Our Program for Preschoolers or Primaries
Preschoolers thrive on new experiences. To stimulate their developmental needs, ARC-EN-CIEL Day Care Center and Montessori School offers a variety of activities to help them build their self-confidence, self-esteem, and promote their physical, emotional, intellectual, and social growth.
The Primary classroom is designed to take advantage of a child’s most sensitive years, between 3 to 6, when he best absorbs the information from an enriched environment.
Dr. Montessori believed that no person educates another human being. He must do it himself or it will never be done; therefore, the goal of a classroom should not be to fill the child with textbook facts, but rather to cultivate his own natural desire to learn. Our objective is to first allow the child to experience the excitement of learning by his own choice, and second, to help the child cultivate his own natural desire to learn.
The classroom is a prepared environment filled with interesting activities and social interactions. The primary student enjoys the repetition of practical life exercises such as pouring, polishing and buttoning, which develop coordination and physical independence. Attractively presented sensorial materials stimulate the developing senses; sight, sound, touch and smell are all at work for the child. Rods, cubes and geometric solids allow the child to discover mathematical relationships through manipulation. Phonics promotes the fun and excitement of the communication process. Language, math, science, geography, art and music are offered through concrete experiences in which the child supplies the energy, and the teacher provides the “prepared environment” and enthusiastic directions for learning.
Multi-age grouping accommodates the child’s biological clock rather than rely on age as the primary indicator for readiness with instruction. Peer cooperation and peer tutoring increases achievement and self-esteem in both the older and younger child. There is the added advantage that students and teachers enjoy the experience of being together for three years. In a multi-age classroom there are established models so that teachers are spending less time teaching the classroom routines. Ultimately, multi-age grouping offers increased flexibility for the child’s individual needs.