All About Montessori

[purple]

Hi all,


Reviving this MMI thread to find out if there's any feedbacks on MMI @ PSA Building or Bt Merah in particular?

[arielina]

Hello,


Anyone has sent or any comments about MMI at Canberra (Sembawang)?

Am thinking about sending my 18 mths child there

[ttl]

Hi,


Does anyone also hv any comments on the Montersorri for children at Broadrick Road?

Am thinking of sending my son there for N1.

[anxiousmummy123]

kaitlynangelica:

vfong1:

hi kaitlynangelica,


Does MOE registered Montessori school structured with their cirriculum? I'm not sure if the school is.

Hi vfong,

Not sure what your question means. But what my daughter's school does is 2 hours of regular MOE curriculum daily followed by one hour of montessori where mathematics and phonics is blended in.

Where is your child currently attending?

Hi,

Learning Seeds CDC also conduct partial montessori & regular MOE curriculum daily http://learningseedscdc.com/

[vfong1]

Has anyone has got Montessori based kid in Pri 1 or 2. How’s their performance in school in term of their English & Maths?

[mikii]

Right now my kids are in Montessori, K2 and N2.


I found Motessori is good for my kids, and i believe he shld be no problem when he is in P1. Infact they learn alot, 1st quater they aldy learn.

Math
+, -, x, divided, praction, telling time (half past, quater to, quater past).

Chinese
Han Yi Pin Yin, Ting Xie, Tang shi, bi hua and Li Jie wen ta. It cover a lot on P1 syllabus

English
Phonetic, spelling, story telling, common Nouns, Singular/Plural

Science
passport of the world, Reptiles & Pond Life, my body:my organs- reproductivity system, lung etc....

We are quiet happy with my 2 boys who can progess well in the school.

[koko51sg]

vfong1:

Has anyone has got Montessori based kid in Pri 1 or 2. How's their performance in school in term of their English & Maths?

One of montessori's strength is the language and mathematics materials that Dr Maria Montessori developed. You can be assured that if your child goes to an authentic montessori school that he or she would excel in these areas.

In learning language - it comprises learning the letter sounds, writing, phonetic reading and word-building (spelling), long vowel sounds (phonograms) and later on simple grammar.

In mathematics - children are taught from numbers 1-10, 11,-19, 20-100, to even thousands where they do addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Depending on the schools, some have materials to teach fraction, time, money.

[toffee]

Hi koko51sg,


Can you share with me how to differentiate an "authentic" montessori school vs one which is not? i’m still trying to find a good one in the west. If you know of any, would love to hear from you!

Cheers!

[quixation]

Hi all,


I spoke to many montessori named schools in Singapore when i was trying to find the right pre-school for my gal last year.

What i found out was;
1. Besides Montessori for Children school in Moutbatten which caters mostly to expats kids, most Montessori schools is only really HALF montessori
2. Reason being, teachers are more Early Childhood trained as per local requirements.
3. Full montessori cirriculum really do not blend into our normal education system but some methods are actually recommended.
4. MOE now starts to initiate learning to play system and emphasising more on other aspects of nuturing love for learning rather than academics which is actually the basis of Montessori teachings.
5. Now most schools do also include the 5 categories of Montessori like botany, geography, language and maths.
6. Montessori schools now need to include both basic montessori activities like individual work time but includes music and movement, arts and crafts from Early childhood methods.

So I think its a great idea to combine both aspect and if the school is able to balance and blend nicely the 2 methods, then you will have a great foundation for pre-school.

I think we have to ask ourselves as parents what do we want for our kids. A top student with great results academically or a well balanced kid who loves learning.

I feel that kids in the past generation (er, meaning US), we have 3 groups of people.
1 . Very good academically but lack creativity and cannot think out of the box.
2. The average student in terms of results but were able to build a better career through EQ and creativity.
3. The top bottom students who excel in music, designs and other creative careers who really hates the mainstream and stereotyping.

Anyway Montessori has been a proven safe method and personally I just hope it will help me nurture a well-balanced kid who loves learning…

[koko51sg]

[Moderator's note: Topic selected for http://www.kiasuparents.com/kiasu/content/what-makes-montessori-school.]

toffee:

Hi koko51sg,

Can you share with me how to differentiate an \"authentic\" montessori school vs one which is not? i'm still trying to find a good one in the west. If you know of any, would love to hear from you!

Cheers!

Authetic montessori schools do not practise partial montessori, some montessori schools claim that they are montessori but they do not practise mixed age grouping and 3 hr work cycle. A lof of parents in Singapore are uncomfortable with mixed age grouping hence alot of montessori schools still group their children as Nursery, K1 and K2. The 3 hour work cycle is necessary because children take time to settle down, to start choosing materials and working on it. Some schools only allot 1/2 hour to 45 mins of Montessori time and called it a montessori school. This is certainly not a montessori school!

Besides, the school needs to carry the various curriculum areas materials such as practical life, sensorial, mathematics, language, cultural (botany, arts, music). Some schools have only practical life and sensorial or language materials. Some have inadequate cultural materials.

Classrooms are orderly and neat, but not necessarily quiet as the children will be busy doing their work with teachers monitoring the class and assisting children whenever in need.

Children have the freedom to choose the materials they want to work with and teachers will be monitoring the progress of each child. Older children are able to tell the teachers what they have worked on for that day. Some children will work individually, while others work in small groups.

I agree with quixation that most montessori schools here are not full montessori schools because of our culture. Parents want to see worksheets given to children to gauge what they have learnt in school. Montessori for Children in East Coast and Newton, Greentree Montessori are by far the most authentic ones as teachers are trained in AMI.

I do not agree that full montessori cuuriculum do not blend into the normal primary school education because Montessori curriculum is a very comprehensive system that covers not only primary one and two curriculum in language and math area, but even for science, it covers to higher primary levels.

Take math for example, children learn geometry and fractions at K2, that is necessary for even P1 where children need to learn 2D and 3D figures and express them in simple forms and learn addition and subraction of fractions (Pr 3), they also learn patterns using the material called Tesselations (in schools only P4 start learning tesselations). Montessori has a material called Geometric cabinets where children learn about the different shapes and their properties, so children know that 'acute angles, obtuse angles, etc' (for Pri 3).

There is another material called Decimal system where children are taught to recognise ones, tens, hundreds and thousands and they do addition, subtraction from it through a game called The Bank Game. Decimals are only learnt in P4. This material teaches children to learn whole numbers of more than 10000 or even 100,000 and children learn to round up to the nearest whole numbers (all these are only learnt in P4).

There are now many preschools that uses some of the montessori concepts to incorporate into the classrooms (eg lacing, cutting, sorting) which is good.

I do not agree with quixiation on pt 6 that montessori schools need to incorporate both basic montessori activiites and other activities like art and craft, music and movement and individual work time. If the school is run by a properly trained montessori personnel, she would have included them in the classroom as these all come under the 'Cultural' curriculum.

It is true that there is no one best system for the children because certain children just do not fit into the classroom environment and that could be due to the lack of stimulation, teachers attitudes, the management of classrooms, inadequate staffing, etc.

Rather than looking for the best system, I would rather be like quixation, to instill a love of learning in children, as I believe that this is far more superior than a child who excels academically.