About Us
The Montessori Academy of San Diego is a home-based Montessori Preschool providing a nurturing and educational environment for children ages birth to 10 years. Established in 2012, our mission is to inspire a love for learning and exploration in each child. We are dedicated to fostering independence, creativity, and a lifelong passion for knowledge.
Our Philosophy
The Montessori method evolved naturally and without intention based on Maria Montessori’s observations of mixed-age children in an optimal setting, the first Children’s House. In the Montessori environment, the ideal conditions were created, which helped to develop the child. It encouraged the children to be their creators, working actively in their environment to develop infinite experiences. By observing their experiences, Maria Montessori understood each child's needs (sensitive periods) at their particular stage of development. Maria Montessori provided material that helped to stimulate the children and expand their experiences, thus developing the Montessori method we use today. Our philosophy is to instill a love of learning in each child and to follow their individual pace.
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Our Curriculum:
PRACTICAL LIFE
Practical Life activities allow children to successfully accomplish many of the purposeful daily activities that they observe adults do, such as sweeping, folding, scrubbing, polishing, and setting the table. Through these activities, children help to care for their classroom environment while following a logical sequence of steps. Children also practice Self-Care, learning to button, zip, snap, take off and put on their shoes, and successfully use the toilet. The classroom environment is rich in Language: thoughtful conversation, songs, and rhymes accompany a wide range of materials designed to enrich vocabulary. Manipulative materials for Sensory-Motor Development encourage the refinement of hand-eye coordination. Children also explore musical instruments and artistic media that cultivate Self-Expression. When children play together on the indoor playground or explore nature at local parks, they have many opportunities to develop their motor movements and balance.
SENSORIAL
The sensory area of the classroom helps children use their senses to explore their environment. The Sensorial area of the classroom builds the child’s concentration for a broadened awakening of the senses and perception for distinguishing different qualities and patterns. Each activity focuses on one quality, such as color, weight, shape, size, texture, sound or smell. These activities develop the child’s senses of perception and discrimination for examining and noticing slight differences in patterns and developing fine motor function in the hands.
LANGUAGE
The Language area of the Montessori classroom encourages the development of early-literacy skills through phonetic sounds. Children are exposed to various types of phonetic awareness activities in the Language area to build a solid literary foundation. Montessori Language activities are designed to improve a child’s vocabulary, listening skills for familiar sounds, and differentiating between objects and pictures. Language activities include learning the shapes and sounds of letters, practicing fine motor skills by writing, vocabulary development, matching words and pictures, reading development with word lists, practicing parts of grammar (nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc.), creating sentences, and reading silently.
MATH
The Math area of the Montessori classroom contains the use of concrete materials for the recognition of numbers and the recognition of quantity as well. Through these activities, children learn exactly how much a symbolic number stands for. Mathematics activities are divided into six categories: counting and the decimal system, memory work, concrete abstraction, arithmetic tables and geometry. Children are introduced to more complex mathematical procedures and concepts as they are individually ready. Often, a child will complete a mathematical activity a few times until he feels ready to attempt a more complex idea.
SCIENCE
Science in the Montessori classroom allows the children to observe and work with hands-on experiments that will cultivate a lifelong interest in nature and discover more about our unique world. Through the study of Botany, the children learn about plants (what they look like, how to take care of them, how they grow, etc.) so that they may appreciate nature more organically. The study of Zoology shows children animals from all around the world (where they live, their unique Eco-systems, what they eat, how they grow, etc.). Lastly, studying Art & Music allows children a special opportunity to express themselves. Children have an expressive and uninhibited experience of moving, dancing and singing among their school peers. Cultural activities facilitate children's cognitive, social, and emotional development constructively.