Programs
The Children's House (3 to 6 years)
The Children’s House – also known as the primary level – is a community of children from three to six years who live and learn together in a prepared environment.
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This environment offers choices of individual activities that aid in what Maria Montessori called the child’s work of “self construction.”
The Montessori guide cultivates in the children the ability to choose freely, sustain focused and concentrated attention, to think clearly and constructively, and to express themselves through language and the arts. Through the active development of the will and the satisfaction of their authentic needs, the children become self-disciplined and socially cohesive.
The difference between an authentic Montessori "prepared environment" and a traditional preschool is vast. Please register below to learn more. Children enter this program between the age of two-and-a-half and three-and-a-half years old and must be fully toilet independent.
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Our Children's House communities are located at our Sunset Trail and Great Northern campuses.
We offer traditional year and year-round programs, five days a week.
Learning Through Experience
Children enter this program at between two years and ten months and three years and six months of age. No prior Montessori experience is necessary and children must be fully toilet independent and able to dress/undress independently.
The areas of activity of the primary level are practical life, sensorial exploration, language, mathematics, and cultural subjects. The extensive sets of Montessori materials in each of these areas are designed to appeal to the children’s deep interest and to inspire repeated activity. The children’s absorbent minds take in vast amounts of information and grasp sophisticated relationships and principles wholly and effortlessly.
The areas of activity of the primary level are practical life, sensorial exploration, language, mathematics, and cultural subjects. The extensive sets of Montessori materials in each of these areas are designed to appeal to the children’s deep interest and to inspire repeated activity. The children’s absorbent minds take in vast amounts of information and grasp sophisticated relationships and principles wholly and effortlessly.
Guided by their human tendencies, following their sensitive periods, the children experience great joy in educating themselves.
Dr. Maria Montessori
The child has a different relation to his environment from ours… the child absorbs it. The things he sees are not just remembered; they form part of his soul. He incarnates in himself all in the world about him that his eyes see and his ears hear.
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Exercises in Practical Life
Through exercises of practical life that include care of the person, one another, and the environment, the children expand motor skills, refine coordination, extend concentration, and express their love and respect for their community and classroom. Arranging flowers, pouring juice, and tying shoes are the everyday activities that empower children. Through lessons in grace and courtesy, the guide invites the children to practice thoughtful behavior and good manners. These lively presentations focus the children’s attention on their culture’s conventions of graciousness and civility. -
The Sensorial Apparatus
The Montessori guide presents activities with materials isolating a particular sensorial property. The children match, grade, order, or explore by tasting, smelling, touching, listening, or seeing. Through repeating these exercises at will, the children clarify their impressions and refine their senses. Individual parts of materials are related to the classroom at large and discreet sensorial elements are identified in the environment through games. The foundation for cultural subjects is laid with sensorial activities. -
Language
Every aspect of the Montessori classroom draws forth language development, and specific materials and exercises refine and extend vocabulary, exhibit grammatical principles and properties, enrich vocabulary, and tune the ear to the beauty, rhythm, and song of the language. -
Mathematics
Extensive concrete mathematics materials allow the children to explore concepts and operations to uncover for themselves the underlying principles of basic mathematics. The children’s repeated manipulation of these aesthetically and carefully designed materials builds a firm foundation of concrete experience on which later abstractions can rest. -
Cultural Subjects
The introduction to cultural subjects is made as an extension of the sensorial materials and language activities. Through nature, story, music, art, and food the guide fosters in the children a reverence and love for all of creation. Art, music, geography, history, botany, zoology, and science are integrated into a holistic approach to living and learning in our human family, on our planetary home across cultures, and throughout history.
Austin Montessori School
Austin Montessori School is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization and does not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, sex or gender, disability, or age in providing educational services, activities, and programs. The school adheres to all applicable state and federal non-discrimination laws for private, non-profit educational institutions.
