Hear from one of our Pre-Primary (3-6 Years) Directors – Natasha Williams and Classroom Assistant Mag O’Hearn, as they share the exciting learning that is taking place during Term 3, 2020!
The children are enjoying the continuity and consistency that their Children’s House provides for them and this term we have seen them continue to develop their friendships with old and new friends, their sense of responsibility for themselves, others and their environment has been strengthened and they continue to progress with their individual lessons that follow their developmental interests.
Mag and I respond to their sensitive periods and by observing the children we see what they are interested in and we connect them with something that will fulfill that developmental interest. Our classroom provides materials and experiences that span the interests of children from 3-6 years of age. The curriculum in the room provides the children with meaningful interactions with their environment that especially appeal to the 3 year olds, 4 year olds and 5 year olds respectively. They each develop deep knowledge through the gift of time, repetition and sequenced progression.
Please enjoy some of the activities that each age group are working on this term.
3 Year Olds
Practical Life:
Practical Life has so many benefits for the development of the child as it assists them to acquire skills to care for themselves and others and their environment. It also develops their brains to perform increasingly more complex tasks and helps them to coordinate their movements. It connects them to tasks they see carried out in their home and school environments and provides them with permission to engage with positive purpose with the things in their environment, helping them to become custodians of their world.
Care of self – snack table and food preparation
Listening to their bodies and eating when they feel hungry is supported through individual food preparation. They choose their fruit and prepare it in appropriate ways. They also are cooking Kale Chips from the garden if they choose. They then enjoy it socially with other friends at the snack table.
Care of the environment
Building responsibility and opportunities to problem solve and care for their environment and the living things that inhabit it as well.
Sweeping and mopping
Children have skills that they can use to solve problems and care of their environment. This develops a friendly feeling for error as children are not worried about making mess as they know how to fix it if it happens. We are enjoying the purposeful work that the sandpit provides for sweeping activities.
Washing cloths and scrubbing tables
Children develop their concentration with these longer practical life activities and also perform acts of kindness as they clean items in their environment for others to use.
Watering the garden
Children come to know the needs of living things and how they can help them and care for them. To know is to love.
4 Year Olds
Literacy:
Developing vocabulary through songs, conversations and literature. Building phonological and phonetic awareness with games with the Sandpaper Letters and Moveable Alphabet.
Sandpaper Letters
This activity provides children with a visual and tactile impression of each letter in preparation for handwriting. The sound the letter makes (not the name) is also introduced.
Moveable Alphabet
This material allows the child to use their growing knowledge of letters and their sounds to begin to write down their thoughts and feelings. It is the start of written expression and is spelt phonetically with awareness of spelling rules introduced later.
Mathematics:
Absorbing mathematical concepts with concrete manipulation of precise materials.
Geometry Cabinet
Tracing and drawing shapes will help children with their handwriting.
Fractions
Exploring concepts of fractions and discovering equivalencies.
Number Rods
Introducing the number as a whole from 1-10.
Sensorial:
Precise materials that help the child to sort and categorise the many sensorial impressions that they have absorbed from birth. They also prepare the child for mathematical work.
Colour Box 3
Children become aware that colours have shades.
5 Year Olds
Literacy:
Building on their phonetic knowledge as their reading and writing becomes more fluent and each process supports the other.
Small Moveable Alphabet
Constructing and writing stories of their own choice based on their own interests.
Word Study
Compound words, singular and plural, antonyms and homonyms.
Mathematics:
Mathematics is a language that is used to describe our world. Children are natural mathematicians. The materials help them to find out about how their world works.
Multiplication Bead Board
Exploration of quantity and the result of taking the same number many times – the beginning of times tables.
Cultural:
Children love their world and want to know about it. They are explorers and wonderers.
Continent Puzzle Maps
Children are interested in the World and the Maps provide them with a way to find out about the Continents of their World, first through their visual sense they build the map and absorb the layout. Then layers are added to their knowledge such as the names of the countries, as their hand develops they can trace and colour and label the maps, then they can explore the biomes and culture of the Continents. They build deep knowledge about each continent in this way.
Embedding Indigenous Perspectives
Connecting children to Australia’s Indigenous heritage through daily access to indigenous perspectives.
We look forward to continuing to share more details about your child and the care they receive at FMS through your Transparent Classroom updates. If you have any questions about the Montessori Method we are always happy to discuss it with you. It is a passion of ours and we love to talk about it! For more whole school news please follow FMS on Instagram and Facebook. We look forward to watching and working alongside your children and sharing their discoveries and achievements along the way.
With gratitude,
Natasha and Mag
