The practical life area includes helping the infants to eat by themselves, drinking from a cup, sweeping, cleaning tables, caring for plants and animals, food preparation, dish washing, hand washing, window cleaning, flower arranging and so on. The Nurtury provides a prepared environment for Infants/Toddlers (18-36 months). Children who are now comfortably walking are taken out of the Nido Room, and moved to the toddler rooms which conform to their increased physical needs. The children learn concentration, order, sequence, and skills adapted to their development with practical life. The sensorial area allows children to use their senses to learn about the world. In the toddler rooms, a child can learn to distinguish different heights, lengths, weights, colors, sounds, smells, shapes, and textures. The language, math, geography, and science areas provide the child with ideas for their intellectual development. Language activities and materials increase vocabulary and conversational skills. The movement area includes: stairs and a platform, movement mat, push cart, and sit and spin. We use a number of multi-sensory, sequential, and self-correcting Montessori materials to facilitate learning. Materials for eye-hand coordination such as threading, bead stringing, cubes on pegs, spheres on horizontal pegs, puzzles, gluing, folding; and various practical life exercises, coloring, painting and cooking projects.

Primary children possess a remarkable ability to absorb the world that surrounds them. Maria Montessori believed that the years from three to six are the most critical period for nurturing curiosity and for laying the foundation for all future development. The goals of The Nurtury at this age are to foster independence, and to support children in moving toward mastery of self and their environment. It is a totally prepared Montessori Environment designed to encourage children in their self directed discovery of the world through interest based activities in Practical Life, Sensorial, Math, Language, Geography, History, Art, Music and Science. These activities properly matched to the child’s ability level and interest help to develop within the child a love of learning. Fundamental to Montessori theory is the multi-age classroom. The class must include children age three to six and children can work either individually or in a small group, learning from and sharing with one another. The class will have a maximum of twenty children in the morning and the afternoon three year olds will nap leaving only the older four and five year olds in the afternoon to do more advanced group lessons.

The Nurtury provides a prepared environment for infants (0-9 months and 9-18 months). Infants develop naturally in their own way and at their own pace. Characterized by order, simplicity and beauty which meet the needs of the child. The youngest members of the house are kept in the Nido Room (Italian for “nest”) designed with a special movement area, that is to be equipped with customized stands, stairs, and bars for pulling up. An activity area which will expose the youngest child to Montessori manipulative, sensorial, and language materials. A variety of materials and interesting objects to look at, explore and experience, which are designed to meet the developmental stages and sensitive periods of the infant.