Montessori Overview
Dr. Maria Montessori, an Italian physician, felt that the goal of early childhood education should be to cultivate rather than to simply teach facts as often prescribed by traditional American curriculums.
In the Montessori classroom this objective is achieved in two ways:
{Maria Montessori}
- By helping each child to perfect his or her unique learning ability so as to maximize potential in future learning situations.
- By allowing each child to experience the excitement of learning through individual choice and responsibility.
Montessori learning materials are used to achieve these goals. They are designed to assist a child in assimilating immediate, specific information, as well as to take advantage of each child’s unique aptitude for learning. Based on Dr. Montessori’s concept of the young mind as singularly “absorbent”, the materials contribute to an environment rich with sensory information.
Another fundamental Montessori belief is that the hand is a powerful learning tool. This belief drives the Montessori teaching method to focus each child’s attention on “hands-on” tasks. Such tasks require significant concentration, an ability that is fundamental to all learning.
Child Centered Learning
The Montessori enriched curriculum is organized as a spiral of integrated studies, rather than as compartmentalized subjects. In early years, lessons are introduced simply and concretely. Later as the child matures, the lessons are reintroduced in increasing levels of difficulty and abstraction. At suitable levels for each child, our curriculum offers: everyday living skills, sensory awareness, large and small motor skills, reading, literature, grammar, creative writing, spelling, handwriting, mathematics, geometry, geography, history, science, art, music, a foreign language and an appreciation of many different cultures.
Underlying all the educational work of Maria Montessori is her desire to nurture the spirit of each child in order to bring about a better world. Penn-Mont Academy, as a school committed to Montessori education, encourages the spiritual growth of our students while remaining faithful to our status as a non-sectarian community.
