Our Classrooms
Gilman Montessori Academy is a diverse and peaceful school dedicated to providing excellent care for children aged 1 to 6 years old. The classrooms are carefully designed and children work with specially designed materials to fulfill their needs. Lessons are initially given using concrete materials so that the children are always learning through the combined use of their hands and minds. Our curriculum incorporates Science and Nature, Music and Movement, Sensorial, Cooking and Nutrition, Cultural Awareness, History, Geography, Language Arts, Mathematics, and Engineering. Children are engaged in these areas with hands-on activities.
Toddler Program
Toddler Classroom for 12 months (when independently mobile) to 2½-year-old children
In this class, students begin to learn the basics of Montessori education. Our Montessori toddler programs offer so much more than childcare. The classroom design fosters your young child’s emerging independence and desire for exploration. The environments are designed to promote your child’s growth in all areas of development. Learning objectives for your child at this age include developing skills such as language, concentration, problem-solving, visual discrimination, and physical coordination. Additionally, GMA Montessori toddler programs provide support and guidance for families through programs that may include parent education.
Our learning activities include:
• Self-care: washing, dressing, toileting, and eating, according to each child’s individual capacity
• Care of the environment: cleaning, food preparation, and food service; plant care and animal care
• Large-motor activities (indoors and out): walking, climbing, running, jumping, balancing, climbing steps, and more
• Fine-motor skills: reaching, grasping, picking up objects, transferring objects, using tools and utensils, doing artwork
• Language: naming objects, describing actions and intentions, discussing pictures, conversation, music, and singing
• Social skills: developing manners through interactions with peers, teachers, and adult-led small group game
Primary Program
Primary classroom for 2½ to 6-years-old children
The Montessori Primary program offers a unique, mixed-age classroom environment, for children approximately 2½ to 6-years-old. Children engage in individual learning experiences, as well as one-on-one interactions, which are integral to the Montessori Method. As children get older, they tend to see things that adults find ordinary as very interesting and special. Practical life exercises like sorting, pouring, or washing dishes absorb them completely.
We recognize this as the beginning of control and coordination of mind and body. That’s why Montessori learning revolves around tangible, hands-on experiences. Children use concrete materials to learn math; movable alphabet letters to explore language; and cubes, cylinders, and other objects to categorize find spatial relationships, and more.
Our Primary classroom is for students between the ages of 2½ years and 4 years. Primary classrooms promote skills of independence, concentration, social skills, and academic readiness necessary to succeed at the next level. Your child will benefit from the multi-age classrooms that help students to learn and support each other and learn at their own pace. In this classroom, the main focuses are continuing to increase students' independence, applying knowledge of letters and sounds to word recognition, basic science and math operations, introduction to geography, and the world’s cultures. The primary class also prepares the students for a kindergarten program.
The Kindergarten program
In the Kindergarten year, children express confidence, develop self-esteem and self-sufficiency, and show responsibility. Kindergarteners are introduced to progressively more advanced Montessori materials and sophisticated, fascinating lessons. A Montessori Kindergarten student sees and feels their personal growth as they watch others learn the information they have mastered themselves. Children exhibit the independence, critical thinking, collaboration, and leadership that they have been practicing during their previous years in the Early Childhood classroom, exercising them independently as they prepare to transition into an Elementary program.
The Kindergarten curriculum at GMA helps build a solid foundation in math, language arts, and science. Kids explore their world through science and geography. Our Kindergarten curriculum follows the principles of Montessori education. Children have the opportunity to explore through the range of Montessori learning materials that are each purposefully designed for their developmental needs. Lessons are presented in a small group. Our teachers work with the students extensively on basic number operations and number sense, letter sounds, sight words, sentences, beginner reading strategies.
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