The Primary classroom serves children 3-6 years old.
The Montessori classroom is a “living room” for children, designed to facilitate maximum independent learning and exploration. Through working with Montessori materials, children develop internal order, coordination, and concentration culminating in a Kinder year full of academic challenges and discoveries.
Practical life
Practical life includes life skills such as food preparation, getting dressed, washing up, and cleaning up (such as sweeping or learning to fix something). Practical life also puts an emphasis about caring about our environment on a larger scale. Through these activities, your child will acquire the ability to care for self, others, and the environment — and learn independence, concentration, and a sense of order.
Sensorial
Sensorial activities allow your child to refine each of their senses, from sight to touch, smell, taste, sound, and kinesthetic movement. The Montessori classroom is full of specifically designed materials that refine motor skills, nurture the senses, and develop coordination. These foundational skills help children build creative thinking skills, map out space and shape, and better understand the world around them.
Math
Mathematics is developed with the use of concrete learning materials. In our Montessori classroom, we use hands-on materials to communicate numeration, place value, problem solving, and more, using concrete activities as a springboard for more abstract concepts. Materials like number rods and sandpaper numbers, games, and exercises work in tandem to give your child the skills they need for addition, subtraction, multiplication, and fractions.
Language
At the primary school stage, our goal is to increase your child’s grasp of phonetics. Your child will work through tactile language materials, like the moveable alphabet and sandpaper letters, to build recognition of letterforms and understand the sounds they make. Working at their own pace, they strengthen their ability to form words into phrases and sentences. As they acquire the language skills they need, they are introduced to the Hebrew alphabet as well.
Art, Science & Culture
Culture gives your child the opportunity to explore the natural world around them. From introductions to the sciences like geography (globes, puzzle maps, and flags) to zoology and botany, to history lessons (time lines and calendars), culture helps children explore more abstract concepts with Montessori materials and prepares them for a diverse curriculum as they grow and learn.
Kinder
In the third year, children finally get their turn to be leaders and take pride in being the oldest. While serving as role models for younger students, they reinforce and consolidate their own learning. Kindergarteners are introduced to progressively more advanced Montessori materials and sophisticated lessons. They experience an important period in which their previous learning from working with concrete Montessori materials begins to become permanent knowledge. Kindergarten is the culmination of the Primary program.
A delightful meeting of mind and Jewish heart.
At Gan Montessori, your child will learn life and learning skills, gain confidence, and develop a meaningful Jewish identity.