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Toddler Curriculum

Toddler Montessori & Academic Program Outline

Practical Life Skills - Develops memory, attention span, concentration, coordination, and motor control. Skills taught are used in everyday life such as: buttoning, zipping, pouring, tying, spooning, sifting, stringing, sorting, snapping, cleaning, etc.

Sensorial - Anything that involves the five senses. Some skills associated with Sensorial materials are visual perception, depth, color, height, width, taste, touch and fine motor control. A variety of materials are used to develop these senses such as: knobbed cylinders, rough & smooth boards, variation in texture materials, etc.

Circle Time - general class curriculum to include stories, songs, finger plays, weather, days of the week, months, shapes, colors, numbers, letters, etc.

Phonics and Vocabulary Enrichment - letter, number and sound recognition. Construction of sentences using picture cards.

Spanish - conducted twice a week. Concepts taught include counting, colors, greetings/farewells, etc.

Music – explored daily by the Montessori lead teacher and assistant.

Educational Materials

A sparse environment of carefully chosen materials calls the child to work, concentration, and joy. A crowded or chaotic environment can cause stress and can dissipate a child's energy.

Television . . .is an anti-experience and an anti-knowledge machine because it separates individuals from themselves and from the environment and makes them believe they are living while they are only observing passively what other people decide to make them see.
—Dr. Silvana Montanaro, MD, psychiatrist, pediatrician, international director of the Montessori Assistants to Infancy courses

Maria Montessori's view on the learning child sees not so much the task of filling the mind with information, but rather of constructing the mind through activity according to inner directives and urges. For children age six and older, the computer can be a very positive part of the environment, but it is still important to decide what to do with it. Such a decision should be carefully based on the children's developmental needs and their well-being. —Dr. Peter Gebhardt-Seele, physicist, computer author, Montessori teacher-trainer