St. Andrew's Episcopal School is an Episcopal Montessori program for children ages 12 months through 5 years old.
Hours of Operation: 9:00 am - 1:00 pm
Extended-day: 1:00 pm - 3:00 pm, nap time
Toddler I and II Communities:
2-day (Thursday/Friday)
3-day (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday)
5-day(Monday-Friday)
Early Childhood Community:
5-day (Monday-Friday) only
BabyLove: 1 hour class meets once a week, register by semester
Click here to view the 2009-2010 school calendar.
Toddler Curriculum
The Toddler Program is based on play and learning activities which make use of Montessori materials to help lay the foundation for future learning. The focus is on four developmental areas:
Sensory and perceptual development
Social and emotional growth
The first few years of your childs life are crucial to the development of personality and intellect. This is a period during which learning takes place at an accelerated pace. We provide the sense of security and loving care that toddlers need to thrive during this stage of intense learning. Our toddler program provides an opportunity for young children to experience a social setting away from home and parents; to function in a group of children their own age; and to relate to adults other than their parents. This is a comfortable first step away from home and into the larger community.
The environment is prepared based on the developmental needs of children from 12 months through 3 years:
The toddler is provided a safe space with the freedom to explore and discover. This is always balanced by a healthy sense of respect: respect for oneself, respect for the environment, and respect for one another. These loving limits will serve the individual for a lifetime.
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Early Childhood Curriculum
Characteristics of the early childhood age child include:
The environment prepared for the early childhood age child should meet these characteristics as well as provide for the practical application of the Montessori Method, which is based on human tendencies— to explore, move, share with a group, to be independent and make decisions, create order, develop self-control, abstract ideas from experience, use the creative imagination, work hard, repeat, concentrate, and perfect efforts.
The early childhood curriculum is divided into five basic areas:
Practical Life
Practical Life exercises involve simple activities; that have complex aims. Using child-sized yet real implements, children joyously engae in exercises such as pouring, spooning, and polishing. As they do so they cultivate their eye-hand dexterity and coordination as well as developing mastery and physical independence when carrying out everyday tasks. Exercises that foster courtesy, such as preparing and serving snacks, help children to begin to develop a sense of themselves as part of an interdependent community where they have responsibilities to care for themselves, others, and their environment. Each activity in this area gives the child the accomplishment of a task that has a beginning, middle, and an end, thus giving the child the opportunity to develop a sense of order. All learning in the Montessori environment is based on this order. As the child perfects performance of these tasks, he or she becomes progressively more independent and learns control and order.
Education of the Senses
The sensorial curriculum focuses upon work of the hand and the mind. Through exercises of comparison, discrimination, and observation designed to refine the senses, children develop their ability to both absorb and classify accurate sensory data, thus creating a strong concrete foundation for later abstract learning. Coordination skills, concentration and judgment are fostered as children manipulate the colorful, attractive sensorial apparatus. The sensorial materials are designed to draw the child’s attention to specific aspects of visual, auditory, tactile, and olfactory experiences. The child works with a variety of materials that progressively refine their experiences.
Mathematics
The mathematics curriculum is based upon the importance of comprehension through manipulation, sensorial learning and language classification. Understanding of number value and symbol, fundamental operations and mathematical number facts are achieved through exploration of concrete materials that are designed to illustrate mathematical principles. The materials have been especially designed to enable the student to establish a concrete perception of mathematical concepts. Through the use and manipulation of the materials, the child learns the concepts that the material is specifically designed to teach.
The child works first with the quantities, later on with the symbols for those quantities, culminating with exercises associating the quantity with its symbol. The child is introduced to the basic arithmetic processes of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Learning in this way promotes feelings of confidence and success and ultimately develop a mathematical mind.
Language Arts
Language arts have as their foundation recognition that children have made the remarkable intellectual achievement of having already absorbed their mother tongue by the age of three. This extraordinary capacity for acquiring language concepts is celebrated and enhanced through exercises, which integrate oral communication, writing, and reading. Language is an integral component of the entire Montessori curriculum, because all thoughts, ideas and concepts can only be understood and clarified through oral or written communication.
As such, language is always presented in a context or body of information, rather than studied in isolation of other material. When children begin to learn the names of objects, they become more proficient at expressing themselves. They also begin to work extensively with the key to language: the phonetic sounds which are the components of words. The children will learn the symbols for each sound and then begin to make simple phonetic words using the Moveable Alphabet, which is a set of precut letters. Through these exercises, children discover that they can read. Further exercises focus their attention on the functions that words have within sentences, thus increasing reading comprehension.
Cultural Curriculum
In the cultural area, materials focusing upon topics related to biology, history, geography, art, music and movement are presented to stimulate the appreciation and natural curiosity possessed by children about the world, which surrounds them. Creativity is fostered through a variety of activities related to the expressive arts.
BabyLove
A time for parents to gather and grow with their baby or baby to be
In keeping with the school’s mission and as a ministry to the community, SAES is enhancing our offerings by providing BabyLove classes as another means of support to young families. SAES currently serves some of the youngest children in the community. One often hears that there is no preparation for becoming a parent. Some individuals weigh issues of child-rearing before they enter into pregnancy and parenthood. Others realize from the moment of conception, or when they are holding their newborn baby in their arms that there is much more to this job description than the routine, physical, day-to-day care of the child. This class lays the groundwork for the relationship between the child, his family, his community, and his world.
Infant/Parent classes; come gather and discuss:
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