82 Warrington St, Mairehau Christchurch, 8013
We are licensed for 16 children from 0 – 2 years and have 5 full time qualified teachers each day to provide support. We converted a beautiful villa in St Albans with the focus on providing space and fun within a warm home away from home. Our environment enables your child to discover and learn. The teaching team provides a caring, loving environment where cuddles, kind words and fun coupled with a warm and inviting spacious layout, offers your child the next best thing to home.
Our indoor environment is warm, spacious and friendly; we do not have high chairs but have low stools and tables enabling children to move freely and independently within the environment. Our Nursery has a separate sleep room to provide an area of rest for infants and toddlers. Children have individual free standing cots or stretchers so that the home environment is replicated as much as possible in our Nursery. Our equipment is imported from Italy and is made from beautiful timber of solid construction. We have specifically designed gym equipment for infants and toddlers promoting the development of essential motor skills that enhances movement, language and sensorial discovery. Our programme is based on fun, positive interactions and communication with young children as individuals and in small groups. As well as offering fundamental Montessori activities our programme encompasses music and movement, water and sand play, art and craft, story time and rhymes, puzzles and blocks.
Our outdoor environment is large and has a very homely feel with a large natural grass area, sandpit, climbing equipment including a slide, well developed trees and garden and has a large shade umbrella to provide protection from the sun.
Our focus is on the whole child. The choices of activities are carefully selected to provide interest, variety and the necessary learning experiences. Our programme fosters language, communication, coordination and fun, increasing the child’s social skills and awareness.
Montessori Philosophy
Montessori Education is a method and a philosophy based on years of observation and work with children by Dr Maria Montessori, Italian doctor and educator. The Montessori approach begins with the acknowledged potential of each child and provides for physical, cognitive and spiritual development through a specially prepared environment. The “prepared environment” creates a certain order and allows children to learn at their own pace in a non-competitive environment. Self motivation is the only way that true learning is achieved. The teacher prepared the environment, directs the activity and offers the child stimulation, but it is the child who learns, who is motivated to persist in a given task. Once success has been achieved with an activity there is ofter motivation to repeat the same activity. Thus the development of concentration, self-discipline, self-esteem and independence begins.
Children learn to work independently but always within the context of a wider community, with differing ages and abilities. The younger child is exposed to the exciting work of the older child and the older child has a chance to reinforce knowledge through helping the younger child. Children develop respect for themselves, others and the environment. The environment provides natural social interaction and development.
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