Dear Parents,

Thank you for exploring our school for your child’s introduction to school.

I am often asked to explain what the goal is for our students at the end of Pre-K or Kindergarten. This is difficult for me to answer as I look at each child on an individual basis. Children learn at different rates and are excited about different activities. It is our job to use our curriculum as a guide to then create lesson plans with tactics that will engage and challenge each individual child.

I want children to leave SOCDS with an ability to clearly communicate their needs and to resolve conflict by articulating the facts of what happened. I also want children to leave SOCDS with a respect for our environment and an ability to respect all people regardless of how they look, speak or learn. Finally, I want all children to enter their next learning experience with a desire and readiness to learn and to have the skills to be self-directed learners in any environment.

Another question I am often asked how Montessori is our school. Our school is not a traditional Montessori School: children do not always learn independently at SOCDS, sometimes they are working with a few other friends or in a large group to explore the materials; children do not have free choice for most of the day at SOCDS, teachers invite children to join an activity or use a cue to rotate through centers to ensure a breadth of experiences; materials are not static in the SOCDS classroom, teachers create new centers and center material depending on what the learning objectives are and the interests of individual children.

However, the ideas of Maria Montessori are ever present in our curriculum and our approach to learning. Create an environment where children feel comfortable exploring the materials, let them master step one, and then disrupt that part of their world so that they can repeat the learning process. A simple example of this is a traditional memory game. Step one and two are practicing visual discrimination. First have one set laid on the table and the other set in a pile. The goal is to match the cards in the pile to the cards face up on the table. Step two is to match up pairs when both sets are laid out face up. Step one is a little easier as the task is to match the single new card with those on the table. Step two is a little more difficult because the child has to choose which card to start with and has to stay focused on finding pairs. Continuing with this theme, we can introduce the memory skills needed in a step wise manner as well.

Finally people ask me, what happens if my child does not like to do the memory games. Our answer is what differentiates us the most from other schools. If we cannot create a memory game that will excite your child (matching pictures of classroom friends, picture of their family, animals, etc.) then we start with the objective of that tactic: visual discrimination and memory skills. We then would create a different tactic that practices those objectives. For this example we might use buttons, rubber manipulatives in the shape of cars, animals, vegetables, or legos. We are not stuck in using a specific tool or tactic to teach our objectives; we are constantly reviewing how we can introduce tactics that help all children explore and learn the objective of the lesson.

I look forward to discussing how SOCDS can meet the needs of your child and family. Please contact me to set up a time to tour our school.

Ms. Annemarie