Preschool Program
Durango Explorers
Montessori
In the Primary Montessori environment at Explorers, your 2.5 to 6-year-old child will be presented with a rigorous academic Montessori curriculum including lessons in grace and courtesy, peace education, practical life, sensorial, mathematics, language, and a cultural (i.e., botany, zoology, geography, art, and music appreciation). Through the prepared environment, children learn to make choices that are appropriate for their learning level. The teacher serves as a guide to help encourage, redirect and supervise, while allowing the child the freedom to ignite his or her own learning.
S.T.E.A.M.
Integrating S.T.E.A.M. (science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics) education into the early childhood classroom opens the door for children to begin looking at their work with an inquiring mind. Through hands-on, engaging experiences, children are encouraged to think critically, problem solve, communicate, and reflect in authentic ways. Both Montessori and STEAM emphasize sensorial learning through hands-on experimentation and, as Maria Montessori herself was first and foremost a scientist, the two philosophies compliment each other quite naturally. The STEAM inclusion of the Arts brings an element to Montessori that is often lacking but crucial at this stage of child development.
Reggio Emilia
“The child is made of one hundred. The child has a hundred languages, a hundred hands, a hundred thoughts, a hundred ways of thinking, of playing, of speaking…” This is one belief of Loris Malaguzzi, founder of Reggio Emilia. Reggio philosophy is based in a child-centered education, seeing all children as capable and creative. In line with Montessori, Reggio also holds importance in the environment as the third teacher. A child develops from the adults and peers, both serving as “teachers”, and Reggio emphasizes the learning environment as the third teacher. At Explorers, our classroom will be set up as an invitation for children to… well, explore! Seeking to spark their curiosity and follow that by creating engaging learning activities that honor the 100 hundred languages a child possesses. We realize that learning is not mind from body, but an integration of the two.
Outdoor Education
The natural world is the oldest classroom and one inherently set up to educate us on ourselves, community connections, and empathy by understanding how large the world is beyond our own selves. The beauty of consciously integrating outdoor education into our curriculum is that Montessori, Reggio-Emilia, and STEAM education can be conducted outside. This allows our students to gain resilience, a sense of wonder, connection with the local flora and fauna, the local climate and how it changes, and observe how a small area can grow and develop and change, all within a period of time. Outdoor Education also instills stewardship and appreciation for the Earth on which we all live, providing a strong foundation for our students to build upon as they grow into their unique selves in this ever-changing world.
Civic Engagement
The early childhood classroom is one of the first settings where students will begin practicing the skills needed to be a good citizen. Children begin to develop the ability to negotiate and compromise when presented with the challenge of limited materials. They learn to advocate for themselves when disagreements occur with peers. They develop empathy and connection through cooperative play. On top of this, the Montessori classroom naturally lends itself to a strong sense of community by allowing students freedom of movement, a sense of classroom ownership, and the ability to engage in social interactions in an authentic way throughout the day. However, to raise the next generation of leaders, it is our job to teach civic engagement in an explicit way and this does not need to start in the teen years! Social justice, community involvement, diversity, and anti-bias education can, and should, be presented in an intentional way, starting with our earliest learners. This focus creates a school culture that encourages community-focused young people and adults.
Spanish
At Explorers, we believe strongly in introducing children to world languages at an early age. Maria Montessori described children at this age as having “absorbent minds’ or minds like sponges, predisposed to effortlessly soak up everything in their environments. What better time to introduce them to the vocabulary and sounds of a second language! In our classrooms we integrate Spanish vocabulary into our daily education to cultivate ease in a bilingual atmosphere from an early age.