Casa

The Casa program establishes an excellent foundation for students to become confident, thoughtful, and independent as they continue their journey towards becoming capable lifelong learners.  

 

The Montessori classroom essentially becomes a thriving community where children are treated with respect and dignity and learn to treat others with the same respect and dignity.  The environment respects and protects the child’s natural rhythm of life and is designed to facilitate maximum independent learning and exploration by the child.

 

The six principles of the prepared environment are:

• freedom

• structure and order

• beauty

• nature and reality

• social environment

• intellectual environment

 

Our classrooms adhere to this as they are bright, warm, and inviting, and they allow children to develop independence in all areas according to their inner psychological directives. Classrooms are prepared with beauty and harmony; they are filled with plants, a library, bright arrays of geometric solid forms, knobbed puzzle maps, coloured beads, a nature table, and a science table including fossils and artifacts, as well as various specialised rods and blocks. Everything in the environment including furniture and materials is scaled to fit the physical dimensions of a preschooler’s body. Materials and activities are laid out in an orderly way on easily accessible open shelves that are at the children’s eye level allowing them to freely engage in any activity that appeals to their cognitive, physical, social, or emotional needs.

 

The uniquely designed Montessori materials engage children’s natural curiosity and encourage their sensorial exploration of the world around them. The materials attract children’s attention and engage their natural desire to learn. They provide children with the opportunity for hands-on learning with concrete representations of concepts which are essential for the development of a strong foundation of understanding.