Toddler students from MCS practice Yoga.
Current research and various studies support Maria Montessori’s approach to Early Education. She discovered that children 0-6 years old were in an absorbent mind, where children absorb information from their environment with little to no effort. Montessori wrote and spoke about “Sensitive Periods”, which are periods in a person’s development when they are more responsive to certain stimuli and quicker to learn particular skills. She also taught us that when these crucial stages are missed (which she referred to as “dropped stitches”, learning becomes a more difficult process. For example, children who are exposed to a second language in their first six years have an advantage over people who learn a second language later in life, when the sensistive period for language development has passed.
Simply put, a child’s early years lay the foundation for all that is to come. In recent years, researchers have learned that the human brain develops the vast majority of its neurons, and is at its most receptive to learning, between birth and three years of age. In fact, the intake of new information is critical to the formation of active neural pathways (Shonkoff & Phillips, 2000).
MCS Toddlers do scrubbing work.
The Toddler Montessori environment is carefully designed to meet the children’s needs in this critical stage of development. Exploration of their environment through the five senses coupled with a rich socially prepared environment with children of different ages and abilities allows Toddlers the opportunity to develop the following:
- meaningful relationships, mutual understanding, and approprite social skills
- values and ethics
- motor skills
- creativity & imagination
- self correction and overcoming fear of making mistakes
- self expression through arts, music, dance, building and exploration of materials
- ability to process emotions and life events in a safe and loving environment
- cooperation
- development of language
- independence
- control of body
- sense of order
Montessori Community School is currently accepting applications for our Toddler program. Toddler enrollment is limited to the beginning of the academic school year, August, and January. Contact us for a tour now!
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