Curriculum Supplement Sample Pages

Text – This page is from our Plants unit.  Any one of our topics could be a college-level seminar. Physics is just a big subject. We’ve refined the topic into content that preschoolers can grasp. Our Montessori classes have children as young as 2 1/2 and as old as entering first graders. That’s a big age span. Consequently, at any one time, significant adaptations need to be made to appeal to the entire group. You’ll be the best judge. Sometimes you may just want to talk through the pictures. With other groups or maybe a small group of older children, you may want to read the text. 

•  Distills the mountains of content available into topics preschoolers can grasp.
•  Has awesome pictures of real things, not line drawings or cute cartoons.
•  Provides a structure from which you can create more exploration for your kids or families.
Thinking Skills – This page is from the Africa unit. We’re providing our children with a lot of technical content, creative art and movement, and dramatics to practice what we think. But critical thinking requires more. There are many post-it notes in the book to remind you to stop and cultivate thinking in your children. You’ll want to make sure that all your children are evaluating the information you’re providing them, questioning what that information means, and communicating their thoughts with others in order to arrive at a solution to a complex issue. It’s a tall order, but a necessary process for our new world.

•  Creates breathing points with post-it notes where the teacher is reminded to stop and expect a response from the kids.
•  Cycles through various kinds of thinking skills so there is a balanced approach, similar to a personal trainer who focuses on all the muscle groups, not just on aerobic activities.
•  Also has tips to enable the teacher to insure kids are coming along with content, not just hurrying through topics.
User’s Guide – At the beginning of every book is a tip sheet highlighting techniques unique to this topic. This page is from the Colonial Times unit. If there are sensitive subjects presented in the material (like our sex ed program), there will be suggestions for handling them. There are also marketing tips to connect with your parents such as planning a luau or setting up an Independence Day parade.

•  Doesn’t assume the teacher has a lot of background with preschoolers or cognitive theory. Each unit is complete and ready to use right now.
•  Spiral binding makes each book easy to use in the classroom. Conventional curriculums are bound in 350+ page books that do not lay open for quick reference.
•  Marketing tips keep all staff focused on good customer/parent relations.


Vocabulary – Children who have rich vocabularies have a greater ability to process thoughts. The curriculum supplement uses big words and correct terminology while our children are in their “sponge” stage of being able to hear and remember sounds. This page from the Machines unit shows that children will learn words like fulcrum and pulley. 

•  Big words like proprioceptive and igneous are defined for staff so they can present a knowledgeable image to parents.
•  Concepts are not watered down. Children who can surf the internet are perfectly capable of learning more geometric shapes than circles, squares, and triangles or how we react differently to various colors.
•  Nuances of emotions and practice in social skills enable kids to cope beyond the levels where preschoolers are typically expected to be.

 
Value – Although as a society Americans have a fairly common set of values, mostly we don’t verbalize them in ways we can use to clearly guide our actions. The curriculum uses twelve values that are emphasized approximately four times each year so our children can articulate what is expected of them. This page from the North America unit shows how the value is incorporated into the theme.

•  Staff have a common ground to discuss big subjects like justice, joy, and courage.
•  Parents can see a cohesive approach that helps them reinforce social values at home.
•  Children get to practice “how to help” and how to “stand up for what is right”.
Music – Songs used by the enrichment curriculum reiterate the common bond that culturally literate music provides. The main advantage is that parents can connect with their children and their children’s world with music that the parent sang as a child. In addition, when we include movement with the music each week, the variety of music encourages all the personality types and traits of a well-balanced personality. This page from Rodeo demonstrates extensions given for music.

•  Staff understand the deeper value of singing as a group and being able for children to sing with parents.
• Staff can use music to balance children’s personalities, even if the children are just going through the motions. The motions are what make the difference in the children.
Creative Dramatics – This sample is The Elves and the Shoemaker from the Europe unit for the children to possibly dramatize. Creative dramatics explores perspectives and senses that give children permission to think, move, act, and speak outside the box, outside our usual expectations. 

•  Children are encouraged to think about what it would be like to be that thing they’re acting, like a seed sprouting or flying on the back of an eagle.
•  All the senses are engaged, like what does it smell/taste/feel/look like?
Special Project – A series of topics that rotates between ecology, cooking, science, safety, and manners, all of special interest to children that sometimes get overlooked in our busy lives. This sample is from a "manners" project in the Forest Biomes unit.

•  Varying categories of topics keep the material fresh.
•  Repeating categories emphasizes different aspects in each category.
Motor Development – This part of the curriculum cycles through strength, stamina, coordination, and flexibility. Both the children and you should have a lot of fun doing these exercises.  This sample is for coordination from the Music unit

•  Varying categories of motor development encourages a balance of physical skills.
•  Teachers can use the variety of skills to monitor development and remediate as necessary. Connecting with parents gives your staff even more credibility.


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Perceptual Movement – This program specifically exercises the ability to take in information through the senses so that motor skills can be performed automatically. Areas emphasized are bilaterality, proprioceptive knowledge, vestibular function, postural response, and motor planning. When these areas are in the curriculum, explanations are included so you can be knowledgeable about the value of this work. This proprioception explanation is from the Rodeo unit. 

•  Varying categories of perceptual development insures a balance of body development.
•  Teachers can use the variety of skills to monitor development and remediate as necessary. Connecting with parents gives your staff even more credibility.
Outdoors – This sample is from the Cititzenship unit. A variety of large motor and imaginative activities allows children to move freely and develop skills in the outdoors. These are such diverse topics as hopscotch, how to make rivers in the sandbox, and learning to bounce and catch a ball. Although playground time will be largely unstructured, children love interacting with the adult in fun activities where they can run and make noise.

•  A wide variety of activities constantly suggested to staff keeps playground time interesting instead of always the same games and activities. Most of our children are with us most days of the year. 
•  The advantages of outside time are legion: it's an environment that children must adapt to; it's always different; natural objects are eminently more interesting than man-made objects.
•  Social skills in the unstructured outdoors allows children to learn to function without the oversight of an adult.
Art – Provides daily opportunities for aesthetic appreciation using multi-media formats with freedom to self-express rather than to make art that looks like the adults’. You’ll want to be creative in finding ways to present the children’s work so that everyone in your environment can appreciate the beauty of colors and shapes. The sample page is from the Insects unit. 

•  It’s easy to just put out paper and crayons when it’s been a hectic week. Materials lists of simple supplies and patterns make it so much easier to be creative and innovative every week.
•  Projects are thematic. There’s some great ideas in our field, but when you’re crazy busy, it’s wonderful to have ideas ready to tie into your theme. You’ll happen on to ideas through the year that you can clip to your book to use when that theme comes up again.
•  Projects creatively displayed help market your school. Carried home, they give your parents bragging rights.