Our Holistic Curriculum
"Our care of the children should be governed not by the desire to 'make them learn things', but by the endeavor always to keep burning within them the light which is called intelligence."
-Maria Montessori
Our thoughtfully designed activities, routines, and structure empowers the amazing capabilities of your toddler.
The Toddler House's curriculum and prepared learning and living environment is designed to meet all of your child's learning domains. Through intentional planning and thoughtful implementation, we create organic opportunities for practice, repetition, and skill building which sets each child on their path towards competency and self-confidence. This supports the development of their intrinsic joy of learning and their growing independence.
Our thoughtfully designed activities, routines, and structure empowers the amazing capabilities of your toddler. In designing the learning environment and holistic curriculum deliberately, with your toddler's unique developmental phases in mind, we provide a beautifully prepared environment, activities and opportunities that sets each child up for success and provides just the right balance of challenge and comfort.
curriculum areas
Although very interconnected and layered into each other, we are highlighting some of the areas of focus that are integrated into our holistic curriculum.
EVERYTHING IS CURRICULUM
Have you ever watched a toddler explore a puddle? They put everything they have into it. All of their senses are fully focused; they're immersed in exploring every detail. They are natural scientists experimenting with the causes and effects of things like splashing and the sensory exploration of their natural world. If allowed to they would end up laying in the puddle- likely tasting it as well. This all-in full exploration approach carries over into all aspects of a toddler's day (thank goodness for naptime!)- they are constantly organically exploring and learning through everything they do or experience. Through every interaction they are forming their understanding of their world- by staying conscious of this we support your toddler's learning through all of their experiences.
LANGUAGE
Children from birth to three are in their sensitive period for language development. This means that they are naturally driven to acquire the spoken language that they are surrounded by. We consciously foster a language rich environment that helps this process by using real vocabulary, by talking with them about the world around them, by responding to their pre-verbal communication, and by reading and singing together. We also introduce early literacy skills through materials like sorting and matching objects and pictures, puzzles that include realistic images, and replicas of animals and household objects. As your child heads toward that initial "verbal explosion" they will be very interested in repeatedly hearing the name of every object they see. Repetition is key to learning and we happily read the same books, sing the same songs, and name the same animals over and over again during this phase!
SENSORIAL
Toddlers are natural explorers and scientists and they love to manipulate and experiment with any materials they have access to. We create an environment with lots of open-ended and self-correcting materials that allows them to fully explore all the possibilities. This exploration of manipulative and sensorial materials helps develop spatial reasoning, visual discrimination, concentration, hand-eye coordination and an internal sense of order
cultural
Toddlers are forming their understanding of the world and are fascinated with the things that are happening in their daily life. We create a rich learning environment that naturally engages the children by making sure the materials we are introducing them to are concrete and reality based and by connecting their classroom experiences to their life experiences as much as possible. We explore and talk about: animals native to Colorado, the big garbage trucks & other modes of transportation that grab our attention, various fruits and vegetables- from their original form to how they show up on our plates. We use everyday life as a natural avenue to foster language development, concentration, exploration and social engagement.
COMMUNITY OF CARE
Just as we are aware that everything a toddler does is part of their active learning process, we want to highlight that caregiving routines are part of our intentional curriculum. We cultivate a reciprocal caregiving relationship that grows your child's self-confidence and capabilities while creating an environment of mutual respect and connection:
Nurturing that Empowers
From this perspective, we support each child’s development of functional independence by creating routines of care that involve and engage them. We give just the right amount of help and value the process. We know that by being fully present with the children during caregiving processes like dressing, toileting, and eating that we will create a secure attachment with them- the children will then feel safe and confident and they will develop more and more capabilities to care for their own needs. And they will derive great satisfaction and intrinsic joy from developing this independence. We love seeing that big smile of satisfaction when a toddler says “I did it!”
SELF-EXPRESSION
Painting, scribbling, gluing, using playdough. Pounding a drum, shaking bells, banging rhythm sticks together. Sometimes we'll get messy, sometimes we'll get loud. And we will always embrace the process of exploring our creativity together- honoring each individual's enjoyment of the process and leaving room for them to discover their own voice and interests.
PRACTICAL LIFE
Practical life activities are the heart of a Montessori classroom. Through purposeful activities and routines your child will develop skills to care for themselves and their environment. These activities will also develop and refine their fine motor skills, sense of order, concentration and ability to independently complete complex multiple step processes.
movement
Freedom of movement throughout the day helps develop fine and gross motor skills. It also develops your toddler's self-regulation, self-confidence and decision making abilities. Learning to take on reasonable gross motor challenges leads to greater self-assurance and coordination.
SOCIAL EMOTIONAL
There is the potential for conflict in a toddler community every 3 seconds or so. Toddlers are just beginning to understand and navigate their emotions and their social world and we are present to guide, model, reflect, validate and present options as they develop their social and emotional understanding. Through clear and consistent expectations and limits we help them to develop their social competence and through this process they begin to develop connections and community with each other. By modelling empathy, compassion and respect we help them learn to interact with others in mutually respectful and caring ways.
Integrated throughout our curriculum areas and our structure of the school day are numerous and purposeful opportunities to develop higher level brain functions like executive function, self-regulation, and impulse control. We spend time in natural and logical ways learning to wait, following multi-step processes, controlling our body and actions in appropriate ways for the environment, being present and aware of what is happening around us, developing organic empathetic responses. By weaving these intentions throughout our routines and activities and by providing positive and respectful guidance, we create a learning environment where each child is developing these functions gradually and appropriately. The intentionality behind this and all the other areas of our curriculum leads to our ultimate goal- to help each child develop their own amazing potential!