Chickadee offers an environment rich in choices, experiences, and opportunities for self-discovery, with a full complement of Montessori materials. My heart-felt intention is to provide a holistic environment for children who are with us all day, one which honors and balances their needs for learning, moving, playing, and nurturing, one which supports the full development of each child’s potential.
Preschool and kindergarten children possess absorbent minds and unmatched sensitivities that enable them to learn more easily and efficiently than at any other time of life. In their unfolding daily lives here, they use all their senses, develop large and small motor skills, deepen their concentration, and explore math and written language, geography and science, music and art. Montessori materials are inviting, beautiful, sequenced, and carefully planned. Many supplementary activities happen daily, from gardening to science experiments, from art to cooking in our kitchen.
The children are free to choose activities that stimulate and satisfy their own interests. The Montessori teacher’s role is quite different from the traditional one: we are not the instructor per se, but rather a guide, observer, and facilitator of learning. Our goal is always to encourage independence, responsible freedom, self-discipline, and joy in the child.
Social skills and a sense of deep relationship develop naturally within our small community, as the children live and work together every day, and as they learn to honor ground rules that ensure respect for self and others. The children experience a natural sense of empowerment and responsibility in their school community; they care for it, they care for one another, and they learn and grow.
