Junior Primary
3-6 years
"I can do this all by myself"
Between the ages of 3 and 6, children are sensory explorers. They have an amazing ability to absorb knowledge from their surroundings, taking in their environment with what Maria Montessori called the ‘absorbent mind’. In Junior Primary there is a strong emphasis on the development of independence, cooperation and the skills for daily life that will enable each individual to become a valued and autonomous member of their community.The majority of lessons are presented one-to-one between the teacher and the child.
Bringing the world
to the child
There are five key areas of Junior Primary Curriculum:
- Practical Life
- Sensorial
- Language
- Mathematics
- Culture
Incorporated into the five areas of the Junior Primary are materials, activities and exercises that introduce children to:
- Visual arts
- Performing arts, including music, dance and drama
- Physical Education
- Science: Physical Sciences, Botany and Zoology
- Geography
- History
Practical life
The young child strives for physical independence and wants to take part in activities they see around them. Practical life activities allow children to do just that – do things for themselves.
Children can choose from activities such as preparing snacks for themselves and others, laying and clearing the table, and cleaning up.
A few practical life activities:
- Care of self (to develop functional independence)
Buttoning, lacing, brushing hair - Care of the environment (to contribute to the community)
Gardening, sweeping, cleaning, flower arranging - Care of others (to develop positive social relations)
Greetings, serving others, accepting, thanking
Sensorial Materials
Children at this age have a particular sensitivity to sensorial stimulus – size, colour, shape, form and sound. The sensorial activities help children classify and order their world, and build meaning out of their experiences. Each activity includes a set of objects which isolate a fundamental quality perceived by the senses, for example ‘dimension’ as in the case of the Pink Tower. Through exploration and manipulation of the sensorial material, children develop and refine sensory perception and discrimination.
The sensorial materials are the foundation for further learning, particularly in literacy (through the use of descriptive vocabulary and the development of fine motor skills) and numeracy (through the concepts of quantity, size and shape).
Language
We provide a rich source of vocabulary for the child through cultural studies, as well as oral language activities such as songs, games, stories and language cards.
Early written language Montessori materials, such as the sandpaper letters, offer a very kinaesthetic experience of the symbols of the alphabet. Materials progress sequentially, each building on the other, and along with the practical life and sensorial materials that indirectly prepare the child’s fine motor skills for writing, leads to a joyful explosion of reading and writing as all the required skills merge.
Mathematics
Mathematics activities lead children from early counting and matching experiences towards increasing understanding of number patterns, the four operations (addition, subtraction, division and multiplication), number facts and two- and three-dimensional shapes.
Practical life activities, such as baking, pouring and folding, are an important preparation for mathematics and refines children’s natural ability to reason, measure, calculate and estimate.
Sensorial activities introduce many aspects of geometry and sequence, and the Montessori material for mathematics introduces the functions and operations of numbers. Concrete tools such as rods, chains, counters, and beads help the child to understand mathematical concepts.
Indoor and outdoors spaces
The Junior Primary prepared environment incorporates indoor and outdoor spaces. Both spaces complement each other and are available to the children at all times.
The outdoor environment includes gardens and animals, which children care for, and in which they develop a growing awareness of the importance of the natural environment to the well-being of all living things.
Angela McGoldrick
Playgroup Facilitator
La Casa dei Piccoli
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Our Junior Primary Teachers and Classes
Lucy Clarkson-Fletcher
La Casa del Giardino
Christine Pizzey
La Casa del Nord
Holly Swaldi
La Casa Contenta
Hannah Norsworthy
La Casa dei Fiori
Starting in Junior Primary
Children start in Junior Primary at Beehive as close to their third birthday as possible, as this is when they are most ready for the prepared environment of the classroom.
Starting as soon as they turn three also allows for each child to be welcomed into their new learning environment individually by the teacher and classroom community rather than as a group at the beginning of a year or term.
Extended Care
We offer Extended Care for 3-year-olds between 1pm and 3pm for parents who are unable to collect their young child at 1pm.
OSHC
Outside school hours care is available on site from 3pm–6pm from age 3.