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TABLE OF CONTENTS

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2 ABOUT THE MONTESSORI DAY CARE SOCIETY

Objectives

Mission Statement

3 MONTESSORI PHILOSOPHY

Practical Life

Sensorial Area

Language Area

Mathematics Area

Further Reading

6 OUR STAFF

8 GRADUAL ENTRY

Items to Bring the First Week

Toys

10 DAILY AND WEEKLY ROUTINES

Circle Times

Outdoor Play

Lunch

Nap

Specialty Classes

12 WHEN A CHILD IS TOO ILL TO ATTEND
14 DAILY TIMETABLE

15 SNACKS AND LUNCH
Allergies and Food Sensitivities
16 SPECIAL EVENTS

Birthdays

Field Trips

Show and Share

17 HYGIENE

18 ADMINISTRATION AND SOCIETY POLICIES

Montessori Program

Operation Schedule

Cubby Area Expectations: Drop off and Pick up

Parent Communication

Monthly Calendar, Fundraising, Newsletter, and Daily Notice Boards

21 PARENT MEETINGS AND FAMILY CELEBRATIONS
23 GUIDING AND CARING
24 RESPONSIBILITIES OF SOCIETY MEMBERS

25 VOLUNTEER POSITIONS

ABOUT THE MONTESSORI DAY CARE SOCIETY

The Montessori Day Care Society was established in 1974 as a not-for-profit society. We were one of the very first Montessori schools in Vancouver and are very proud to have been providing Montessori education for more than 40 years! Our teachers are apart of the BCGEU and have been since 2003. They bring a wealth of knowledge and expertise in Montessori pedagogy, early childhood development, all in a loving and caring environment that is specifically designed to help your child grow into wonderful caring human beings!

Our school is located at 8th and Arbutus in Kitsilano. Our classroom is a warm and inviting environment, where the children have the opportunity to make friends, learn together in a multi- age classroom, play together outdoors and have fun! Each week the children have the opportunity to participate in weekly French, Music, Yoga and Art classes as part of our Montessori curriculum. We host family events, parent education evenings, a parent teacher conference, and a student-led conference each year.

The school is open 7:45am-5:45pm, with our core programming operating from 9am-3:30pm. Our daily program consists of Montessori work in the mornings and afternoons, circle-times, snack times, lunchtime, nap time (for those who need one) and outdoor playtime. We have a fabulous outdoor environment where the children are free to climb, run, jump, swing, ride tricycles and play with their friends! During the summer months we change our Montessori classroom environment into a Summer Camp having special themed days, plenty of outdoor water play and trips to neighbouring parks, playgrounds and Kits Beach!

We accept children between the ages of 3 and 6 years and are permitted by licensing to have two children in our program who are between 30 and 36 months of age. We provide a full day Montessori preschool program, which operates year round. Our current fees are $1150/month. Each parent becomes a member of the Society and is responsible for volunteering three hours per month. The Montessori Daycare Society operates throughout the year but is closed for statutory holidays, the three days prior to the Labour Day weekend, Christmas Eve and the days between Christmas and New Year’s Day. A Board of Directors, along with our Executive Director, who is the Administrator, governs the Montessori Daycare Society.

Our Objectives

· To foster and inspire the continuing growth of children’s knowledge.

· To nurture children’s understanding of themselves and the world.

· To recognize the fact that children are individuals and that every child is unique.

· To accommodate the broad range of children’s individual needs, learning styles, personal knowledge, experiences and interests in order to facilitate continuous learning.

· To achieve the above goals effectively by using the Montessori Method understanding the evolving conditions of our culture by incorporating a variety of instructional models, strategies and resources.

Mission Statement

To provide progressive, quality childcare to meet the evolving needs of our community.

MONTESSORI PHILOSOPHY
Dr. Maria Montessori began the Montessori Method as a means to achieve peace and the origins are firmly rooted in this social movement of peace education. Her objectives were to place children at the centre of society to allow children to reach their full potential, and have the opportunity to become harmonious human beings who would place peace at the centre of their world.

Dr. Montessori through careful observation of children all over the world developed her method of education. The Montessori materials are a vital component in the environment as well as highly trained teachers who guide and present the materials to the children. The community of learners in a multi-age setting is also an integral part of the Montessori classroom.

Our Montessori program honours the development of the whole child. It reflects an understanding that children learn through active sensory experiences, and that they will represent their knowledge in a variety of ways. It recognizes the social nature of learning and the important role of language in communication. We view observation, assessment and evaluation as integral components of the teaching and learning process. It supports the child’s learning and assists the teachers in making appropriate educational decisions. Our program encourages teachers and parents to be partners in the child’s educational process. Teachers and parents consult and collaborate to create a climate of respect, success and joy for the child.

A Montessori prepared environment has four main areas: Practical Life, Sensorial, Language and Mathematics. Each area has specific Montessori materials that the child works with. The Montessori materials embody abstract concepts so that they can be presented in the most concrete way for the child. The materials are self-correcting, in that it is immediately obvious to the child when an error is made. The materials are graduated in that each child is assisted through each step in preparation for the next step. The child has the freedom to choose the rate of progress and move through the classroom based on their interest and ability.

