If education is always to be conceived along the same antiquated 

lines of a mere transmission of knowledge, there is little to be 

hoped from it in the bettering of man's future. 

For what is the use of transmitting knowledge if the 

individual's total development lags behind? 

~Maria  Montessori

Statement of Purpose:  Hello Montessori is directed by the teachings and experience of Dr. Maria Montessori and her vast personal and professional empirical observations.  We are dedicated to assisting the whole child develop toward independence and eventual adulthood, as Montessori envisioned.  Therein, the self-directed instruction and group activities are focused to facilitate each child’s work to find age appropriate balance, contentment and purpose as intended by Montessori’s classroom organization and lessons.

Our Classroom Leadership:  Our directress holds a Bachelor Degree in Child Development and is Montessori certified for Early Childhood by MMTTC in Evanston, Illinois.  With quiet and reassuring confidence, she assists each child in her care to exercise their unique abilities—through the boundless opportunities at Hello—to enjoy personal growth, to develop a healthy sense of personal worth, to learn an awareness of the world around them and to operate successfully in that world.  Our directress invests her ability, creative energy, profound talent enthusiasm and eight years of experience while embracing each child’s welfare through a long-range commitment to Dr. Montessori’s philosophy.  It is her pledge and that of the staff to maintain a high degree of educational opportunities and integrity within the community.

Classroom organization:  Our bright and sunny classrooms reflect a composition of the classic Montessori display providing six (06) distinct learning areas—Practical Life, Sensorial Awareness, Language, Math, Culture & Science and Arts—with assorted manipulatives and materials presented on clean, modern child-friendly furniture.  As each child’s innate readiness signals, our directress presents particular lessons.  Hello Montessori provides regular assessments with written reports along with three (03) formal parent conferences. 

Practical Life lays the groundwork for your child’s success as a student.  It supplies a ready-range of common daily activities and small-scale utensils wherein your little one enthusiastically engages in broom sweeping, simple hand sewing, table setting, hand dishwashing and an abundant array of everyday responsibilities that tend to be relegated to grown-ups at home.  The adult-like exercises practiced in school aid your youngster in developing a sense of mental and physical order, gross motor coordination and concentration to effectively manage and develop more sophisticated skills that help her/him deal with the physical and social environment in which s/he lives.  Through self-directed purposeful engagement, use and repetition of Practical Life activities prompted by the provided materials, a sense of responsibility and self-confidence also emerge.  The collective skills acquired in Practical Life quickly prepare your child for continued exploration, operation and accomplishment in other areas of the Montessori classroom.

The diversity of Montessori’s Sensorial Awareness exercises in quality observation, perception, fine perceptual discrimination and rank & order classification meet the need for order and refinement of that experiential sensory information for each primary-aged child.  The sensorial materials and relevant terminology provide vital applied developmental experiences for all senses: visual, auditory, gustatory, tactile and olfactory.  Each lesson, whether it is straightforward color matching, more complex geometric solids naming or building the Pink Tower, plays a crucial role in helping your child to develop a sense of logic, concentration and sensory discrimination which prepares her/him for critical and abstract thinking in Math and Language studies as well as becoming an observant and engaged fellow world inhabitant.

As Language permeates all aspects of life, it naturally fills activities and life in the Montessori classroom.  Vocabulary is communicated and reviewed throughout lessons to help your child develop a ready command of our language from the onset of their Montessori education.  The Language area, proper, offers multi-sensory manipulatives—sandpaper letters, etc.—to introduce individual phonetic sounds and letter shapes.  These sandpaper letters are finger-traced in conjunction with an auditory lesson to prompt sound and shape recognition.  Reading is initially practiced by building 3-4 letter phonetic words using a movable alphabet.  Grammar is explored by labeling nouns, acting out verbs and physically demonstrating prepositions.  Writing is practiced through a series of exercises that develop control of your youngster’s hand muscles.  All these applied lessons simultaneously engage your child’s mind and body to breathe life into the language your child now owns and is beginning to comprehend.  Mastery is a ready result of repetition and involvement.

Math concepts are presented in a concrete approach through a variety of colored, tactile and motivating manipulatives that aid in the discovery and meaning of quantities 1-10 and demonstrate the symbols that represent those specific quantities.  Introduction to the decimal system; units, tens, hundreds and thousands, is represented by concrete learning materials, as well.  Linear counting and development of the concept of basic math operations (addition, subtraction, division and multiplication) are animated by manipulating the Montessori Golden Beads.  Working with these math manipulatives is critical to a full understanding of abstract math concepts and the Montessori approach to math provides a meaningful understanding of mathematics to your primary-aged child. 

The areas of Culture and Science are combined as culture is explored initially by way of geography.  Culture is investigated further through books about each of the seven (07) continents, cultural celebrations throughout the school year, flag studies, food sampling and art.  Earth’s key elements of air, land and water are introduced and the unique shapes of each continent are examined at length.  A specially designed set of maps—color-coded wooden puzzles—represents continents, countries in each continent and the individual states of these United States.  Land and water form studies help your child identify basic forms such as island, lake, cape and bay.  Science studies begin by differentiating between living and non-living things as well as identifying the basic characteristics of plants and animals.  Puzzles representing parts of flowers, trees, mammals, fish and reptiles are used to learn vocabulary.  Study of plants and animals extends to regular nature walks, seasonal gardening, fun-filled field trips and regular care of classroom pets.

Art time is afforded our youthful learners through a range of channels using various media the year round.  Beyond the humble beginnings of color-naming our directress helps your child move to secondary color recognition and exercise skills of scissor cutting, purposeful tearing, paper folding, collage composition, always popular and necessary coloring and general gluing technique.  Your little one has boundless opportunity to communicate her/his personality and thoughts with intricate works or large pieces of expression.  We often have visiting professionals who share their particular expertise and invite participation.  We are confident most of our creations find display at home but many decorate the classroom first.

The fun-packed adventures of the Children’s Summer Program begin approximately two weeks after the Spring semester ends in June each year.  The thoughtful and educational exploration and exercise are conducted for six weeks in total.  The six weeks of summer involvement is broken into two three-week sessions—Session I and Session II, though weekly participation is considered.  Arts, crafts, fitness and nature exploration are the usual focus of our summer program. Each lesson serves to excite life-long learning.