An excellent early education equips children with valuable skills that spell success for the rest of their lives. The important learning that happens in kindergarten, especially, can help with greater school readiness and subsequent adult success.
Making the decision to continue your child’s Montessori education beyond preschool is not only a beneficial step on the elementary school journey, but it also builds upon and cements concepts learned during their prior years in Montessori.
Take a look at how keeping your child in Montessori for their kindergarten year can continue to shape your child into a curious lifelong learner with a strong scholastic foundation, ready to skillfully succeed in the rest of their school career.
1. Solidify Still-Forming Concepts
When your child transitions to another educational methodology or program, many of the foundational lessons they have learned through their Montessori education may weaken or fade. Your child’s young mind is highly moldable, with an impressive capacity for learning. Without repetition of still-establishing ideas, new information may swipe some of the valuable mental real estate inside your child’s mind.
A kindergartener’s continued immersion in the Montessori method is advantageous due to their longer attention spans, enhanced memory, superior social skills, and increased understanding of academic concepts.
The five-year-old brain is also busy building the individual architecture that establishes the cognitive highways that will facilitate solid critical thinking and a lifelong capacity for learning. A child who continues with Montessori can deepen their understanding and better integrate the very lessons that set the Montessori method apart.
2. Build Leadership Skills
For the last two years, your child was part of a multi-age classroom where they were able to work with and observe their kindergarten peers as part of their learning experience. The five- and six-year-olds of each classroom have prepared to be classroom leaders of their own.
Montessori kindergarteners have the unique opportunity to share lessons they have learned with younger students. Through this reciprocal process, both the tutor and the tutored see powerful benefits. Montessori students learn to be cooperative, kind, collaborative, and patient with other students, allowing them to participate in their learning environment in ways beyond simply consuming information from their teachers.
3. Stay True to Your Child’s Individuality
The Montessori method understands that there is a wide variety of learning styles and ways of processing information. Your child may be a visual learner, while another will better retain auditory information. Kindergarteners who stick with Montessori continue to maximize their learning potential through effective personal study.
Teachers in your child’s classroom carefully structure the learning process to allow each child an equal opportunity to gain knowledge in the ways that make the most sense to them. Teachers also challenge them to explore new ways of learning. Each child is treated with great respect for their individuality, and Montessori staff are deeply supportive of each child’s social, emotional, and intellectual development.
4. Continue to Build and Participate in Community
Montessori kindergarteners are not only able to continue in a classroom with peers and teachers who know them very well, but they also will expand their understanding of their role in the world around them. Students become acquainted with their immediate communities as they participate in community service projects.
The Montessori kindergarten curriculum also emphasizes world geography and culture. Subjects are integrated so as to develop connections through art, history, mathematics, and the sciences. Through Montessori, kindergarteners can begin to regard themselves as global citizens and participants in their local community.
If your child is ready for kindergarten, take the next steps in enrollment. Simply fill out our enrollment form to proceed, and contact Miniapple International Montessori School with any questions you may have about our kindergarten programs.