Early Childhood Curriculum

Our Pre-Nursery

As part of Northfields International school we cater for the toddler age from 18 months to 3 years. In our Montessori classrooms we place significant focus as we help our parents look for, discover, appreciate, and support the mental, physical, social and emotional needs of their child during their first three years of life.

We embrace the diversity of the different cultures at we believe that every culture brings wisdom, integrity, knowledge and respect to human life. By embracing our world, we live in, we have created a schooling environment to meet the needs of a child. Developing their individuality and potential so that they too can be the ambassador’s in their generation.

In creating a Montessori school and following the philosophy of Maria Montessori, we have incorporated peace, calmness, nature both inside and outside into our classrooms. As our students have a natural energy to be fascinated through discovering and investigating through their hands. We have designed our classrooms to meet the needs of the student not of that of an adult.

Our toddlers learn through the concrete world first and thereby develop tools that lead to abstract thought and the furthering of their own construction. Children need real objects from their world so they may absorb through their senses. Considering that the period of birth to 3 years in the growth and development that the child endures. The child’s core structure of their brain is formed in the first 3years of the child’s life. By the age of three years, the brain has established a pattern of processing information that will be used throughout life. Our loving and joyous classrooms focus on helping to encourage and facilitate skills of functional independence, language development, self-expression, socialization and sensory exploration.

Our school is equipped with developmental appropriate materials and learning that support the child through each stage of toddler growth. We follow the child and provide learning opportunities so toddlers can explore on the bases of their curiosity and their mobility, not just their age.

TODDLER COMMUNITY – 18MONTHS TO 3 YEARS OLD

Northfields International Nursery and Junior School is a private pre-nursery school which caters for children from 18 months to 3 years.

Maria Montessori observed that young children learn through use of their senses. She also found that if a child’s mind is fully stimulated by purposeful activities in a rich environment in the first three years of life, the brain will develop a stronger ability to learn throughout his or her lifetime. Therefore, a Montessori Toddler Community is a carefully prepared environment in which children can explore with all of their senses to meet their physical, social, emotional, and cognitive needs. As they explore, toddlers learn independence and follow their interests.

Our staff are trained to prepare the Toddler Community environment and provide each child with the opportunity to follow his or her unique path of development.

PRACTICAL LIFE

Called “practical” because they are activities that allow children to contribute to caring for themselves and their environment. This area consists of indoor and outdoor environments designed to aid the child developing concentration, independence, and coordination of movement. The practical life area learning is divided into elementary activities, care of the person, care of the environment both in and out of the classroom. Some typical practical life activities include:

  • preparing food
  • setting a table
  • sweeping and dusting
  • caring for plants
  • flower arranging
  • washing dishes
  • dressing and undressing
  • toilet learning
  • eating with utensils
  • cleaning up spills
SENSORIAL EXPLORATION

A child is curious and in need of sensorial exploration. As our toddlers are able to move about freely, they are now at the sensitive stage of the senses as they want to explore through the inner guidance of their own intelligences. At Northfields International School in our Montessori class we give toddlers an opportunity to use all their senses not just on sight and hearing. We use the whole school building as a classroom bringing nature into the love of learning for the toddler. Sometimes you will see us outside doing our activities and exploring with nature by using our senses to learn. We are here to direct our toddlers and give them opportunity to explore and learn on their own with our guidance. As adults we slow down our pace and follow the child.  Some Sensorial Activities include:

  • Identifying our primary colours
  • Identifying our facial features and body parts
  • Exploring our tactile sense through different tactile exploration
  • Going for nature walks
  • Building with the pink tower and broad stair
  • Listening to different sounds
LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT

Language development is a large part of toddlerhood as children learn to name the objects around them and verbally express their needs. Toddler confidence builds as they gain greater skill and experience with expressing themselves. Some Language Activities:-

  • Naming facial features and body parts
  • Phonic sound and objects
  • Phonic sound and pictures
  • Matching alphabet symbols
  • Telling a story with pictures
  • Learning the phonetic alphabet

Northfields also incorporates French into its curriculum, giving toddlers exposure to more than one language during this key period of language development.

COGNITIVE ACTIVITIES

In our Montessori classrooms we deliver activities that provide our toddlers with experimenting, thinking, solving problems and learning all the time. It is through the exploration and experimentation, our toddlers progress with the ability to think, understand, communicate, make memories, imagine and work out what might happen next. Relationship building between friends, family and others also support his cognitive development. The start of maths development comes through the excitement of experimenting in moving objects, touching real objects, gathering them in groups, counting each one, one at a time. It is with time that our toddlers learn that a word stands for quantity using objects. The toddler later determines that these concepts are used and understood all over the world. Some Cognitive Activities

  • Building puzzles
  • Matching geometric shapes
  • Learning the difference between same and different
  • Matching numbers
  • Classifying objects to groups
  • Sequencing of events
SOCIAL ASPECT

As we continue to build on a healthy emotional foundations and by transitioning from the first year of the toddler. We see their world in their eyes, their feeling of security as a member of the family and culture. As we give support to the toddler in caring for him at school we provide a strong bonding experience, attitude towards oneself by fostering through respect for each child’s individual timetable where they are in their development emotionally and socially. As a school we provide a classroom that provides tools for recognising others emotions, peaceful ways to solve problems and conflict and opportunities for quiet sharing as well as more social interactions.

MOTOR SKILLS

Another area of exploding development at this age is gross and fine motor skills. Using large and small muscle groups, toddlers take advantage of indoor and outdoor environments and specially designed equipment to engage in movement games, climb, and develop eye-hand coordination.

SELF-EXPRESSION

Music and movement give toddlers many creative ways to express themselves. Singing, dancing, playing instruments, drawing with crayons, or manipulating clay can all strengthen independence, coordination, and motor development.