La Crescenta Montessori

Montessori

La Crescenta Montessori is a school where we truly believe in the Montessori Method. Developed by the first female doctor in Italy, Dr. Maria Montessori (1870-1952), the Montessori Method is based on her experiences and discoveries while educating intellectually disabled children. Dr. Montessori created a series of techniques that allowed these children to take state tests alongside normal children. Not only were they able to take the tests, but Dr. Montessori’s students actually passed the tests at levels equal with their peers. She came to realize that her method was universal, and her techniques worked on students with or without mental handicaps.

The Montessori Method has thrived in the United States since 1957, and we are reaping the benefits of the efforts of earlier generations to perfect it. Today our curriculum aims to give children everything they need and more in an early education. Our exercises include:

• Practical life exercises – Cleaning and sweeping help to build muscles while pouring and measuring help to perfect coordination.
• Mathematics exercises – By associating numerals with quantities early on, we help our students to learn more complicated mathematics such as addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and the decimal system. Our Montessori materials help to ensure our students will retain and understand these concepts, which will help them progress faster.
• Language exercises – By learning the alphabet phonetically, our students are able to learn to write and read at an early age. This, again, is thanks to our Montessori materials and their ability to make an impression on a child’s mind.
• Social studies and science exercises – By presenting these complicated ideas to a child in an environment where they want to learn, our school provides a unique opportunity, in that we build touchstones in a child’s memory that can help to clarify abstract ideas in later learning situations.

The Montessori Method, above all else, holds one paramount principle: the goal of early childhood education should be to cultivate a genuine and natural desire to learn. In our classrooms, we approach this objective in two ways. First, we allow and encourage each child to experience the excitement of learning by their own choice. Second, we help students to perfect their abilities at the maximum level in future learning situations.