Preschool in Burlington for Life Skills Development
Learning life skills bring positive effects on the life of an individual. A child needs to develop some basic skills to gain success. These skills not only help an individual to excel in their career but are also significant for individual development. Thus, Burlington Montessori Preschool offers an environment for Burlington kids to develop certain important skills from an early age itself.
Your child’s little hands need to develop dexterity and strength. This is done by encouraging children to play, explore and interact with a variety of items. Toys, clothing fasteners, and play dough are all examples of practices that facilitate fine motor development. We have designed specialized activities to help develop these skills. You, as parents, can also help your children at home by engaging them in age-appropriate tasks in the kitchen. At Burlington Montessori Preschool, we design “play” activities to help a child develop motor skills. These activities can be as easy as helping a child to hold and use a crayon. The ability to do so is the first step in learning to colour, draw and ultimately write. Contact us today to know more.
Practical Life Skills
"Help me to help myself."
This area is an essential social aspect of a child's learning experience. Problem-solving as well as the opportunity to mentor is fostered. The Practical Life area may be thought of to be of very little significance in an academic environment. On the contrary, we believe that this area is essential for the overall growth and progression of the child's concentration, independence and ability to initiate and complete tasks. These skills are necessary for the child to be successful in other areas of the Montessori classroom.
Practical life exercises consist of tasks found in everyday life. The children will begin their learning experience in this area by exploring the activities that connect them to their environment. The exercises will follow a gradual progression chart from being quite simple in the beginning and challenging as the child progresses ahead. The children are given the opportunities to develop coordination of movement and lengthen their concentration skills.
Practical Life Skills are as essential as any other academic activity in the curriculum. The activities designed to enhance the practical skills of your child are focused on triggering the brain to respond to the stimulus of various general life skills. These skills help in the development of motor skills and bring about a positive change in the attitude of the children. We emphasize on developing practical life skills as these can help a child be more aware and responsive to the surroundings.
Sensorial Skills
"There is nothing in the intelligence that was not first in the senses." – Aristotle
Naturally, children use their senses to explore and try to make sense of the world around them. They do this by touching, tasting, smelling, seeing, moving and hearing. At Burlington Montessori Preschool, we focus on developing these sensorial skills so that it is easy for the child to understand or learn a concept. Developing sensory skills is important as these skills help the child's comprehension and vocabulary to grow.
Sensorial materials isolate individual concepts and guide the child into the refinement of the five senses and are a direct preparation for academic learning. These materials develop a sense of order, concentration and independence. We design lessons to provide children with opportunities to actively use their senses as they explore their world through their senses. The children will experience size, shape and colour differences. They will learn the vocabulary associated with each piece of apparatus presented. The children will learn to distinguish sounds, smells, and textures that enhance the senses.
This is crucial for brain development as it helps to build nerve connections in the brain’s pathways. These activities facilitate exploration and encourage children to use scientific processes while they play, create, investigate and explore. This leads to a child’s ability to complete more complex learning tasks and supports cognitive growth, language development, gross motor skills, social interaction and problem-solving skills.
Mathematics
"Math is the Science of drawing logical conclusions."
Mathematics plays a significant role in a child’s development and helps children make sense of the world around them. It provides a concrete and interesting approach to learning. A child needs to make mistakes to be able to solve and correct errors independently.
Mathematics is indirectly introduced to children in the Montessori environment through the use of sensorial and practical life activities before the child works with the math materials. This approach is an important development for the child. The activities in these areas are designed to follow a logical conclusion.
By introducing children to basic terminologies early in childhood, we strive to make elementary education a little easier for kids. This will also help prepare children to apply the information and solve problems in a classroom setting. As these concepts are made clear at an early stage, it is easier for elementary teachers to focus on the application of ideas.
Language
“Language begins as early as birth and should be nurtured through speech, song, stories and interactions with others.”
Language development is another significant part of child development. It helps in developing your child's ability to communicate and express. It supports thinking and problem-solving skills. It also supports your child’s brain development and cognitive development. A large vocabulary has proved to increase creativity as it helps people to come up with new ideas and express them freely.
The acquisition of language is essential to satisfy several needs and tendencies that children might have. The sensitive periods for sound, reading, writing and wanting to name everything are fulfilled through language activities. An enhanced vocabulary can help children give voice to their ideas. The sense of accomplishment that comes from sharing ideas efficiently can only be achieved with the help of language training. Verbal communications form the base of development for every child. The Montessori activities will help develop these skills further.
Our language program consists of three stages:
Anatomical
Physiological
Interpretative
Children must follow each stage to become successful in language.
Cultural
“Children should be given the opportunity to explore and experience the world surrounding them. Children learn through the sharing of experiences.”
The Montessori environment does not only encompass the four main areas, Practical life, Sensorial, Math, and Language, it also includes exposure to cultural experiences. The children are given the opportunity to become involved with geography, music, art and science.
Activities that involve music are known to stimulate the parts of the brain associated with academic achievement. Music not only helps in achieving higher concentration but also helps in emotional development. We at BMP do not view music as an extracurricular activity, we consider it an overall part of your child’s education. Therefore, a lot of our activities are planned around music.
Similarly, art also helps kids to excel in and out of the classroom. It helps in increasing motivation leading to improvement in academic performance. Kids are drawn towards art which helps in keeping them enthusiastic about participating in activities. When children participate in art activities with peers, the feedback that they give to each other builds self-respect.
Apart from art and music, our staff emphasizes science activities for kids. Studies show that preschoolers are quite competent to understand scientific concepts and develop scientific thinking. Therefore, we include a lot of early science experiments in our curriculum which are vital to the young child's educational growth and development.
