Toddler Community

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The Toddler Community

Our Toddler Community is carefully prepared to meet the emerging developmental needs of children between 18 and 36 months of age. Children are led by trained Montessori Guides and assistants as they explore and learn in four environments—the classroom, the activity room, the gym, and the outdoors.

We offer two programs: a half-day or a full-day experience. Each meet five days a week for either 8:30-11:30 am or 8:30 am-3:00 pm respectively. To support our community, Before and After School care are available beyond these hours.

As an educational alternative to day care, our expectations for the child and for families are significantly different. When we receive a child, we expect that families will embrace Montessori and have a genuine desire to remain at the school for the long run.

Help me to do it myself.

Toddlers become acquainted with both the world around them and, just as importantly, with themselves. This is a period of intense learning when a child’s core being is ignited. The amount of learning that takes place during this time is unprecedented and lays the foundation for all future development.

Toddlers are determined to become independent and self-reliant. They also prefer order. As such, virtually everything in the environment is designed to support this—from the child-sized furniture, and fixtures to the expectations that children learn to do things for themselves.

Prepared Environments, Stimulating Activities

Our classrooms are places where guides respect young children and allow them to exercise their own independence. Vital to the healthy construction of independence are opportunities to discover and develop real problem-solving skills as well as practice culturally accepted social skills. The children explore the environment and the relationships around them through language, practical life, art, and movement.

  • Language: development of receptive and expressive language through daily conversation, songs, stories, and a variety of materials that present pictures of all kinds of vocabulary and classification of relationships. 
  • Practical Life: development of essential fine-motor coordination, meeting self-care needs, and completion of truly enjoyable projects such as preparing food, washing dishes, scrubbing tables, or watering plants.
  • Art: development of creativity by working with clay, markers, crayons, glue, and paint.
  • Movement: development of gross motor skills with the use of tricycles, balls, games, and outdoor playground equipment.
  • World Languages: children are introduced to Chinese and Spanish which helps to support the development of language learning abilities.
After the Toddler Community, students advance to the Children’s House.