Philosophy of Peaceful Heights Montessori School and Child Care
Infants
The Infant Toddler Education Program is a formal curriculum. It offers nurturance, support, security, predictability, focus, encouragement and individual expansion to support cognitive development.
Young infants begin to learn from their immediate surroundings. The sense of well-being and security is conveyed by our loving and skilled caregivers. Before infants can creep and crawl they are provided sensory experiences and encouraged to move and play.
Mobile Infants are given the opportunity to be persistent and purposeful, creating new skills within safe boundaries. Our skilled caregivers share the child’s delight and discoveries in themselves.
Loving teachers provide a warm, safe and comfortable environment for the infant to explore and master.
Emotional consistency helps the infant to develop self-confidence, explore communication and develop physical, cognitive and social skills.
Infants establish patterns of sleeping, eating, playing, moving and interacting with peers. Infants are supported by developing stability in routines.
The details of the day are related to the parents through the use of daily reports which include such things as: sleeping schedule, eating habits, diapering routines and quality of their day.
The environment/routines are the heart of infant care and a major part of their curriculum;
Cognitive and language skills – using sensory objects, doing art projects and learning some sign language
Security/comfort – making sure each child feels safe and happy
Sense of order – having a daily routines that the child establishes him/her self
Independence – allowing infants to be able to explore the room freely surrounded by child size furniture
Developing large and fine motor skills with appropriate materials
Promoting healthy life style – Use of a county License nurse to guide according to the state guidelines on a monthly basis
Philosophy of Peaceful Heights Montessori School and Child Care
Toddler
Toddlers are encouraged to be curious explorers and problem solvers, thinking in words and symbols to remember and imagine. We have open ended materials and space to encourage their exploration. This type of learning often, but not always, in a group is critical before joining the children’s house at about age 3. These 18 months establish close relationships among children, teachers and their activity. Rich materials and open spaces are used with the children.
Toddlers are developing new language skills, physical control and awareness. They enjoy participation in planned group activities but are not expected to sit still or work in a group for very long. Our skilled caregivers provide dependable but flexible opportunities to learn skills, understanding and judgment in individual ways help by spaces available indoors and outdoors. Learning activities use rich quality materials in the program and process.
The program is designed to prepare the child for the next step of practical life, sensorial experience, language, mathematics, culture and art/music Montessori Learning in the Children’s House after 33 to 36 months. The future learning activities use many self-correcting rich high quality materials in the program and process.
Children need a rich engaging environment that is physically and emotionally secure. We create a sense of community where children notice and care about each other. We have plenty of space inside and out to help children fill their need for large motor activities.
Toddlers are always ready to learn. The care they receive now will have a powerful influence on how they view the world, relate to others, and succeed as learners.
At Peaceful Heights Montessori our program is set up to follow the specific guidelines. We do ongoing assessments for each child. Including careful observation while children play and explore their surroundings. This process helps us create learning activities and experiences that will be the most meaningful to each child. We hold conferences twice a year and always look forward to our parent’s feedback.
Social and Emotional Development
Group Time
- Name identification song and shakers are used to start our group time
- Counting from 0-55 using bears
- Use materials to recognize the numeral and written
numbers from 0-10
- Games and flashcards are used to learn colors
- Sorting by color, shape, patterns, and size
- Many visuals are used for letter recognition and sounds
Dramatic Play
Dress up area
Kitchen
Mirrors, masks, and accessories
Discussions about monthly themes
- Cultural Events
- Celebrations
- Themes such as farms, weather, insects,
dinosaurs, and many more
Cognitive Development
Small groups and one on one interaction with staff
Our room is set up to allow children to choose work
freely
Provide a shelf
specifically for advanced manipulative materials
Sensory tables and crafts
Communication and Language
Supervised baby can read program
Letter and sound recognition using flash cards, books,
and visuals
Children are read to daily and have a their own library
Discussions to enhance children’s vocabulary
Physical Development
- Outside Time we have 3 playgrounds (climbers, hoops,
swings, slides, riding toys, bikes, sand box and balls)
- Indoor Large Motor Skills (balance beam, slide, tunnel, riding
toys, parachute, tent ,balls, hoop, and a large open area)
- Yoga, Exercise, and Stretching (We change the names to
some poses to make them fun)
- Dancing / Instruments & music
