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LePort Montessori 18 Months - Grade 3
Toddler Program
Your toddler has a once in a lifetime opportunity to absorb information from the environment, like a sponge. At LePort Schools, your child will be a member in a community of young minds, guided by experienced educators.
Our Toddler classrooms are simpler and slower paced than the classroom for three to six year olds. Tables and chairs are smaller, the teacher-child ratio is lower, and the materials are specifically structured to meet the developmental needs of toddlers.
This specially prepared environment for young children is designed to support their need for purposeful activity. The atmosphere is positive, supportive, and non-competitive.
Primary Program
Challenging Work and Responsible Behavior
Our Montessori multi-age classrooms have children between 3 and 6 years of age working together in a large family-type atmosphere. Children are able to learn from and because of each other. Younger children have the opportunity to see the older children's more advanced, challenging work and more mature, responsible behavior. Similarly, the older children benefit from being role models and from reinforcing their own learning by teaching others.
Self-Motivated, Self-Paced Learning
Montessori materials enable students to work at their own pace, rather than having to wait for their peers to catch up.
Speaking, Writing, and Reading
Spoken language is the foundation for all linguistic expression. In each subject area children learn rich, precise vocabulary words. Our three year olds start training for writing words by first tracing specially designed geometric shapes with a pencil and then by carefully coloring in the shape's interior. This activity develops the skills needed to attempt the more difficult task of reproducing letters of the alphabet.
Our three year olds prepare to read by first learning the sounds of the letters of the alphabet. When they know the short vowel sounds and a few consonants they use our movable alphabet to “write” short, phonetic words, naming familiar objects. The children are also read classic stories during circle time.
Exploring Our Planet
The science area incorporates pictures of a wide variety of plant life, as well as the five classes of vertebrates. Children learn to name the parts of animals or the leaf and flower shapes experienced with the sensorial material which allows children to expand their vocabulary and identify and classify a multitude of plant and animal species.
Adding It All Up
The concrete Montessori math materials allow your young sensorial explorer to begin his or her mathematical journey from the concrete to the abstract through manipulation, experimentation, and invention. In our classrooms, mathematical abstractions are symbolized by concrete materials in the form of rods, spindles, cards, beads, cubes, and counters. Each child actually understands the concept of “how many” because they really get to hold the amount in their hands.
Lower Elementary Program
Building on our primary program, our Montessori elementary program is inter-disciplinary, allowing science, social studies, the arts, language, and math to converge in studies guided by the child's own questions. The goal of our elementary program is to impart the knowledge, skills, and love of learning that will ensure our students' success throughout their education - and their adult lives.
The Montessori elementary environment balances the child's developing imagination and powers of abstraction with scientifically based, inviting, hands-on materials. The materials are designed to spark the imagination, engage the intellect, and lead to exploration, discovery and understanding.
Freedom within Structure
Within the structure of our organized, sequential curriculum, children have the freedom to pursue answers to self-generated questions. This flexibility heightens student motivation while building comprehensive knowledge and skills.
Integrated Approach
Instead of presenting children with a series of disconnected facts, we present a vision of interrelated knowledge across the subject areas. This Montessori approach will capture a child's imagination and nourish his/her love of learning.
Self-Motivated, Self-Paced Learning
Montessori materials enable students to work at their own pace. For instance, the grade two child who has already mastered her basic math facts can work ahead into fractions, decimals, percent and beginning algebra without having to wait for her peers.
Confidence, Independence, and Cooperation
Our multi-age grouping introduces younger children to more challenging work and more mature behavior. Meanwhile, the older children in the multi-age grouping benefit from being role models and from reinforcing their own learning by teaching others. Because children can choose to work independently or in small groups in a non-competitive atmosphere, they learn respect for self, others, and their classroom environment.
Grasp Abstract Ideas with Concrete Materials
Abstract concepts are made concrete through Montessori's multi-sensory, hands-on materials. Students gain true understanding - they don't just “memorize and forget.”
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