We offer Pre-Primary Montessori program for children from the age of 2.5 years. The prepared Montessori environment offers the following indoor environment activities.
The child shows great interest in Exercises of practical life activities and offers his/her help in carrying them at home. These activities include - pouring, spooning, buttoning, sorting, polishing, cutting, grating, dusting, mopping, watering plants etc. These activities play an important role in hand-eye coordination, small muscular control and sense of order, which indirectly prepare him/her for writing.
Sensorial activities are offered to the child through his/her senses mainly Visual, Tactile (touch and feel), Acoustic (Sound), Olfactory (smell), Gustatory (taste), Thermic, Kinaesthetic (muscular), Baric (weight) and Stereognostic (combination of tactile and kinaesthetic).
Dr. Maria Montessori believed strongly that a child is born with what he needs to develop language. He will grasp the language with its meaning and usage along with emotions which is alive in his environment effortlessly through his absorbent mind. Words are made up of sounds and words makes up sentences. Language is presented through enrichment of vocabulary, phonetic sounds, listening to sounds in a word, which will help them to form their own sentences. This enables the child’s oral language development, reading, writing, and grammar.
When the child is around 3.5 years, there takes place in him/her what Dr. Montessori calls the ‘awakening of the mathematical mind’. He/she wants to quantify objects - ‘How much exactly?’. Then he/she is ready for arithmetic which starts with counting, followed by decimal system and basic mathematical operations such as addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Dr. Montessori had beautifully designed the arithmetical materials by materializing all the abstract concepts thorough concrete manipulative materials. Arithmetic offered to the child at the time he/she needs it, in the right manner that fascinates him/her, will make a positive and intelligent impact. Contact with the materials is bound to prepare the child for healthy and happy mental association with arithmetic.
Items of human culture exposes the child to: History (time line of telephone, transportation, clothes, etc.); Geometry (basic figures, polygons, etc.); Geography (globe, map of world, Asia, India, land, water, island, lake, bay, people, culture, currencies, artefacts, etc.); Botany (different types of flowers, parts of a plant, different types of leaves, creepers, climbers, parts of a tree, parts of flower, etc.); Zoology (different types of animals, their young ones, their homes, their life cycle, parts of animals, etc.); Science experiments (nurture the spirit of enquiry, which will help them to be inquisitive and enjoy the learning process)
At Tiny Mustards, the learning extends further beyond the indoor environment. The child is introduced to a wider range of experiences like daily artwork & craft, gardening, story reading, discussions, cooking, celebrating festivals of all religions, free play, birthday celebration, music, yoga, sharing thoughts and experiences, etc.