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Overview
Tullamore Montessori School is an AMI Montessori school catering for children from 2 1/2 to 6 years. Our programme is based on the research in child development of Dr. Maria Montessori. Dr. Montessori discovered that children have an inborn desire to learn and mature; that, in the proper environment, they develop increased concentration and self-control through their own work. In a Montessori environment, each child develops to his/her full potential physically, intellectually, socially, and emotionally.
In a Montessori classroom, children can choose to work with any material they have been shown how to use and they can work with it for as long as they want. The materials are arranged in five areas of interest: Practical Life, Sensorial, Language, Culture, and Mathematics.
In the Practical Life area, children get to do the activities which they see adults doing every day using child-sized materials. They do activities such as spooning, pouring, folding cloths, polishing shoes, polishing silver, scrubbing a table, and other enjoyable, exciting activities of daily life. When children first come into a Montessori environment, they spend most of their time with Practical Life activities.
In the Sensorial area, the children use the materials especially designed by Dr. Montessori to refine and categorise sensory impressions of sight, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, colour, temperature, weight, and 3-D impressions. In the Language area, they increase their vocabulary, analyse sounds in words through games and eventually come to writing and reading.
In the Cultural area, children explore art, science, geography, animals, and plants. In the Mathematics area, first children explore numbers 1 - 10 using the special Montessori materials. Then they can explore either the decimal system, using the Golden Bead material, or counting to 100, using the Teen Board and the Tens Board, depending on their interest Children are generally 4 years old before they start to work with the Mathematical Materials.