We believe that years 0-5, are the most important intellectual years in a child's life; absorbing more than university years. We believe in respect and the nurturing of self-esteem in our children. We believe in the dignity and value of all children. We believe in stimulating all our children through a full, enriched program; giving them a solid head start in education. Building Blocks Montessori and Preschool offers a unique twist in learning by integrating Early Childhood Teachings with Montessori equipment. The Montessori philosophy seeks as it's goal, an independant, self-directed child. By pursuing his/her individual interests in the Early Childhood/Montessori classroom, he/she gains an early enthusiasm for learning which is the key to becoming a truly educated person. Our program integrates specially designed Montessori materials with other developmentally appropriate activities. We offer an enriched enviornment from where he/she can literally absorb information. We ensure to provide your child with a total curriculum. Our program provides the child with progressive learning in all areas of Practical Life, Language, Mathematics, Sensory development and Culture. Also, Science, The Arts, Health and Physical activity.  We offer individualized teachings focusing on Phonics, Pre-reading, Reading, French, Music and Computers. Montessori History Dr. Maria Montessori (1870-1952) was one of the most influential pioneers in Early Childhood Education this century. Her ideas have become known and recognised worldwide and have considerably influenced education. Her original interest was medicine. She was the first women to graduate from the University of Rome Medical School, While working as a doctor, Montessori became interested in education. She began working with children with "special needs" She approached education not as a educator or a philosopher, but as a scientist. She used her classroom as a laboratory for observing children and from there, developed ideas to aid in helping to achieve his/her full potential. Dr. Maria Montessori put her ideas into practice, as she developed those that worked. She created a method of education that combined philosophy, with a practical approach based on the idea of freedom for a child within a carefully planned and structured enviornment. She validated that all children are instinctively motivated to learn and that they absorb knowledge without effort when provided with the right kind of activities at the right time of thier development, thier 'sensitive' periods. An observation of Montessori's, is the importance of the sensitive periods for early childhood learning; this has been reinforced by modern research. These sensitive periods are periods of intense fascination for learning a particular characteristic or skill, for example going up and down steps, reading or putting things in order. It is easier for the child to learn a particular skill during the corresponding sensitive periods, than any other time in his/her life. The Montessori classroom takes advantage of this fact by allowing the child freedom to select individual activities which correspond to his own periods of interest.

How The Children Learn The use of the materials are based on the young child's unique capability, for learning, identified by Dr. Montessori as the 'absorbent mind' In her writings she often compared the young mind as a sponge. It literally absorbs information from the enviornment. This process is evident in the way in which a two year old learns his native tongue, without formal instruction and without the conscious effort ,which an adult must make to master a foriegn tongue. Recieving information in this way is a natural and delightful activity for a young child who uses all his/her senses to investigate his/her surroundings. The child retains this ability to learn by absorbing until almost seven years of age. Dr. Montessori taught that the child's experience could be enriched in a classroom where he could handle materials which would demonstrate basic educational information to him. Over sixty years of experience has proven her theory, a young child can learn to read, write and calculate in the same natural way that he learns to walk and talk. The Montessori equipment invites the child to do this at his own periods of interest and readiness. In 'The Absorbent Mind', Dr. Montessori wrote,"The most important period of life is not the age of university studies, but rather the first one, the period of birth to the age of six. For that is the time when man's intelligence itself, his greatest implement is being formed. Not only his intelligence, but the full body of his psychic powers. At no other age has the child greater need of an intelligent help, and any obstacle that restricts his creative work will lessen the chance he has of achieving perfection." Recent psychological studies based on controlled research have confirmed these theories of Dr. Montessori's. After analizing thousands of such studies, Dr. Benjamin S. Bloom of the University of Chicago, wrote in 'Stability and Change in Human Characteristics, "From conception to age four, the individual develops 50% of his mature intelligence; from ages four to eight he developes another 30%..." This suggests the very rapid growth of intelligence in the early years and the great influence of the enviornment in early development.Through Montessori's experience, she found that the young child's absorbant mind usually lasts about six years, a period she observed to be split into two three-year phases. First phase of activity - birth to 3 years, is the most formative in childhood. The child absorbs all available impressions in full detail, each impression is instantly manifested into and superimposed on all previous ones. The absorbant mind acquires nearly any impression, simple or complex, with ease and accuracy. It responds to human stimuli, within the full range of human activity; It uses every sense to percieve the child's entire emotional as well as behavioural and cultural enviornment. By absorbing surrounding enviornment, the young mind creates his/her human abilities, in about three years.. These creations do not appear gradually, but seem to be formed by an inner development that is only occasionally in vast leaps of ability. Second phase of activity - 3 to 6 The absorbant mind continues to function , yet now appears more scientifically focused on specific impressions gained through interaction with the material as well as human enviorment. These new experiences come together, further develop, and then, integrate the abilities earlier created. During the first phase, the mind consisted mostly of an inner development that surfaced occasionally in surprising gains, the second phase appears busy, and the development of skills are open and continuous. Previous activity in the enviornment had been largely unconscious and spontanious, the 3-6 year old interacts with the enviornment consciously and intentionally, he/she strongly prefers certain experiences to others. All these experiences continue to be acquired by the 'absorbant mind' without effort or strain, no matter how complex they appear to us adults. Child recieves impressions, processes, categorises and interprets them; filtering bits of impressions through and fitting them into, an inherited structure. The structure gradually changes and unfolds as the child grows. What makes each child's intellectual development different, are the different experiences that the child has been exposed to at each stage of the structure's unfolding. Although the first stage is unconscious, it is not undirected. At any one time, the child's unfolding intellectual structure makes use of certain aspects of the impressions it absorbs. It is the effect of absorbed experience on the underlying structure that creates the child's intellectual abilities. By the second phase, (around 3), the structure's developmental work has progressed sufficientally enough to give the child enough mental faculties to express interest consciously... Third phase of activty -  3 to 6 The child feels and shows preferences for the types of stimuli needed to refine and integrate the basic abilities from 0-3. The following activities provide the child 5 subjects with stimuli and experiences that, in terms of our theory discussions 'nourish the absorbant minds' , fulfill needs of the sensitive periods and the child's inner unfolding intellectual structure, and also, follows the process of three stage learning: Practical Activities - develop personal and social skills used in daily living ie/dressing oneself, cleaning, being polite) Sensorial Activities - serve to enhance and enlarge the child's sense perceptions of the world Language - start child reading and writing Mathematics - introduce counting and arithmetic Cultural - exposes child to fields of inquiry as physical science, history, geography, anthropology and biology. Each activity, in itself provides some such experience to aid some particular stage of development. Together the activities build on another to create an inter-related web of experience that helps integrate the individual abilities developed along the way.