Montessori Nosipho was started in 2008, and throughout the years we have welcomes many children in our school. We have a well-equipped Montessori environment and we thrive on teaching the children following as close to these Montessori Principals as possible.
We accept children from 18 months to 6 years and offer a ‘home away from home’ environment where the children feel a sense of belonging in the environment, where they are free to work with the adequate material for their age, whilst having the guidance of a teacher who facilitates the child to work and grow at his/her own pace but at the same time making sure they meet their normatives for their age. Each and every one of our teachers loves the children as if they are our own, and we care for them and love them as they are and do not judge them on their background or home situations.
We work with the children on a one-on-one basis, giving the child our undivided attention and making sure they learn about the aims of the apparatus to its full capacity, teaching them many different things throughout their time here.
Children need to be continuously stimulated to reach their full capacity, so as the private school holidays approach we recommend that you have available to your child many fun but educational items for them to do. In turn preventing them to get bored and then difficult behaviour stemming from that. Especially with summer coming up, let your children learn the Montessori way and let them explore outside, free and in the garden.
For example, let them look at the bird life in the trees, talking about the different types of nests and different colours of the birds, and the different noises they make. Get them to make art work afterwards, using leaves and branches from the tress to make their own nest on a piece of card or a paper plate, and then they can either draw their own bird of find pictures of birds in a magazine to stick on.
Remember to not be critical of your child’s art, after all they have had the imagination and time to create it themselves, so give them the confidence boost that they need and tell them how amazing their artwork is not matter if it looks like what it’s supposed to, or it looks like nothing at all. To them it is ‘INCREDIBLE’ because to them it is.
Another art activity to keep your children busy in the holidays, would be to portray their holiday they have gone on, for example, to the beach, get them to create a masterpiece of how they see the beach and all of its components. So sand, and sky and beautiful smells and colours and shells, that they can fish themselves. Give them the opportunity to explore, and give them a concrete experience of it, digging through the sand to find shelves and treasures, make sand castles with them, the list is endless.
One of Montessori’s popular quotes that we follow in our school is ‘richest sensory experiences come from contact with nature and objects made from natural objects’.
We also love the idea of a nature table, an activity that was created by Maria Montessori too. You can get your children to make one of these in our home, or in their bedroom, a small table in the corner of the room, with all the treasures the children find during their exploratory days outside, or in the park, in the garden, at a friend’s house, the list is endless. It can have anything on it from bird feather they have found to a seashell, to a shiny stone, or coin that they have picked up on the floor that is very old and rusty…
Have a magnifying glass available as we do for them to explore even more.
-Take your children on nature excursions, to the museum, a farmer, where they can pick eggs or drink fresh farm milk, or clean a pig sty.
-Take them on a tour to the fire station where they can have ride in the fire engine.
-A library for a book reading or to teach them how to care and look after books.
-A farmers market where they can appreciate fresh produce or possibly pick herbs themselves.
We do not recommend a zoo, although these are extremely fun for the children, it goes against what they should be taught about not harming animals, and learning to care for them, rather take them to an SPCA where they can care and play with the animals.
Get your child to bake with you or help you prefer dinner with child friendly equipment. Children love the freedom and independency to be able to make their own lunch, wash and cut their apples, spread cream cheese on their crackers etc, never take away that ability to be self-sufficient.
There are many other activities that you can do with your children, let them decide on a game or an activity, but remember the best memory a child will always carry with them will be the time spent doing special things with their loved ones and not being put in front of the T.V instead. A have fun with them in doing all of this!
- Development in a child - April 12, 2018
- Montessori Nosipho - August 8, 2017
