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TODDLER PROGRAM (18month-3)
Click here to download Toddler Curriculum

A consistent goal in all of our programs at Oak Grove Montessori is to offer carefully prepared environments that will promote exploration and allow each child to discover a love of learning. Maria Montessori has taught us through her insights that children have within them a natural urge to discover, explore, and learn. We’ve also learned that children are in a critical stage of development between birth and six years when intelligence is being formed. We therefore provide in each program, a space for the whole child to grow socially, physically, emotionally and academically.

Toddler

 18m-3 years ½ Day 8:30-12:15
Full Day 8:30-3:00
Early Stay all ages 7:00-8:15 a.m.
Late Stay all ages 3:00-6:00 p.m.


“The studies which have been made of early infancy leave no room for doubt: the first two years are important forever, because in that period, one passes from being nothing into being something.”
-Dr. Maria Montessori

A Toddler is defined as a child between the ages of 18 months and 3 years. Our imagination should immediately conjure up a picture of a group of delightful one and two year olds each day growing more and more independently. As they maneuver all over the room, they never seem to slow down physically or tire easily. The children can be impatient with others and at the same time very curious of others. The challenge for the adult is to balance the child's need for attention, nurturing love, and opportunities for self-discovery without smothering the child with too much structure.
A toddler is in the time period of development when the intellect is being constructed, the physical body is developing and the senses are being refined. Because of this

  
change, it is important to understand how the child's need for order, movement and language are addressed in a prepared environment. It is also important to understand the role of the Montessori adult.. A toddler has a unique capability to capture or "absorb" his experiences and store them in their memory that eventually becomes the child's personality. The child is loading his intellect with facts necessary to adapt and orient himself to his environment. This innate ability of the child can be compared to a sponge as it absorbs water. The child absorbs the images and experiences effortlessly as he follows his natural urges toward development.




The environment must provide the order that enables the child to later be able to mentally classify and clarify information. Order is what makes the child feel secure, important and loves as it provides specific guidelines and limitations for use that effectively helps the child become self-disciplined. The order of the environment must be clean, exact, complete, and child sized containing real and purposeful activities that can be sensorially and independently explored.