Casa - Lakeside Montessori School

Casa Curriculum

The Casa program at Lakeside Montessori is taught by a certified Montessori Teacher along with two caring and qualified assistants. The classroom environment has been designed to be a very interesting and experimental place as our children continue to grow and develop. The program is divided into five areas: Practical Life, Sensorial, Math, Language and Culture. We also have introductory music and french programs as well as yoga classes.

Practical Life

For young children there is something special about tasks which an adult considers ordinary. They are exciting to children because they allow them to imitate adults. Imitation is one of the strongest urges during children’s early years.

In this area of the classroom, children perfect their coordination and become absorbed in activity. They learn to pay attention to details as they follow a regular sequence of actions and gradually lengthen their span of concentration.

Sensorial

The sensorial exercises in the Montessori classroom are a means for the development of the senses. These materials encourage children to classify, distinguish, and refine their perceptions of size, shape, colour and texture.

Exercises of these type help children strengthen their understanding of the environment around them and enable them to make sound physical decisions.

Math

Dr. Montessori designed equipment to represent quantities after she observed that children who become interested in counting like to touch or move items as they count them.

By combining this equipment, separating it, sharing it, counting it, and comparing it, they can demonstrate to themselves the basic operations of mathematics. Children work with the mathematical concepts of 1 – 10, 0, teens (11-19) and tens (10 – 90) followed by the decimal system (1 – 9000).

Language

The individual presentation of language materials in a Montessori classroom allows the teacher to take advantage of each child’s greatest areas of interest. Reading instruction is introduced to children upon entry to the Casa classroom at 2-1/2 or 3 years of age.

Writing and the construction of words with moveable letters nearly always precedes reading in a Montessori environment. Children are introduced to reading phonetically first with sandpaper letters, then with reading cards, followed by readers.

Culture

Children gain an awareness of the world around them by exploring other countries, their customs, food, music, climate, language and animals.

Children have the freedom to explore their imaginations in a variety of mediums used for expression including painting, pasting, drawing and cutting. We encourage our children to experiment and express themselves through this process and celebrate their accomplishments.