Practical Life Area

The exercises in the Practical Life area are the first that a child will master when he enters the classroom, and he will continue to do them until he leaves. These activities represent the same activities which adults do daily to maintain and restore their environment and themselves. These activities serve as an external purpose for the adult. For the child these activities are set up as the exercises of practical life, which are provided in a prepared environment and allows for repetition. We have discovered that the child chooses these exercises to satisfy an inner purpose. This inner purpose is the beginning of the child’s independence; which is the care of themselves, their environment, their social graces and coordination of movement. Coordination of movement is essential to enable the child to connect their mind and body, thus integrating their personality. The coordination of movement is the integrating of intelligence, will and the movement of muscles. When all three work simultaneously the child has acquired the skill of coordination of movement. Through repetition this skill can be mastered, and repetition leads to concentration. The basis of real education is concentration.

Sensorial Area

The Sensorial area builds on some of the basic skills developed in the Practical Life exercises such as precision, attention to detail and concentration. The Sensorial Area offers the child the opportunity to interpret his world intelligently by refining his senses during that period of life between three and six when there is a natural inclination to perfect the sense due to the Sensitive Period for the Refinement of the Senses. This experience enables the child to distinguish and classify his impressions through the specially designed materials. In the Prepared Environment, the Sensorial Area provides a series of exercises with scientifically designed objects that are grouped together according to their physical qualities such as size, shape, colour, texture, weight, temperature, sound etc. This organization of scientific material enables the child to rediscover his environment using his senses in a clear, meaningful and intelligent manner.

Language Area

Language not only an art, it is a gift, a ‘miracle of creation, of inner construction’. It is built through the activities of the intellect, and must be fostered in all areas of life, but in particular, in the Montessori classroom. The child from birth to six possesses a powerful absorbent mind that is actively engaged in self-construction. The creation and perfection of spoken language is essential to the child’s self-construction. Motivated in part by the absorbent mind and highlighted by the sensitive period for the acquisition of language, the child is helped in adapting fully to his culture. The absorbent mind allows the child to take-in language indiscriminately and unconsciously. With this understanding of the importance of the child’s sensitive period to language the Montessori classroom is well prepared. Language is not isolated to one area of the classroom it is found in every area. We begin with vocabulary enrichment focusing on the objects in the environment, qualities of the sensorial materials, names of classified cards, then followed by language training. Dr. Montessori found that is was easier for the young child to begin to write words first before reading them. In order for this to happen she developed a very specific writing curriculum. We introduce the child to the phonetic sounds of the alphabet, first orally then we introduce the symbol through the sandpaper letters. The next step in the process is to work with the moveable alphabet. This process takes time and if the child is given ample time to work with these materials, the child will spontaneously begin to decode the words they have written and start to read. Please note that the emphasis is on the process and the development of their language acquisition. We also help the child to prepare their hands for writing through a variety of Montessori materials in other areas of the classroom and for reading by having the materials presented from left to right. We are not interested in pushing the children to read and write but to allow the process to develop naturally at a pace that is in keeping with their own development and language acquisition.

Mathematics Area

Dr. Montessori discovered that children, like all humans throughout the ages have a need of mathematics, just as their language, to communicate in a very precise and exact manner. The Mathematical Mind is the aspect of the human mind, which is exact, orderly and precise. It is uniquely human and it is a capacity found in all human beings. It is the logical, reasoning part of the mind. It is the part of the mind that needs to quantify and to classify all it discovers. Despite mathematics being a language developed by humans as a form of exact and precise communication, the majority of people find it difficult. Dr. Montessori believed that this fact is in part because arithmetic is not as accessible to young children as language. This form of language gives exact meaning and precision to communication; it gives the child an additional domain about which he can communicate. Order is one of the most powerful forces dominating the child’s early life. The predictability, exactness and logic of mathematics feeds the Human Tendency towards order as well as the Sensitive Period for Order. The mathematical materials foster repetition, which is so necessary to absorb abstract operations through practice, leading to perfection. The child discovers the interrelationships between numbers and operations, through the use of the mathematical material. The mathematical materials are exact and precise, such that there is only one correct answer to a problem. Exactness is also denoted through the control of error and the orderly and sequential presentations. Dr. Montessori knew that it was essential to help the child prepare their Mathematical Mind and provided opportunities for this development in the Practical Life and Sensorial materials. When the child is ready to work with the materials in the Mathematics area we first introduce the child to the quantity before we introduce the child to the symbol. This is to ensure that the child fully grasps the concept and has a concrete understanding. The quantity is represented in a material that the child can manipulate rather than something to memorize. Manipulation of the material helps the child arrive at abstraction through conscious interest. Dr. Montessori also found the Mathematical materials to be the most popular and capable of inspiring enthusiasm, interest, concentration and repetition!