Trillium Montessori

Sensorial
The goal in the Montessori Sensorial area is to educate the child’s senses. We use specific materials to emphasize sight, sound, touch, taste, smell, weight, and temperature. 

Practical Life
Working in the Practical Life area, children practice essential skills for living. Practical Life materials encourage children to develop self-confidence, independence, control over movements, concentration and hand-eye coordination. As well, these activities encourage left to right sequencing and fine motor skills needed for future reading and writing.

Math

In the Montessori school, the Practical Life and Sensorial areas come together to help develop the mathematical mind. In our Math area, we introduce children very early to math concepts. Young children are fascinated with big numbers and we have the materials to make big and small numbers concrete for them. The Montessori math materials have a built in progression that is colour coded and fascinating.

Language
Maria Montessori developed a fantastic method to teach children language skills. She discovered that the window of opportunity to learn reading and writing is between 3 and 6 years of age and she designed specific materials to meet the child’s needs in this area. With Montessori’s method and materials, preschoolers begin to learn letter sounds, blend sounds together and match words to objects. A strong foundation is internalized to develop reading and writing skills.

Culture
Geography:  Beautiful, large puzzle maps with consistent colour codes are used to introduce children to our world. Children trace, paint and colour the maps. They learn names of continents and countries. Also, we study aspects of different lands and cultures. We feel that this is the golden opportunity for children to get a big picture of the world.
Zoology: Children explore different types of animals and identify their parts, their habits and their features.
Botany: Naming, growing and caring for plants is combined with learning about their parts and basic needs.  

Physical Education
Outside play is a strong component of our program. Balls, cars, dolls, hoola-hoops and toys are provided outside for free play. Different types of sports, dance and games will be introduced during indoor and outdoor times. As well, all of our learning activities are designed to make use of fine and gross motor skills.