Beginners

Toddlers show an irresistible tendency to touch and actively explore everything.  It is during this sensitive period for touch, movement, and processing of sensory stimulation that we introduce Sensorial materials to give order to incoming sensations.  Activities in this area include color matching and naming, sorting (by size, shape, and color), matching textures and shapes, and grading according to proportion. Children explore new tastes through daily tasting activities and become attuned to sounds through rhythmic activities, games and music.

Very young children are in a “sensitive period” for language development, eagerly soaking in new vocabulary and learning to use language as a powerful tool to negotiate the social environment.  Our Beginners classroom is language-rich, but not language over-loading; the teachers carefully introduce new vocabulary and invite children to flex their language muscles every day. Activities include naming objects and people, playing rhyming and “I Spy” games, story telling and book sharing, classified object baskets, and many matching, patterning and sequencing activities.  Children are playfully exposed to the sounds that make up words, developing their auditory discrimination skills in preparation for sound/symbol awareness.

Various oral counting games and other concrete materials expose the Beginners to the world of numbers in a hands-on and enjoyable way.  Children at this age are forming basic and essential “pre-math” skills and concepts such as order, sequence, one-to-one correspondence, sorting, directionality, gradation, and visual discrimination.  They are also learning to count by rote through songs and number games. Eventually they begin to quantify and to associate a specific quantity with a symbol.  Pre-math and Math activities in the Beginners classroom include counting objects and children, matching and sorting activities, grading by size, making visual comparisons, transferring materials from one containers to another (volume comparison) and singing counting songs.

Young children are in a sensitive period for movement; they must move in order to fully learn. The Beginners are involved in vigorous movement experiences, (developing both fine and gross motor abilities) as an integral part of every day.  The freedom to move in the classroom (as well as outside of the classroom) is absolutely crucial, for physical movement is intimately bound up with mental activity as patterns of learning are mapped out in the brain.  Examples of the way that motor development is incorporated into the Beginners program include: daily playground or indoor vigorous play time, incorporation of large and small muscle movement into cognitive activities, inclusion of movement activities during circle time, inclusion of slide, climber, spinner, balancing activities in the classroom.

Very young children are active scientists with an avid quest to directly experience the world around them. Dr. Montessori felt strongly that children- especially those who reside in urban communities- must be given access to the natural world.  She advocated the need for plants and animals in the classroom for which the children have connection and a sense of responsibility.   From these activities, even the youngest children develop respect for as well as knowledge of living things.

The toddlers are like little physicists in their cognitive explorations of the world around them. Thus, in addition to the materials and activities that expose them to living things, there are also works in the classroom that explore concepts of physical science.

Routine Science activities for the Beginners include: daily exposure to the natural world through playground time and nature walks, observation of wild birds (bird feeder), plant care, handling natural objects (object basket), sink/float activities,  and color mixing.

Both the visual arts and musical experiences offer our Beginners the opportunity to express themselves, explore with various media, and savor rhythms, melodies, and movements. Daily classroom experiences include such activities as easel painting, rock painting, shaping play doh, gluing, tearing and cutting, singing, movement, and rhythmic activities.  All such activities are process rather than product-oriented.