KINDERGARTEN

Our Kindergarten program is considered to be the completion of the NMS Montessori program. The philosophy of our three-year program is that children become exposed to a family style environment where young children learn from the example of older children, and older children gain the experience of leadership and guidance by mentoring the younger children. The opportunity for a kindergartener to teach younger children the skills they have mastered completes their learning cycle.

Hours for our kindergarten program are 8:30am to 3:15pm. In the morning hours, our kindergarteners are part of their multi-age classroom with three and four year olds in an 8 to 1 child/teacher ratio. In the afternoon hours, our kindergarteners are invited to participate in higher academics and special projects. They have acquired strong concentration and coordination skills from their work as a three and four year old, and are now able to attend to the lengthened work cycles of the Math, Language, Geography and Science Areas in a 10 to 1 child/teacher ratio.

There are some unique educational opportunities available to the children in our NMS Kindergarten program. A few examples are:

Open Circle – a comprehensive social competency program that supports elementary school children in developing the social and emotional skills needed to be good learners and to form healthy, positive relationships with people throughout their lives

Annual Science Fair – an opportunity for children to work collaboratively with parents at home to research a hypothesis at home, experiment and then present their findings to the school community.

Research and Writing Projects – With the addition of a new set of encyclopedias, the Kindergarten children have been researching different topics of interest and creating impressive research books. They also participate in Writing Workshops each week where they are presented the beginning of a sentence and then complete it, while journaling their thoughts.