five subjects

The materials in our classroom or ‘children’s living room’ are divided into five areas of knowledge, which are:

1.    SENSORIAL - where children will learn using not only audio-visual, but all of their senses. For instance, when learning the alphabet children will learn by touching sandpaper letters, when learning about temperatures they will hold cylinders with different degrees of heated water. When learning about geometrical shapes children will run their fingers along the edges of a square or a triangle with their eyes closed.

2.    PRACTICAL LIFE - where kids will learn how to do everyday chores from tying up shoe laces and getting themselves dressed to serving the table.

3.    MATHEMATICS - A wide range of mathematical materials and games will help our little students to learn about numbers, quantity, size, and the main mathematical functions of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.
                                                 
4.    LANGUAGE - Language area will include a number of sets of movable alphabet, which the children are allowed to handle on their own. Montessori children usually begin to write before they know how to read.

5.    CULTURE AND SOCIAL (Geography, Botany, Art, Science) - This extensive section includes materials on Geography, Botany, Art and Science. Children will play with country flags, globes, world and continent puzzles. Cosmic education, featuring such materials as an easily perceived model of the Solar System, called Tellurium will enable children to learn about our planetary system and even concept of galaxies. To celebrate a birthday the child will pick up a globe and carry it around a large candle symbolizing the sun.

Sometimes children will group for an activity, and at other times the child is free to choose the material from the shelf that interests him/her. If she needs help with the material the teacher is always there to help the child learn how to use it. The teacher, however, never does the activity for the child, she is there merely to instruct, and induce the child’s discovery of the truth. The Montessori method is highly effective because, among other things, it is inductive. High academic achievement that usually goes along with Montessori education is merely a by-product of learning with joy.

After the child is finished with the activity he/she takes the careful courtesy to put the materials back on the shelf for the other children to use.