Our Toddler Programme offers very young children unique years of self-exploration in a safe, tender atmosphere of special understanding, respect and support.

Dr. Montessori discovered that children of the toddler age are, like a sponge, capable of absorbing incredible amounts of knowledge from their surrounding rapidly and effortlessly. She identified this fertile period of cognitive development, and recognized the need for a rich, well prepared environment just for toddlers, with even the furniture scaled to the size that offers ultimate comfort and accessibility for young children.

While each area of the Montessori curriculum is carefully designed to emphasize specific skills, the parts of the curriculum are intriguingly interconnected to enhance children’s natural learning process.

Practical Life activities in our Toddler classroom serve as the cornerstone of the Montessori environment and prepares the child not only for all other areas but also to feel comfortable and to adjust easier. The emphasis is on the process rather than on the product. Through the repetition of Practical Life activities, children develop and refine the basic skills that will aid them all their lives. The activities are aimed at enhancing the child’s development of fine motor control, hand-eye coordination, and balance, sense of order, concentration and independence.

In Language development, during the toddler ages, children experience an explosion of vocabulary and begin to form sentences, and soon after they start engaging in small conversations. Our Toddler classroom encourages the refinement and enrichment of language with a variety of Language materials, offering creative and intriguing concepts to expand their growing vocabularies. Sandpaper letters, classified cards and objects, oral exercises like storytelling, poems, sound games and listening activities are implemented to nurture toddlers’ budding language skills. All of these activities are present and are available for our children to explore and to support their need to be immersed in language. To help smooth their initial social interactions, the toddlers also learn to express words for the feelings they experience in themselves and others.

Our Toddler Programme is enriched with Spanish and French to further make the most of the Toddlers’ Sensitive Period for language. Children are exposed to the sounds and rhythms of these additional languages through songs and games, stories and activities including counting, colours and basic vocabulary.

Simple sensorial activities in the classroom respond to the toddlers’ urge to use all their senses—indeed their whole bodies—to explore everything around them. Young children have been absorbing and taking in stunning amounts of information and are now trying to understand their world. Sensorial activities aid Toddlers in the great task of organizing, integrating and learning about their sensory input. Sensorial materials introduce concepts such as dimensions, weights, colours, sounds, shapes and textures.

Manipulation of concrete, self-correcting materials encourage the development of important pre-math skills such as order, sequence, visual discrimination, sorting, one-to-one correspondence and directionality. It helps prepare the mathematical mind, promotes self-confidence and problem solving and concentration.

Since this is an age of very strong imitation, the teachers constantly model appropriate social skills, good manners and consideration of others. As the toddlers gradually become comfortable in their new environment they learn to trust the teachers and the other children around them. The freedom of choice in a safe environment with healthy limitations cultivates respect for others and respect for the environment that will last for a lifetime.