CREATIVE LEARNING ACADEMY PREPRIMARY PROGRAM

Preprimary Montessori Program

The Preprimary program at Creative Learning Academy is a Montessori-based program for three, four, and five-year-olds.  Maria Montessori believed that the hand is the chief teacher.  Therefore, the Montessori classroom contains multi-sensory, sequential, self-correcting materials designed to ignite a child’s love of learning.

A richly prepared environment provides the children the tools necessary to encourage them to follow their own needs and interests in choosing activities.  The classrooms are divided into 6 areas: practical life, sensorial, language, math, science, and geography.  Each area provides activities that move from concrete to abstract and develop the fundamental tools for learning: concentration, organization, and independence.

Practical Life:
Practical life is considered the foundation of the Montessori curriculum.  The fundamental tools for learning (concentration, coordination, organization, and independence) are established as the children learn the simple tasks involved with care of themselves, care of the environment, and grace and courtesies.  Practical life experiences both directly and indirectly prepare the children for work in other areas of the classroom.

Language:
Language is organized into listening, speaking, writing, and reading.  Children are provided with many activities which develop discrimination skills and vocabulary. A phonics approach to reading is utilized which has the children assign the sound to the letter.  When the child knows a certain number of sounds, the letters are placed together to form words that the child can sound out.

Sensorial:
The sensorial area is designed to refine the senses. This is the time in the child’s life when information is received through the senses; therefore, the need to develop and refine the senses is particularly important.  The children match and grade colors, shapes, and sizes.  Textures, sounds, and tastes are also matched.   Concentration, coordination, organization, and independence established in the Practical Life areas are further developed with the sensorial materials.  Sensorial work also provides direct preparation for math.  

Math:
The math area contains many materials that enable the children to have a variety of concrete experiences with quantities and associated symbols.  As the children become comfortable with the concrete, they are able to move on to abstract math work.  They begin with numbers 1-10 and then quickly proceed to 100.  The base ten system is introduced: units, tens, hundreds, and thousands; basic addition, subtraction, and multiplication.

Science:
The science area covers work in general science, zoology, and botany.  In general science the children work with magnets, sink and float, and weather.  Zoology includes the study of the fish, mammal, human body, reptile, bird, and amphibian.  In botany the six parts of the plant are identified as well as the work of each plant part.  A wide variety of “hands-on” activities are available, including a Preprimary “Friendship Garden”.


Geography:
The geography area introduces the children to the basic concepts of geography such as land, air, water, land and water forms, and maps.  The seven continents of the world are introduced and each continent is studied individually.  Children learn the location of each continent along with the countries, flags, animals, and cultures that are part of each continent.

Enrichments:
Enrichments to our program come through field trips, community resources, guest speakers and enrichment classes.  Students attend music class (twice per week), art class (twice per week), physical education class (three times per week), library class (twice per week), technology class (twice every other week), and Spanish class (three times per week).