The Montessori Method involves a curriculum of learning that comes from the child's own natural inner guidance and are generally organised into five basic categories: practical life, sensorial, language, mathematics and culture/ enrichment activities.
Practical life
This area includes daily living tasks, such as pouring liquid, polishing shoes, sweeping, buttoning a shirt. To the child, these are meaningful activities that involve caring for oneself, other people and the environment. They also help the child to concentrate, expand his attention span and improve hand-eye coordination.
Sensorial
The materials isolate a defining quality, such as colour, size, sound, texture or shape. They help to develop child’s visual, auditory, tactile senses. Some Montessori materials such as geometric solids, are concrete representations of mathematical concepts that appear in later schooling.
Language
The language materials include objects and pictures to be named, matched, labelled and classified to aid vocabulary development. Textured letters allow the child to feel and see the alphabet. Phonics and the ‘movable alphabet’ lead the child towards reading.
Arithmetic (Mathematics)
Our apparatus is geared to introduce the child to the fascinating world of numbers in a very interesting way. The series of activities help the child to form a clear concept of numbers from one to ten.
Later, by handling the large quantities within the decimal system the child is ready for the introduction of the four major operations, ie, addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.
Enrichment activities (culture)
Activities in geography, drawing, painting, singing, nature and physical education are selected and structured to relate to the core curriculum which aids in the overall development of the child
