Apple Valley Montessori School

The term Montessori embodies both a philosophy and a method of education. The programs at our school focus on the development of each child’s full potential using teachers specially trained in the Montessori method and philosophy, using both concrete teaching materials and a well-defined innovative curriculum tailored to a three-year cycle.
The three-year age range in each classroom provides a multitude of benefits, which are immediately apparent when observing a typical Montessori classroom. Younger children in each group have an opportunity to observe and imitate the older students as they work. Older students have an opportunity to reinforce their own knowledge by explaining what they are doing and assisting younger children. The third year in the cycle is truly empowering to the children, both socially and academically. Each child can learn and develop at his own pace within a classroom that accommodates many levels of ability and complexity.

The Montessori teacher is specially trained to observe each child and to design lessons based on that child’s natural curiosity and love of learning. The teacher is responsible for preparing the educational environment within each classroom and for presenting lessons in that environment. During the course of a day, the teacher will demonstrate a wide array of concrete sensorial materials and sequential activities through individual instruction. The child soon learns to associate abstract concepts with hands-on-experience.

Profound respect for each child characterize the 21/2 to 6 year-old Primary program. The Montessori program fosters growth in independence and problem solving; the development of order, concentration and coordination. It encompasses the nurturing of oral communication skills, and the stimulation of the child’s joy in discovery, in learning.

Practical Life is the area of development in which the child creates, controls, changes, or cares for his physical environment and his physical well being. Practical Life is the most basic and essential area of Montessori development. There are three goals of practical Life which make it a foundation of the child’s future life as a whole:

The child grows to respect and love the physical work around him, both natural and man made.
The child develops techniques and skills that are basic to other areas of development.
The child unites his growing body, developing intelligence and will, by working for the joy of doing not as a means to an end.
The success of our work depends upon this foundation. The child chooses what he will do and has the freedom to act upon his decision. The child’s use of his body within the environment is an act of work enabling the absorbent mind. The work process, freely chosen, done with self-discipline, using physical skills in an intelligent way is the child’s daily product of development. The result is a free child, creating through his work a free adult.

Sensorial exercises are done with an extensive set of a material, each of which isolate one sensorial property and expands upon it: e.g. shape, weight, texture, or pitch is matched, graded, or contrasted. The sensorial work allows the child to develop his sensory awareness and organize his perceptions to form concepts and abstractions. The purpose of this work is threefold:

The satisfaction and discovery of the work with the materials.
The ability to perceive one’s environment with sensitivity and intelligence.
The appreciation of the natural order which intelligent awareness cultivates in one’s life.
Cognitive work in math and language develops from concrete sensorial materials that the child manipulates, forming the foundation for the use of symbols. The child will first have the experience before he or she uses the symbols that represent it. With the symbols, the child begins to communicate what he or she knows and does. Thus, a child’s school life is not separated from reality and does not become something apart from life, but rather is a natural development of his personal being.

Arithmetic, geography, reading and writing, grammar and syntax, music, art, science, algebra and geometry are developed in gradual stages from the concrete sensorial to the abstract conceptual through sequential materials and exercises and repetition of these exercises. Each child works from his own choice at his own pace, successfully completing self-correcting materials.