Jewish Montessori Curriculum for Early Childhood

Practical Life

The Practical Life curriculum teaches children life skills such as grasping, pouring, spooning, grating, and folding. The use of these works helps children develop greater concentration and focus that is needed for more complicated tasks and works throughout the classroom, and in life in general.

Many of the activities in this section are also considered pre-writing works because they help strengthen the children’s fine motor skills and coordination.

Sensorial

This section allows the children to explore using their five senses. It contains works that develop pre-math skills and special awareness as well as works that help children focus on sight, sound, smell, taste and touch.

Language

In this section the child works on developing the skills needed for reading and writing. These skills include things like pattern recognition, taking parts of something and making the whole, sequencing and others.

This section also includes learning the different sounds of both the English and Hebrew alphabet and learning how to read. Children will also learn writing skills which include the proper use of a pencil, tracing, metal insets and eventually writing letters.

Math

Our math curriculum uses concrete, hands-on materials to teach children abstract math concepts.

Once they master counting, quantifying, and identifying numbers, children move onto learning various concepts that they will use in their later schooling and life, such as addition and subtraction into the hundreds and thousands, squaring and cubing, fractions, and the rules of the base-10 and decimal system.

Art

Our art curriculum focuses on the process of creating art, not on the final product. Children are given the opportunity to explore various art mediums, and use the art area as a way to express their own creativity.

Theme-based art projects are optional, and are presented as open-ended activities that allow the children to create their own unique masterpieces.

Science

The children in our classroom don't just learn about science; they experience it. Each child brings in a plant, which they learn to water and care for, and enjoy watching it grow. Having a class pet helps many children overcome their fear of animals, as they take responsibility for feeding it.

We take nature walks, and participate in interesting science experiments. We also use specially designed materials to teach more in depth about botany and zoology.

Jewish Holidays

         Jewish holidays and themes, like everything else in a Montessori classroom, are taught in a hands-on, concrete way. Stories are told through interactive puppet shows, costumes, songs, and books. We then develop materials that transform the stories, laws, and customs of each holiday into concrete activities that the children can understand and connect to.

        Our Jewish holiday curriculum runs through the whole classroom. As we teach the children about an approaching holiday, children will find holiday-themed Math and Language work, as well as books, puzzles, and Science work that develop these themes. The children have the opportunity to create holiday-themed art in the Art area, prepare holiday food in Practical Life, and use real Judaica to practice pouring, sorting, silver polishing, and the like.