Children's House
Our Goals
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To provide a rich, educationally prepared environment which nurtures the independence and curiosity of each child.
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To assist students in develop strong conflict management and executive function skills.
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To empower parents with knowledge of child development.
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To increase equity by serving a diverse student population with an anti-bias, anti-racist culturally responsive curriculum.
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To support students in developing a strong literacy foundation in both English and Spanish.
There are many who hold, as I do, that the most important period of life is not the age of university studies, but the first one, the period from birth to the age of six. For that is the time when man's intelligence itself, his greatest implement, is being formed. But not only his intelligence; the full totality of his psychic powers.
- Maria Montessori. The Absorbent Mind
The Children's House (PreK3- Kindergarten)
The Children's House (Casa) provides children ages 3–6 years with a safe, inviting environment rich in developmentally appropriate activities.
Mi Escuela Montessori has four Casa communities. Each classroom has a Montessori trained, Florida certified teacher and a Montessori trained assistant teacher and serves between 24-26 students. The Montessori classroom schedule allows for an uninterrupted 3-hour work period in the morning and an additional uninterrupted work period in the afternoon.
The Montessori prepared environment is set up like a “living room” for children and includes carefully designed Montessori materials, organized in a sequence from simple to complex, that provide compelling opportunities for purposeful activities. Younger children learn how to follow the Montessori cycle of work, while older children explore complex concepts through individual and small group lessons and interaction with hands-on materials.
Dual Language Education
In order to build a strong foundation in the home language of Spanish-dominant learners and lay a foundation in Spanish for English dominant learners, students in the Children's House receive 80–90% of their instruction primarily in Spanish.
There is a significant research base to support that more instructional time spent in Spanish during early elementary years positively affects achievement in Spanish and has no negative effect on achievement measured in English. English native students receive scaffolded support in Spanish language learning and all students receive bridged (English/Spanish) content instruction.
Teachers use a variety of language learning strategies to support all students in developing strong literacy including activities such as modeled communication, total physical response, hands on models, vocabulary enrichment, children’s literature group, and conversation in order to build high oral proficiency in Spanish.
Targeted English Literacy
Providing a foundation for reading, both in English and Spanish, is central to our program. In addition to a robust Spanish literacy program in the morning, Kindergarten students receive targeted English literacy and vocabulary immersion during the afternoon work cycle. Focus Foundational Skills Standards change across the year to match the Kindergarten reading curriculum.
Instruction includes small group lessons in phonemic awareness, sight orwd recognition, phonics decoding, storytelling, writing, and bridging content area English and Spanish vocabulary.
Children's House Curriculum:
The Prepared Environment
The Montessori Prepared Environment includes 5 main areas: practical life, sensorial, mathematics, language, and cultural. Materials in these areas are arranged in order of difficulty on open shelves, and students are free to work with any material which they have been shown how to use.
Practical Life
The Practical life activities are the foundation of the Montessori classroom.
Mathematics
Children use carefully sequenced manipulative materials to internalize mathematical concepts.
Cultural
Through the cultural areas of the classrooms, students are exposed to lessons in geography, history, life science, physical science, engineering, computer science, music and art.
Sensorial
The Sensorial materials are hands-on materials which are designed to build and refine student’s sensitivity to the physical world.
Language
The language curriculum at Mi Escuela Montessori provides students with a firm foundation in oral literacy.
