The Laurel Class is the first class in which children at Stillbrook Lodge will enter. There will be a Class Manager who is experienced and qualified in the Montessori method of education. There will also be other teachers in the class, called Directors and Directresses who will assist the Class Manager. They will present lessons to the child, monitor their progress by observation, and will guide them to activities. When a child is engaged in an activity, they will also allow the child time to complete this without interruption. The child has two lessons a day, called work cycles, which allow for this absence of interruption. Allowing the child to work as long as he wants on a piece of work enables him to solidify his learning of a particular skill, and often a child will work for many hours with one activity and then, once they have satisfied their need for learning it, will move to another activity.
Freedom in a Montessori classroom is important. This does not mean that a child can run around doing as he pleases, but means that a child can choose what material he works with, and is free to finish working with it when he is ready, and then free to choose another. In this way, he determines his own learning path, according to his interests. A Directress will step in to guide and direct the child if needed, and will show, or present, him with new exercises to do when he is ready.
Practical Life
On entering the Laurel Class the child will first be directed to the exercises of Practical Life which teach the child practical skills such as caring for himself (dressing, personal hygiene, food preparation etc), caring for the environment (cleaning and keeping things in an ordered way) and grace and courtesy exercises (manners, moving gracefully around the school, how to act in different situations). These are important activities for the child to learn, as they will help the child develop in confidence, independence, self-discipline as well as helping the child to develop co-ordination using both gross and fine motor skills in preparation for later learning. Many Practical Life exercises prepare the child for writing and reading, and also introduce concepts which will be used in other areas of the curriculum.
Sensorial
Once the child has learnt a few exercises in the Practical Life area, he can progress to the Sensorial area of the curriculum where he can use different Montessori materials to develop the senses: Visual, Auditory, Olfactory, Gustatory, Baric, Stereognostic, Tactile. Dr Montessori realised that between the ages of 3 and 6, the child develops and refines his senses. The Sensorial materials are designed to assist this, and a child who can see small differences in objects is a better observer, a child who can differentiate between sounds and tones is a better listener, better at music, and learns better. The sense of touch is developed, so that when language and maths materials are introduced to the child, he learns easier. The Sensorial area of the curriculum forms the basis for using all other Montessori materials.
Language
When the child is ready, she can begin learning the basics of language and maths. The teaching of language in a Montessori setting is a sensorial experience. The child is taught the sounds of the letters phonetically, at the same time as seeing the shape of the letter, and tracing the shape of it on the Sandpaper Letters. By doing and experiencing this through the senses, the child forms a better image and recollection of the letter. We do not push language learning in a Montessori school until the child is ready. This is determined by the teacher, who will observe and know the child and her readiness for language learning. Instead of struggling to learn language, a child who is ready, can be fluent in about two weeks! Once the child recognises several letters and their sounds, they will then follow the Montessori Pink, Blue and Green reading schemes, and will go on to learn the concepts of basic grammar.
Maths
In maths, numbers are taught in the same way as letters - using Sandpaper Numbers. Children also learn quantities through concrete examples and the child soon starts to use the Montessori maths materials to perform basic addition, subtraction, multiplication and division exercises. As with the Language curriculum, the child will do this when he is ready, and the Montessori teacher has been trained to recognise when each individual child is ready to do this. Thus, the education is tailored to the child, and he can learn at his own pace. If a child struggles, he can take longer. If he excels, he can just keep going! The Montessori curriculum follows through to the 6-9 class, and if the teacher feels it necessary to move a child on to some of the 6-9 curriculum at an earlier age, this will be supported in the classroom.
Cultural
In the Cultural curriculum, the child will cover many different subjects such as Science, and undertaking basic experiments; Geography, learning continents, countries, landforms, etc; History learning about time, how things change over time and will learn to interpret this on to timelines. Children also study Botany, Art, Music and Zoology, and are taught to be responsible citizens of the planet through Ecology activities. These will be hands-on experiences and the child will be exposed to many different things. This area of the curriculum is important as it forms the basis of learning later in the school where children will build on the concepts learnt to gain a wider understanding and knowledge of the world in which they live.
