
 

This set of eight puzzles maps the world’s continents and the United States, and it provides the foundational introduction to geography within the Montessori classroom. As the children manipulate the pieces, they are learning to recognize the continents. Extensions to the work hone reading and writing skills.
 

The golden beads are math materials that are used to teach in a concrete manner the basics of the decimal system–one bead represents a unit, 10 beads are wired together to represent one 10, ten 10’s are wired together to represent one hundred, and ten 100’s are wired together to represent one thousand. A variety of activities familiarize students with the names of the categories and the matching bead quantity.

The binomial cube is a sensorial activity in the primary classroom that uses a variety of cubes and prisms to present the binomial equation as a three dimensional puzzle activity.

The dressing frames are practical life activities that teach children care of self that leads the child to independence. The activities, snapping, zipping, buttons, also hone fine motor skills.