"I love that MCS is situated on 10 acres of forested land in the country. My son comes home almost daily with mud on him or sticks in his hair, what better learning than that of nature and play, the old fashioned way. They have gym outside and make forts at recess. The academics are a given but this type of education, especially today, is priceless!"
- Cathy Russell, RHN, CAHN.PRO
Montessori CASA Program
The Casa Program – Ages 3 to 6 years
In the Casa class the ratio is 1:12 and the Head Teacher holds a TMI/AMI/MACTE Accredited Montessori Teaching Diploma. All of our assistants are experienced, some having Montessori Assistant training and others are so highly experienced as to not require this training.
The Montessori Casa classroom is organized into five main curriculum areas. These are Practical Life, Sensorial, Language, Math and Culture. In addition, there is an art area and library corner. Music is an integral part of the class, as well as a Specialist subject. Other Specialist subjects for Casa students are French and Physical Education. Children also visit the library once a week. The Montessori materials are designed to stimulate the child into logical thought and discovery. Apart from conveying basic educational information, they develop the child’s senses and coordinate movement in preparation for reading, writing and calculating. The child learns through practice with presented materials. These concrete experiences lead to a thorough understanding of each step of a process, laying a solid foundation for more complex future work.
Practical Life exercises assist the children in learning to care for themselves, for the environment and for others. Through tasks such as pouring, polishing, preparing food, tying shoes, washing a table and in cleaning up and putting away each exercise; children develop coordination, concentration and good work habits. Their self-confidence and independence increases with each accomplishment.
Sensorial activities help children to develop and refine their sensory powers of smelling, tasting, hearing, feeling and seeing in order to better discriminate and classify their impressions. For example, through the manipulation of a sphere or cube, different lengths of rods or fitting cylinders of different sizes into holes, the children begin to order their perceptions of size and space.
Language permeates the program, developing the areas of reading, literature, grammar, creative writing and handwriting, enriching vocabulary and enhancing self-expression. The child progresses from learning the form and sounds of letters to making words with a moveable alphabet, writing words and sentences, learning non-phonetic words and combining these skills to read and write stories.
Mathematics presents a unique and exciting concrete exploration of patterns and number concepts. The materials introduce the concept of quantity and the symbols for the numbers 1 to 10. Using a variety of beads and symbol cards the child becomes familiar with the numbers as a decimal system, including hands-on experiences with the operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. The children acquire a deep understanding of how numbers function and as they learn real mathematical concepts, the materials lead to the abstract. Because of the concrete nature of the materials, the young child is able to work with the basic concepts of the operations, squaring and cubing, fractions and geometry.
Cultural Subjects include botany, zoology, science, geography, history, music and art. To the probing, questioning mind of the Casa child these areas are fertile fields for exploration and an extremely rich and varied curriculum is presented through real life experiences and an exciting array of Montessori materials.
In addition to the basic Montessori program, children participate in Outdoor Education, Field Trips and a variety of School Visits. We employ a program called The Virtues Project to enhance character development and Grace & Courtesy.
