Montessori Curriculum

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The preschool at St. John strives through Catholic principles and Montessori philosophy to create a loving environment that will allow the student to grow in faith, social grace, discipline, and academics. 


Goals:
1. Develop the child’s potential by direct experience in a Montessori Prepared Environment and with the use of didactic materials.
2. Foster the Montessori principles of order, concentration, coordination, and independence.
3. Instill confidence through successfully dealing with new and different tasks and situations.
4. Build on family love relationships in order to initiate children to God’s love growing within them.
5. Pass on Catholic traditions to the child through the celebration of the liturgical seasons.
6. Prepare the child through a broad experimental base for the ongoing program at St. John School by developing basic concepts of math and phonics.
Goals/Objectives: To provide the child with real experiences and practice in areas of grace and courtesy, care of the person, and care of the environment. Children learn how to shake hands, carry a tray, and pour and serve food and drink. They also learn to use snaps, zippers, buckles, and laces. In caring for their environment, they might dust, wash tables, sweep, or wash dishes.
Goals/Objectives: To help children train and refine their senses, learn the precision in handling materials, and prepare for later work in language, math, and cosmic studies. Children learn about sight discrimination, tactile discrimination, sound, taste, and smell through various lessons and activities. Activities include use of materials that allow the child to gauge sizes and shapes, play matching or pattern games, and verbalize their sensory perceptions.
Goals/Objectives: To prepare the child for reading and writing and to increase the child’s vocabulary through experiences and exact terminology. Children begin to build vocabulary through stories, poems, songs, and games. They also develop self-confidence in speaking through sharing time, story/poem recitation, and singing. Children work on pencil control through the use of metal insets. They work on pre-writing skills by tracing shapes and sandpaper letters. Children also explore sounds that compose phonetic words.
Goals/Objectives: To enable children to make their own mathematical discoveries, organize the math knowledge they have previously absorbed, and help them acquire the understanding necessary for abstraction. Children explore mathematical concepts through activities including number rods, tracing dotted numerals, number games with objects for the numeral shown. They are introduced to the spindle box, cards and counters, and the concept of odd and even numerals.
Goals/Objectives: To increase awareness and love of the world through the areas of natural and physical science and to foster a desire to pursue further knowledge. Children learn to recognize and name land and water forms, plants and their parts, and the passage of time through the use of clocks, time lines, and the liturgical year. Use of globes and maps; observation of seasonal changes affecting plants; books, movies, and songs of other lands and cultures are just some of the activities pursued in Cosmic Studies. Children also experiment with dissecting flowers, take nature walks to collect plant specimens, and recognize changes in the weather and seasons.
Goals/Objectives: To be an aid to the parents in the child’s faith development and enhance the appreciation of different forms of prayer as well as provide opportunities for liturgical celebrations throughout the year. Children experience simple Bible stories, celebrate Advent, Christmas, Lent, and Easter, and are provided with an opportunity to give thanks to God.

 

All students have music and visit the library weekly.  Students in the 5-day classes also enjoy Spanish, Second Step, and PE.