Seedlings: Toddler Program

Ratio: 1 teacher: 8 children
Ages: 2 to 3 years old
Number of children per class: 16 children maximum

"The development of the child during the first three years after birth is unequaled in intensity and importance by any period that precedes or follows in the whole life of the child."
- Maria Montessori

BMS Seedlings Overview & Mission

In the Toddler Program at BMS, we aim to turn your child’s natural curiosity into positive learning experiences. The Seedling program takes advantage of the toddler’s natural drive to act independently. Toddler exercises and activities recognize that children learn by doing. It is during these first few years of life that the roots for a love of learning are established. Dr. Montessori recognized the sensitivities of the toddler in the areas of independence, order, movement and language as the key elements in the child's growth and development during the toddler period.

For many children this is their first experience separated from their primary care giver. Care is given to assist the young child and parent in handling separation and in making this a positive and healthy experience. A typical day for your child would consist of individual indoor work time, snack time (a favorite of most), outdoor playtime, music, reading stories, lunchtime, nap time and other enrichment activities.  

In this language-rich environment, teachers support and guide toddlers as they explore order and disorder, and refine their emerging motor skills.

The aim of Seedlings is to accomplish the following:

• Evolving from 2-year old children playing and working next to one another other to 3-year old children playing and working with one another
• Facilitating drivers to catalyze a natural sense of exploration and curiosity
• Sewing the seeds for self confidence and greater independence
• Aiding in the potty training process
• Focusing on fundamental language and communication skills
• Introducing the root elements of the 3-6 year old Primary Program
• Learning the skills that will develop independence and preschool readiness.

BMS Toddler Specialist Teaching Tools and Concepts

The Seedlings Toddler curriculum introduces several elements that will be a focus in the 3-6 year Sprouts program:

Practical life: Precise movements and sequences developed doing practical activities and daily living objectives to help strengthen motor skills and concentration.  In practical life they will experience real life situations and activities including: learning to zip, button, mix, and pour liquids.  The practical life area includes assisting toddlers in the following as well: eating by themselves, drinking from a cup, grooming and toilet learning, cleaning, caring for plants and animals, food preparation and grace and courtesy.

Sensorial: The sensorial area allows children to use their senses to learn about the world.  Identifying and putting names to the senses of sight, touch, sound, taste, and smell, help children develop formative knowledge of the real which is the basis for understanding abstraction later.  Many of these materials are building blocks for further analysis and reasoning in the Sprouts program. In the Seedling classroom, a child can learn to distinguish different heights, lengths, weights, colors, sounds, smells, shapes, and textures.

Mathematics: Mathematical abstraction is mastered by manipulating the concrete, building, sequencing, and puzzling.

Language: From a solid basis in spoken language, reading and writing are developed using a variety of tactile materials. Language activities and materials increase vocabulary and conversational skills. Language Enrichment is another important area of learning for the Toddler.  These lessons give children the words they need to express themselves.  They also associate names to all they see in their environment.  The language skills are practiced through a variety of fun and engaging activities such as stories, poems, songs, picture cards, and even daily conversation. 

Cultural Studies: World geography and peoples are explored through such materials as maps, flags, water and land forms, presentations and books.

Integrated Art and Music: Visual, audible and expressive arts are incorporated into daily classroom activities.  Art and music are approached from a skills based perspective. Children can freely choose cutting, gluing, painting, magic markers, or clay. Listening to music of all varieties helps children develop an ear for music as well as more formal instruction on rhymes, moving to music and practicing duplicating rhythms.  These fundamental concepts are introduced to children in the toddler program as building blocks to nurture curiosity and instill self confidence in each child. 

BMS Seedlings Classroom Environment 

A toddler, in early development, first needs love, nurturing, comfort, understanding and empathy to respond.  He then needs information, logical limits, degrees of freedom and fundamental support from his teachers and school caretakers. 

This is what Bristow Montessori School strives to achieve for all its children, but the balance is most crucial in the Seedlings Toddler environment.  Children of this age need a human and adaptable environment that responds to the individual child’s needs.  The Seedling environment will include the following:

• Classroom materials are always accessible, attractive, safe, and geared for a child’s success.
• Activities are changed regularly in response to children’s need for variety and challenge as they grow and learn.
• The safe, loving, gentle atmosphere puts children and parents at ease and makes for a trusting, spontaneous transition to school.
• Teachers who work with toddlers have knowledge of how to nurture and to assist and distinguish between the assisting and the need to withdraw and stand back with confidence.  Seedling teachers have developed a firm sense of inner-trust to ensure they are maintaining their own confidence as they share their lives with children in transition and natural disequilibrium.
• Furniture and materials are custom-sized to allow for the maximum exploration and development of the senses. The environment is modified as the child grows emotionally, physically, and intellectually. 
• Various multi-sensory, sequential, and self-correcting Montessori materials to facilitate learning. Materials for eye-hand coordination such as threading, bead stringing, cubes on pegs, spheres on horizontal pegs, puzzles, gluing, folding; and various practical life exercises, coloring, painting and cooking projects.
• Space for movement, space for individual work, and space for group activities. 
• Access to a variety of large muscle activities that offer them opportunities to jump, climb, balance, or skip, through song and dance movement and outdoor activity.