Curriculum

The essential thing is to arouse
such an interest that it engages
the child's whole personality.

Jewish Life
Montessori Curriculum

JEWISH LIFE

Children's spiritual selves are nurtured in the context of their Jewish identities. Children who are exposed to Jewish experiences that are meaningful, enjoyable and personal at a young age, will feel part of the Jewish people and will value that connection through love.

Lessons on the weekly Parsha, Shabbat, Chagim, Mitzvos, Middos and awareness of the land of Israel are all brought to life through dramatic role play, puppetry, circle time, stories, song, cooking, and arts and crafts on a daily basis and are the heartbeat of the program at large.

Creating an atmosphere imbued with a love
and enthusiasm for Torah isthe backdrop
against which all other areas of the curriculum exist.

Aleph BeiS

In addition to having the opportunity to learn and progress through the aleph beis on an individual level, Children in their JK year (4 years old) are invited to join a special aleph beis group that formally introduces a letter a week using multisensory techniques emphasizing letter name recognition and beginning sounds. Familiar and frequently used Hebrew vocabulary is introduced.

MONTESSORI CURRICULUM

The core curriculum at The Learning Tree is based on a Montessori model and includes 5 areas of the curriculum – Practical Life, Sensorial, Math, Language, and Culture (Geography, Botany, Zoology, Science):

We approach learning with a stress on individuality. Each child is assessed when they enter our school to discover what knowledge and social base they came to us with. Using Individualized instruction, theme teaching, small group work, and large group learning environments we attempt to help children achieve individual goals in a developmentally appropriate way. Children are observed and reassessed on an ongoing basis so that adjustments to the goals and the environment can be made.

Practical Life

This area of the curriculum is designed to invite the young learner to act and work on real life tasks that foster independence, coordination, order concentration and attention to detail. Actitivities develop small muscle strength and control, improve eye hand coordination and teach left-to-right, top-to-bottom progression. These essential skills support the child in skill development in all other areas of the classroom.

The practical life area contains many attractively displayed objects familiar to the child, including a variety of items commonly used in the tasks of daily living such as pouring liquids, preparing foods, washing dishes and clothes, folding, polishing silver, dressing frames (buttoning, zipping, buckling, tying), and managing social encounters in good character.

Developing proficiency with life skills involved with caring for oneself and the environment encourages responsibility, autonomy and promotes high self-esteem.

Sensorial

Senses are the "doorway to the mind." The Montessori environment provides a wide range of sensorial materials designed to help the child develop the ability to make judgements, to compare and discriminate differences of size, shape, weight, texture, colour, and temperature and to store up impressions in his "muscular memory." The Sensorial activities provide an opportunity for the child to observe, compare, classify and draw conclusions. These exercises are the beginning of the child's intellectual development and support future learning in other curriculum areas, especially Mathematics. The sensorial activities can be used together in more complex ways as the child develops.

Math

Math in the Montessori classroom is presented in a very methodical levelled format using manipulatives which help the child develop abstract concepts in a very concrete way. Each concept/skill is played with repetitively until full mastery is achieved before moving on to the next activity in a long sequence of skills ranging from understanding the basic concept of a quantity, to the symbol for that quantity, to developing proficiency in one-to-one correspondence, to understanding odds and evens, developing number bonds to 10, using the decimal system and understanding and manipulating quantities and their symbols from one unit to 9,000, through to basic and then more sophisticated addition, subtraction, multiplication and division – as the child indicates interest and ability.

Montessori believed that a strong foundation of math at a young age (preschool) prevented children from failing in math later on. "Math phobias" are a common symptom of children who have had little or no introduction to math manipulatives during the sensitive period between 3 and 6 yrs. old.

Language

The Montessori classroom provides rich opportunities to develop and enhance vocabulary and language appreciation. A strong emphasis is placed on phonological awareness and developing an ear for sounds, syllables, rhyming and alliteration. Much emphasis is placed on reading and literacy. Children very quickly learn concepts in print and are able to treat a book with respect, locate the parts of a book, distinguish pictures from print, understand what an author and an illustrator is, develop clues about the story from the title and the illustrations, begin to differentiate different types of illustrations, identify words, sentences and punctuation, and be able to discuss and retell a story with expression.

The language materials are phonetically based. While children are introduced to a letter sound each week in the context of a theme based presentation, children learn the shapes and sounds of the letters with the sandpaper letters on an individual basis giving them the opportunity to progress as fast or as slow as is necessary.

Later, they join letters to make words and then sentences with the movable alphabet. Reading naturally follows word building. To further the development of reading, children explore the function of words and the structure of sentences.

Writing

The skills necessary to write – the ability to hold a pencil (pincer grip), fine motor and graphomotor control, dexterity and strength have been prepared indirectly through the exercises in the Practical Life and Sensorial areas of the curriculum. Children begin in a step by step developmentally sensitive structure to learn how to write – beginning with sandpaper letters/numbers, letter building with wooden sticks, using playdough to superimpose the letter forms, drawing in sand trays, chalkboards, large grid paper and eventually moving on to lined paper. The Learning Tree implements the Handwriting Without Tears writing program and uses all of their materials.

Culture

Geography, botany, zoology, and science are referred to as cultural subjects. The teacher sows the seeds, which spark the children's interest in the world around them. All subject matter is presented in sensorial ways with specifically designed materials and real-life experiences that either have a predetermined conclusion (teaching cause and effect) or are open-ended and encourage a sense of discovery.

Through working with the Cultural material the children become aware that they are part of the large family of humanity.

Themes

Throughout the year, themes that are an inherent part of our everyday curriculum will be highlighted with an emphasis on song, arts and crafts, story telling, field trips, cooking and science experiments. Examples of such units include; the seasons of the year; solar system; Israel; habitats, land animals and water animals; Colours; time periods; community helpers; etc.

Cooking

The school year is not short on opportunities to taste ones way through the Jewish calendar. Children will have ample opportunities to cook, bake, decorate, taste and at times take home the "fruits of their labour". Shabbat preparation offers on a weekly basis the opportunity to learn to bake challahs, prepare soups and salads, desserts, etc. Throughout the year children will have lots of opportunity to prepare a wide variety of dishes related to the holiday of the time.

Arts and Crafts

Art is an important part of The LearningTree curriculum, allowing for self-expression and fine motor skills development. Children have an opportunity to explore colors, textures, and patterns, thus developing their visual and sensory abilities. Children will be able to choose from a variety of mediums in both open ended and teacher directed activities. Emphasis is placed on the process and NOT the finished product.

Music & Movement

Music and Movement plays a central role in our curriculum on a daily basis in the context of story telling, learning new concepts and vocabulary, Parsha, Chagim, Shabbat and in exploring various themes throughout the year . Through music children learn to hear differences in sounds, discover rhythm, increase vocabulary, follow direction, develop fine and gross motor control, and experience the impact of music on their moods. Music is played throughout the day and is used to anchor children to expectations at the time.

Playful, soft, upbeat music is played during art, when they arrive, various themes are played during our formal music and movement time and soft classical music is played during independent activities.

The essential thing is to arouse such an interest that it engages the child's whole personality.

The essential thing is to arouse
such an interest that it engages
the child's whole personality.