Casa Ages: 2.5 - 6
The Casa Program is directed towards children who have graduated from our Toddler Program or who are between the ages of 2.5 - 6 yrs.
The Casa Program helps children hone their Practical life, Sensorial, Mathematics and Language skills.
Kaban Montessori School is a prepared environment which involves the careful coordination of space, people, time and the selection of activities and materials chosen for the classrooms. The way in which these elements are combined will vary according to the stage of development.
The Casa classroom is usually divided into four distinct areas: Practical Life, Sensorial, Mathematics and Language. Although these areas represent parts of the Montessori curriculum, it is important to remember that they are not subjects and are not taught in isolation.
Practical Life
This area provides the child with a link between home and classroom. Practical life materials allow the child to take part in the activities of daily adult life, giving them the skills to function independently in the adult world. Practical life activities include:
Care of self (buttoning, zipping, combing, tying, etc)
Care of the environment (cleaning, sweeping, care of plants, washing clothes, setting a table, sewing, etc.)
Grace and Courtesy (greeting, serving, accepting, apologizing, thanking, etc.)
Movement (balancing, walking with objects, etc) and absence of movement (silence)
Sensorial
Through sight, touch, sound, taste, and smell the sensorial materials enable the child to clarify, classify and comprehend their world. It is also the beginning of scientific vocabulary; to describe and compare qualities of objects.
Mathematics
Children naturally have mathematical minds. They have the capacity to reason, calculate and estimate. They are intensely conscious of quantity. The concrete Montessori mathematical materials allow these sensorial explorers to begin their mathematical journey from the concrete to the abstract, internalizing concepts of numbers, symbols, sequences, operations of the decimal system and memorization of basic facts.
Language
The Montessori classroom emphasizes spoken language as the foundation for all linguistic expression. The child builds upon oral language to discover the relationship between sound and symbol. This discovery enables the child to make his own thoughts visible (writing) and to decipher the thoughts of others (reading). The child is fascinated with the relationship among letters that form words, the order of words in a sentence, and even the grammatical analysis of the parts in a sentence.
Through activities related to Geography (maps), Botany (parts of plants), Zoology (classification of animals), History (personal time-line) and Scientific experiments the child is introduced to Science and Culture, complementing their integral development and helping them adapt to the world.
Activities such as Art and Music are viewed as forms of self-expression, as such they complement and enhance the children’s ongoing explorations, enriching their vocabulary in the process.
Materials related to Science and Culture are a part of the prepared environment and are integrated in the day-to-day activities of the children. Science and Culture are all around us, Montessori education permits a child to view Science and Culture as natural parts of the physical world.