• The Montessori Foundation
• Montessori Mama

Early Childhood: Ages 3 - 5

CRMS offers a thorough Montessori education in a nurturing setting that allows students to develop academically, physically, emotionally and socially. Starting out with classic Montessori hands-on materials, students learn to apply abstract concepts to real situations. Through the use of these materials, teacher guidance and other resources, children come to depend on themselves to ask their own questions as well as to seek their own answers and thus grow into self-confident thinkers, creative problem-solvers and lifelong learners.

Each classroom is a prepared environment with a wealth of intriguing learning materials. The children enthusiastically try every activity in all of the curriculum areas until they have mastered each lesson and the skill required. Our students flourish in multi-age classrooms where they remain with the same friends and teachers for three years before moving up. This allows for very close relationships with classmates and teachers and parents. The multi-age configuration also encourages older students to mentor younger ones, providing early lessons in leadership.

• Practical Life – Learning to work together, developing eye/hand coordination and small muscle control; encouraging independence and competence in daily life through the use of household materials; teaching acceptable social behaviors for group dynamics.
• Sensorial – First exposure to the concepts of volume, mass, depth, width, sizes and other sense dependent lessons.
• Mathematics – Concepts of numbers and numerals; place value leading to addition, multiplication, subtraction and division.
• Language – Prewriting; writing; and reading experiences.
• Culture – Geography, History, Art, Music, Botany, Zoology, Physical Science, Geology and Astronomy.

In the Early Childhood classrooms all teachers are Montessori trained and certified.  There are 20 children in the classroom, one teacher and one assistant.  The program is a full-day, five day a week program.  There is a half-day option, morning or afternoon, for children entering as three-year-olds.  Children bring their own lunch, but the school provides a morning and afternoon snack.

Typical Daily Schedule

9:00 – Flag ceremony
9:00 – 9:30 Opening Circle
9:30 – 11:30 Work Time
11:30 – 12:00 Circle Time
12:00 – 12:30 Lunch (in the classroom)
12:30 – 1:00 Recess (outside)
1:00 – 1:30 Story Time
1:30 – 3:00 Work Time
3:00 – 3:25 Closing Circle

When children enroll in the early childhood program at ages 3 or 4 it is with the expectation that they will remain with our school until graduation at the end of sixth grade. Our entire early childhood program is meant to prepare students for the even more demanding requirements of our elementary program.