The
Three Year Program
The
Montessori program is a series of progressions, each skill being a
foundation for future learning. While
a child can enter the Montessori program at any age, the optimum experience
is for a child to enter at around three years of age and stay in the program
for three years, until they enter grade one.
The work the three year old child does in their first year, builds a foundation for
success in their achievements in their third year of the program.
First Year
The
child enters the classroom between the ages of 2.5 to 3.5, whenever they are
toilet-trained and showing a readiness for school.
The child learns to better control and coordinate their movements
through work done in the Practical Life area such as pouring, sweeping, and
simple dressing frames such as buttons.
They are building up their ability to concentrate and preparing their
mind and physical self for later Math and Language work.
The young child also learns what it means to be a part of a larger
community by following rules and respecting fellow classmates.
The young child spends a lot of time observing other children do
their work. A lot of work is
also done in the Sensorial area, as the child clarifies their sensorial impressions of
their life experiences. The
order that is created in the child’s mind during this time is key to
further learning. The three year
old child is also engaged in vocabulary building, ability to recognize
phonetic sounds in words, and learning to trace the sandpaper letters.
Some children are ready to begin their work in mathematics by gaining
a concrete understanding of numbers one through ten.
Second Year
Based
upon their building up of motor development and ability to reason in Practical
Life from their first year, the child begins to carry out more complex
work in the Practical Life area. Some of
this work includes washing linens, polishing silver, and tying bows.
In Sensorial, the child has created knowledge of basic sensorial
concepts such as colours, shapes, textures, and sounds.
The child continues to refine their senses by grading these materials
and using the advanced sensorial materials.
In Language, the child begins using the moveable alphabet to form
words and does a lot of work with the metal insets to improve their pencil
control. In Mathematics, the
child solidifies their knowledge of numbers up to ten and continues counting
up to one thousand. The child
also begins work with the decimal system and is introduced to different
mathematical operations such as addition and subtraction.
Third Year
This
is the year where the foundations built in previous years come together to
provide great joy in their achievements.
The children gain a sense of responsibility and self-confidence as
they take care of the needs of the classroom and give presentations to
younger members of the class. In
Language, the children are reading, first phonetically and then learning
phonograms and sight words. To
further challenge the child, sentence analysis begins.
In Mathematics, the child continues doing four digit mathematical
operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division) with the
decimal system. They also
explore single digit equations to further understand how the operations work
and through this exploration, they begin to memorize simple equations.
The child also focuses more on the extensions in the classroom as
their ability to understand concepts that are not concretely in front of
them comes together. The child
emerging from three years of Montessori primary education are full of curiosity
of their world, self-confidence, and hold a strong foundation for
future enjoyment of learning.