Distance Learning School

Infants and small children between the toddler and school stages have a searching mind and a capacity to learn rapidly. They can assimilate information fast, they have an inquisitive mind and they are interested and fascinated by each new discovery. Nurturing their minds correctly at this stage is very important and there are many approaches to this. Preschools are known by various other names such as day care, nursery school, and kindergarten or Montessori school.

Subjects covered by Preschool curriculum are language, mathematics, geography, science, and arts. Various specialized methods of teaching like Montessori, High Scope, Waldorf, etc are followed by preschools. Let us have a look at one of the commonly adopted method of preschool education, the Montessori education method that has become so popular.

In the late 19th century; Dr. Maria Montessori developed certain concepts about the education of small children; her concepts were based on her observation that the development and thinking of children is quite different from that of adults and that children learn in their own way, choosing among the materials and resources available to them. These concepts are the basis of Montessori education method. Even though Montessori school children learn preschool curriculum subjects such as language, mathematics, geography, science, and arts that children from other preschools do, they do so in a very different atmosphere

One of the basic arguments in the Montessori learning method is that children, from birth up to an age of around six, have a mind that can assimilate quickly, that they are very highly motivated to achieve perfection of skills and understanding within their setting. The young child learns by repetition of activities; for instance, exhaustive babbling – totally incoherent and incomprehensible to us – is the child’s language practice leading to his competence in language.

The Montessori learning method allows children to pursue subjects that interest them and at their own pace. There are long periods of time when a child works without interruption on a topic. Montessori classrooms have feature areas devoted to different subjects emphasizing motor skills, sensory and memory skills, etc. and a child goes to an area when he feels interested in that subject.

Montessori classrooms provide small pets, living plants or may be a window sill garden thus allowing children to feel and experience as much of the natural world around as possible. The Montessori teacher’s role primarily is to introduce the children to suitable material and then observe and guide them.

Kindergarten school is a variant of the preschools. Children join kindergarten school at the age of five. Here they learn to interact and play with other children. They are provided materials and activities to motivate them to learn the language, mathematics, science, etc. They are taught social behavior and they are also taught music, art, etc. Pre K (Pre Kindergarten) refers to a program similar to Montessori and covers children of three and four years of age.