Understanding the Different Sections of our Montessori Classroom @ Gan Aliya. Fall Edition.

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Practical Life
Practical Life exercises teach life skills. These Montessori activities replicate work that a
child sees adults doing in their daily lives. The practical life tools and furniture are child- sized. The tasks performed are self correcting. The children develop concentration, fine and gross motor coordination through repetition, indirectly preparing the child for sensorial, language and math activities.

​Jacob and Morah Natasha sort the buttons by shape.

Isabella strings beads on a shoe lace.

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​Sensorial
Sensorial materials educate and refine the senses. These activities organize and
categorize sense perception.  For example, the pink tower, broad stair and red rods
expand the child’s knowledge of dimensions. The vocabulary words “smallest,
biggest, thinnest, thickest, shortest and longest” enhance the child’s sensory
education. The cylinders offer a more complicated variety of dimensions and
shapes. The color boxes teach colors and various shades. A variety of materials are
available to sort by sound, smell and touch. Red and blue sound cylinders teach a
child to sort by sound, smelling bottles by smell and fabric pieces by touch. The
handling of the sensorial materials attunes  children to the fine differences in their
environment and prepares the hand and mind for the academic subjects.

Nathan works with the binomial cube, a pre-algebraic work.

Zehava returns the knobless cylinders to their correct slots.

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Language
The Montessori language arts curriculum is sequential, multi-sensory and phonetic
based. When the teachers observe the child's readiness, they introduce metal insets (which assist the child in writing straight and curved lines), I Spy games and
sandpaper letters. Writing exercises always accompany sound and symbol lessons. Spelling and reading follow with opportunities for expressive writing available on Gan Aliya's shelves.

Noa matches objects to their corresponding pictures. 

Eitan traces the sand paper letters to internalize the shapes.

Alexander spells using the movable alphabet. 

Isadora strengthens her fine motor coordination using the metal insets. 

Jonah gives Yisrael Chaim a lesson on letter sounds.

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Margalit, Asher and Joel work together to place the correct number of airplanes on the numbered mats.

Building her arithmetic foundation, Ariella charts the math bead stairs.

Math
The language of math surrounds a child beginning at birth. “How many would you
like?” “How old are you?” “Two for you and two for me." The Montessori math
curriculum offers concrete experiences to help develop math concepts. The child
puts together, takes away and divides objects, beads, and cubes.

Shaul places counters 11-20 on the numbered mats.

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​​Torah and Alef Bais
​Gan Aliya strives to build in students a deep emuna in Hashem and love of
His Torah. Utilizing the Montessori-style works designed by Rabbi Jonathan Rietti,
the children begin to learn the 613 Mitzvos, refinement of their middos, Jewish
holidays, Shabbos, the weekly Torah portion and Jewish History. These subjects
teach them about who they are, where they come from, where they are going, and
what their responsibility is as Jews. Children develop Hebrew literacy at their own
pace. Using a variety of tactile, visual, and auditory stimuli to master the Alef Bais,
children first recognize the letters and then begin to sound them out. After
distinguishing between the many letters, words are read and Hebrew vocabulary is
increased.

Sarala sequences the days of Creation.

Berel uses his pincer grip to match the Alef Bais cloth pins to the markings on the basket.

As Gabriel finds the hidden Alef Bais letters in the jar full of beads, he marks them off of his Alef Bais chart.

Asher matches the Alef Bais sponge letters to their corresponding cards. 

Leora teaches Arielle how to separate between the kosher and non-kosher animal cards.

Morah Shaindy acts out Parshas Lech Lecha and demonstrates how Avram Avinu destroyed his father's idols to prove that Hashem is the Creator of the world.

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Science and Geography
Cultural subjects in Montessori terms are the areas of knowledge that enrich children’s understanding of the world they live in.  The cultural subjects are the various branches of science, history, geography, music and art.  
The Montessori approach to the sciences emphasizes the importance of presenting a whole view of the world, the inter-relatedness of everything in the Hashem's creation, and our human role as  protector.

Morah Nancy began the Fall term with a study of planet Earth, the Sun, the moon and the four seasons. The children were presented with the globe as a model of our planet Earth.  They learned that Earth and the moon turn daily as they orbit the Sun.  The daily rotation gives us day and night.  On Rosh Chodesh Cheshvan, Morah Nancy demonstrated why we see the phases of the moon. They younger Gan Aliya children made a Sun and an Earth connecting them so that Earth can rotate reinforcing the orbit of the Earth around the Sun. The older children were treated to extensions which included a more in-depth look at the role of the Sun, the protective atmosphere of Earth and  a study of the reason for the four seasons in North America.  ​

The older students create their own renditions of the orbit of the Earth.

The younger children paint the sun.

Morah Nancy demonstrates the phases of the moon.

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