"Education is not something which the teacher does, but that it is a natural process which develops spontaneously in the human being."
- Maria Montessori
Prepared Environment
MSC provides a harmonious, distinct and energizing environment for learning.
What Makes a Prepared Montessori Environment?
The main purpose of our classrooms’ physical and behavioral structure is to encourage children to showcase their skills to the best of their ability. We believe that when your child is placed in our classrooms, they will eventually see learning as challenging, yet rewarding.
In the Montessori setting, every object, tool, or book has its own place and purpose. All materials are displayed at the children’s eye level, which stimulates independence and enables them to mature their own preferences for subjects.
Your child will be free to work on tasks on their time, in their preferred space in the classroom, while exploring all kinds of possibilities for learning. Teachers act as observant guides that avoid any kind of undue interference and mostly take notes about the overall behavior and progress of each student, resorting to respectful one-on-one talks when necessary.
Behind this well-elaborated space, students will be able to find dignity in their work while also experiencing the joy of play, both factors being incredibly important in that particular stage of their lives. Ultimately, your child will develop that all-important sense of self, allowing them to explore their passions and curiosities and develop their potential, intellectually and emotionally.
Organization
In a Prepared Environment, everything must have its own place. A tight and nicely assembled space will be the first thing your child notices about our classroom. This type of care helps your child to absorb the importance of organization and gradually understand their part in maintaining it, simply by returning everything they grab to the same spot where they found it.
Aside from everything having its own place, organizing also means rotating. We’re constantly rotating key items through our shelves, drawers, and tables, enabling your child to get in touch with several learning subjects, exploring new preferences and even learning styles.
- Clean, organized, and engaging classrooms
- Children learn to appreciate the organization
- Everything has its own place and purpose
- Rotate items to constantly explore new subjects
Child-Sized Tools
To make your child feel comfortable and eager to learn, we provide several child-sized tools. These tools include tables, chairs, tools, low open shelves, and Montessori Materials that are made according to their hand size. Everything is within reach and ready to use.
Apart from making the accommodation process much easier, this tailor-made space encourages self-reliance and independence, boosting your child’s confidence significantly.
- Children feel comfortable in a tailor-made environment
- Students engage in activities independently
- Confidence is improved
Freedom of Choice and Movement
In our classrooms, children will be given the freedom to move around, go to the bathroom, sit, lie down, get up, and initiate or pause a task; all at will.
The reason for this permissive atmosphere is that we believe that restraining the child’s behavior in the classroom can compromise their learning abilities and jeopardize their progress and commitment to learning. Is extremely important they never see our teachers as antagonizers of their learning journey, so that a sense of community is reinforced.
We also don’t see this level of freedom as harmful; to the contrary, Dr. Maria Montessori proved through her experiments that children are far more motivated and likely to achieve their full potential when working on tasks of their choosing and at their own pace.
- Children can move around freely
- Students choose their own tasks and timing with them
- Peak performance is achieved through freedom of choice
Nature
Getting physically in touch with nature is essential to the Montessori experience; it’s also a rather easy thing to do within our campus.
MSC is a certified Green Steps School, which means we take sustainability towards becoming more environmentally responsible. Examples of that are activities such as garden tending, litter prevention, soil and habitat restoration, recycling, and more. All of that takes place within our campus, which also has rain barrels, chicken coops, coy ponds, and beehives.
By performing these practical tasks within MSC’s natural surroundings, your child will be able to easily absorb the concept of nurturing for nature and its undeniable importance. They will not only perform care activities but, most importantly, also understand why they’re doing it.
- Certified Green Steps School
- Children learn the value of conserving nature
- Sustainable campus with animals and gardens
A Healthy Community Feeling
Within our mixed-age classrooms, older and younger students develop strong bonds by working together on various tasks. Older students often serve as grounded role models for the younger kids, achieving higher levels of responsibility by becoming part of their classmates’ learning process.
Our teachers act mostly as watchful guides of the learning process, taking notes on each child’s behavior and interfering only when absolutely necessary. These notes will later be used to improve productivity individually and suggest activities that can make the environment more versatile and playful.
- No unnecessary competitiveness
- Classmates assist each other and collaborate on tasks
- The learning environment is harmonious and productive
Where Next? Mixed Aged Classrooms
In our Montessori classrooms, the students are not divided by age, and such division is rather based on age groups. The intention in all of our educational programs is that the older students can assist and guide the younger in difficult tasks, while the younger can feel free to seek the mentorship of both teachers and more experienced classmates.
