All children enter the world as blank slates that are eager to be filled with information and your Montessori preschool is focused on encouraging that eagerness. While you may think of play-based preschool as a sort of child-sitting task, the truth is that the information children absorb during preschool will benefit them for the rest of their lives.
Fine Motor Skills
Fine motor skills are those needed to manipulate small objects, such as grasping a pencil or crayon, making this type of development crucial to the preschool environment. As the children master them, they will use fine motor skills to perform academic tasks, piece puzzles together, and perform practical tasks like tying their shoes.
Gross Motor Skills
Gross motor skills are associated with outdoor activities such as climbing and running. Activities that involve gross motor skills build muscle tissue, strengthen bones, and encourage the use of critical thinking skills for things like judging distance, determining the amount of force to use to achieve an action, and more.
Developing Social Skills
Learning to communicate effectively and responsibly will help children build self-esteem and benefit them in everything from playing outdoors to sharing toys or asking for assistance. Since the end result of Montessori education is a well-rounded member of the community, developing appropriate social skills is a necessary part of early development.
Learning to Think Critically
A Montessori preschool includes learning to think critically as a cornerstone of the educational process. This includes things like learning to make decisions, finding solutions to problems, and sharpening creative thinking skills. Critical thinking skills are beneficial in learning to follow routines, perform practical life skills, and communicate effectively with others.
Practical Life Experience
Practical life skills are crucial aspects of childhood development that are often ignored by traditional public school systems. These skills are important to everyday life and include things like learning to measure and pour, developing organizational skills, and following regular routines. Learning to do more for themselves gives children a boost to their self-esteem and encourages them to take a more active part in their class, home, and community.
The ideas behind Montessori require a more rounded learning process to work effectively. Children still need to learn basic academics like reading, writing, and performing simple math, but they learn to use those abilities in ways that make learning easier and encourage the total development of every aspect of the children.