Our curriculum will be based on the Montessori Philosophy. Nildo meaning “nest” in Italian will be for our infants and younger toddlers. The Nido is divided into five areas: movement, eating, sleeping, physical care and outside. The focus of the infant environment is on fostering basic trust in the child. Foremost in the environment is the adult whose caring, respectful response to the infant’s needs, both physical and psychological, conveys the message of unconditional love and acceptance.

Toddlers are given independent opportunities to work in the development of language skill, art, music, sensorial and practical life. The practical life area is particularly emphasized as the activities in this area give children the chance to develop skills to care for themselves and their environment in the following areas: control of movement, grace and courtesy. Practical life activities are simple and can be accomplished by each child. They offer repetitive cycle, which helps the child establish patterns of order and sequencing. Due to the fact that these are very real activities, each child becomes grounded in reality, building the child’s self esteem is the ultimate goal and this is accomplished through repeated successes with these activities. Through song and dance and freedom of choice, the toddlers have access to a variety of large muscle activities that offer them opportunities to jump, climb, balance, crawl or skip. These exercises as well as creative art activities, are offered for each child to choose. This freedom in a safe space is crucial to the toddler program. However, it is always tempered by two important limits that will be beneficial for a lifetime, respect for others and respect for the environment.

Over a period of time, develop into a “normalized community” working with high concentration and few interruptions. The classroom includes the following components:The practical life exercises enhance the development of task organization and cognitive order through care of self, care of the environment, exercises of grace and courtesy, and refinement of physical movement and coordination. The sensorial materials enable the child to order, classify, seriate and describe sensory impressions in relation, length, width, temperature, mass, color, etc. The Montessori math materials, through concrete manipulative materials, allows the child to internalize the concepts of number, symbol, sequence, operations and memorization of basic facts.The language work includes oral language development, written expression, reading, the study of grammar, creative dramatics and children’s literature. Basic skills in writing and reading are developed through the use of sandpaper letters (loose alphabet letters) and various presentations allowing children to effortlessly link sounds and symbols and to express their thoughts in writing.The child is also presented with geography, history, life sciences, music, art and movement education.