Casa Dei Bambini

Children Aged 3 - 5

  • Weekly Routine

    Our Casa dei Bambini is in session Monday to Thursday.
    There are 2 classes:

    Morning Class:         8:30am – 11:30pm
    Afternoon Class:      12:30pm – 3:30pm

    Full Day:                    8:30am – 3:30pm
    Please note: WMA is limited to very few spaces for our Full Day program. Please contact us for more details.

     

    Enrichment Fridays

    Enrichment Fridays are optional and run 8:30am – 11:30am.

    Your child must be in their second year of Casa or turning 4 by December 31st. Please see the Casa Enrichment page for details and information on activities.

  • The Goal of Casa Learning

    Dr. Montessori observed that the child passes through definite periods of sensitivity for acquiring knowledge and skills. Our Casa dei Bambini curriculum integrates these sensitive periods, with the individual interests of the child to design a cumulative curriculum.

     

    Planes of Development

    Montessori classrooms and materials are grouped according to the principles of Dr. Maria Montessori’s “Planes of Development”, which groups children according to observable developmental characteristics and needs.

    The first plane (birth to age six) we call the “Absorbent Mind”. This stage is the foundation for all later learning. It is the greatest stage of brain development and the children in the this phase seemingly effortlessly absorb everything from their environment. As Montessorians, we believe in providing a rich, stimulating environment that involves hands-on learning in this plane.

  • When to Apply

    Casa admissions begin in January of the calendar year that your child turns 3. Our annual Open House in late January is a great opportunity for families to visit the school, meet the teachers, and learn more about Montessori.

  • Typical Daily Routine

    • 8:30am or 12:30pm
      Door Opens - Children change to indoor shoes and wash hands.
    • 8:45am or 12:45 pm
      First Circle - Children discuss calendar / the day's activities / group lesson
    • 9am or 1pm
      Work Period - Free choice / individual lessons / small group lessons / specialist classes / art / individual snack
    • 10:30am or 2:30pm
      Second Circle - Discussion of theme/songs/stories/group snack (Mondays and Thursdays)
    • 11:05am or 3:05pm
      Transition to outside - Put on shoes and coat / sing goodbye songs
    • 11:15am or 3:15pm
      Outside Playtime - Rain or shine. In the adjacent fenced-in playground.
    • 11:30am or 3:30pm
      Dismissal - Pick up is from the playground gate

    • Education is a natural process carried out by the child and is not acquired by listening to words but by experiences in the environment

      Dr. Maria Montessori
    • Practical Life

      The Practical Life exercises relate directly to daily living tasks. They are activities a child sees being carried out every day in his home. From learning to put on his coat, to peeling a carrot or polishing silver, the child gains independence and develops fine motor movement essential for future writing skills.

    • Sensorial

      “The senses, being explorers of the world, open the way to knowledge”
      -Dr. M. Montessori
      This group of activities helps in refining the child’s senses. Dr. Montessori designed these materials to isolate individual senses and to show the child how to pair and eventually grade the materials according to colour, taste, smell, touch and sound. Activities for all the senses begin with simple tasks and move toward materials that require more skill.

    • Language

      In the Montessori Method of education, reading is taught by the ‘Phonetic’ method. ‘Phonetic’ means ‘by sound’ and the whole system for teaching reading is based on teaching the child the phonetic sound of each letter of the alphabet.

    • Math

      The young child loves to count and does so as a rhyme. This is done in a similar manner as the phonetic sounds but only after some sound work has been done with the child. Once a child is comfortable with numbers and quantities of 1-10, she is introduced to the decimal system and begins to learn the four operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. The Montessori Math materials are very extensive and always move from the concrete onto the abstract.

    • Geography

      Geography is an integral part of the curriculum and is incorporated into every aspect of the school. Dr. Montessori believed that the best way to introduce a concept was by first looking at the whole and then breaking it down into the integral parts. The globe is presented, then the land and water forms followed by the puzzle map of the Continents and then the individual continent maps. Climate, customs, language, music, dance and peoples are part of our geography studies. The child is introduced to science through observations and simple experiments; zoology, botany, Biology and Geology are incorporated into the Montessori curriculum.

    • Italian Culture

      Italian culture will be incorporated into all aspects of our Casa dei bambini curriculum. The Montessori program has five areas of focus. The practical life area includes gardening, food preparation, cooking and sewing. Children will be given the opportunity to grow their own produce in our specially designed garden and with the fruits of their labor make traditional Italian food, such as, tomato sauce, pasta and pizza. The cultural area introduces the geographic world to the students. They will learn about the Italian flag and the provinces of Italy, special celebrations and holidays such as Pesce d’Aprile and Carnivale. The math area will incorporate counting in Italian.

    • Italian Language

      On a daily basis, the children will be exposed to the Italian Language throughout all aspects of the classroom. The children will also be invited to attend a weekly Italian class. A native Italian speaker will teach our Italian program. Through games, songs, dance and tactile activities, the children learn the further Italian vocabulary.

  • Casa dei Bambini Educators

    • Sarah Gatiss-Brown
      Casa Directress, Co-Founder
    • Maureen Boudier
      Casa Directress, Music Instructor
    • T.J. Brennan
      Casa Directress
    • Trenna Clarke
      Casa Directress
    • Mark Curry
      Casa assistant
CONTACT US
Westside Montessori Academy
at The Italian Cultural Centre

3075 Slocan Street
Vancouver BC, V5M 3E4

Phone: (604) 434-9611

email: office@westsidemontessoriacademy.ca

LATEST NEWS