Our Programs

Preschool Program

Years of experience teaching young children through the Montessori method have shown us that  they do best with consistency and repetition. Our preschool programs are planned as a three-year experience. There is a careful sequencing of materials to appeal to the special developmental needs of your child throughout the three years. We strongly encourage parents to give their chidren the full benefit of the three-year sequence. During the third year, the fruit of many long nurtured seeds have a chance to ripen. Many children stay at C.C.S. the third year or their Kindergarten year and enjoy age appropriate enrichment activities with peers their same age from both the Red and Blue classes. Programs are designed to let each child grow at his or her own pace. The environment and materials are designed to help develop concentration, coordination, and independence as well as give concrete experience with academics and social interaction. The teacher is a nurturing guide who prepares the environment, facilitates problem solving, and serves as a positive role model. At C.C.S. your child will receive a foundation in everyday living, social skills, self-care, large motor skills, sensory experiences, language and math skills, nature, art, and music. Children go outdoors every day for socialization, large motor experience and nature study.

The preschool programs are for children 3 to 6 years of age. (Child should be toileting independently.) There are three preschool programs, Blue, Purple and Red class. The Blue class meets Monday through Thursday at 8:30 a.m. on the north side of the building and is designated by blue lockers. The Purple class meets Tuesday through Thursday at 12:30 p.m. in the same space as the Blue class. The Red class meets Monday through Friday at 8:30 a.m. on the south side of the building and is designated by red lockers.

Click the class name in the menu to the left for schedules

 FULL DAY Preschool Program

Many children stay at C.C.S. for the Full Day and enjoy age appropriate enrichment activities in the afternoon with peers their same age from both the Red and Blue classes. In addition to the Montessori prepared environment, children staying in the afternoon will experience an additional outdoor playtime along with nature studies and afternoon specials such as library time and art time They will also have a school provided group snack consisting of healthy finger food such as crackers and cheese, fruit and milk.    

Toddler Class

 Like the pre-primary (preschool) class for 3-6 year olds, the room is divided into “curriculum areas,” with activities sequenced by type and complexity, but for toddlers, the curriculum is both simplified and more open-ended. There is a large area which corresponds to the Practical Life area in the preschool, where children practice motor control while they acquire the sense of order and concentration to perform everyday tasks that help them achieve that largest of goals for toddlers: INDEPENDENCE! Another part of the room has materials that encourage exploration of spatial concepts, which is like the Sensorial Area in the preschool, but whose activities have fewer and less subtle distinctions, and are made for the rougher usage of single-minded toddler physicists.   There are indoor as well as outdoor opportunities for gross motor practice and exploration: jumping, climbing, sliding, and crawling. Toddlers are not only building their skills and strength, but learning more about their bodies’ separateness from the rest of their environment. There’s room for pretend play and the beginnings of socialization, and time and patience for all those things that toddlers want to be able to do on their own? taking off (and maybe putting on!) shoes, opening containers, getting dressed, eating independently, toileting, experimenting with the way things interact. The limits of what is acceptable in the class are related to safety and the needs of others, but not determined primarily by what would be convenient, or sometimes even preferable, to the adults in the class. The developmental needs of the children come first. Toddlers begin to learn to delay gratification, but this is not where they start. It is considered a developmental milestone when they get there, i.e. toileting independently.

Toddlers need to have as much freedom as possible to experience a safe version of the world and to experiment with the effects their actions have on that world. They need repeated experience in order to build the concepts and the conservation skills that will enable them to generalize their experience appropriately and take the concepts that they’ve learned to the next level. They need people, an environment and a schedule that they can count on for the security that allows them to feel comfortable reaching out to new experiences. This is what is known as a “prepared environment” in a Montessori Toddler Class: a place that has been carefully prepared for a toddler to meet many of his or her developmental needs independently, with support and guidance from the adults. 

The adults in this class have two main functions: to prepare a rich, developmentally appropriate learning environment; and to observe sensitively and knowledgeably so as to do a better job with the other function. While we may be delighted and amused by watching many of the things the toddlers do, we take them very seriously and treat them with the respect that the huge endeavors of the toddler year deserve. Suppose you were told that in the next year, you would have to develop a full range of new physical skills and acquire a new language, learn to get along with people completely dissimilar from yourself, learn molecular biology, engineering and physics, and become almost completely self-sufficient. Toddlers are driven to do all of these things at their own level, and the progress they make in one short year is amazing. No wonder they’re too busy to stop and put stuff away!

Children in this class are 18 months - 2 1/2 years. There are two Toddler programs, Toddler I and Toddler II. Toddler I meets Monday and Tuesday’s from 8:30 a.m. to 11:15 a.m. Toddler II meets Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday’s from 8:30 a.m. to 11:15 a.m. The Toddler class is located on the first floor. Students will enter in their own classroom door located in the center front of the building.

Click Here for Toddler Class Schedule

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