Pre-Casa and Casa (2.5 yrs old – 6 yrs old)

Preschoolers mark the stage of early childhood level for children ages 2.6 years old to 6 years old. Cognitive development is experienced when they start to explore, discover and to collaborate with classmates and eventually take ownership and appreciation of their education. The Montessori Method encourages self-directed learning that promotes self-confidence, independent thought and action, and critical thinking, while fostering social-emotional and intellectual growth. YTA Pre-Casa and Casa Learning Program consist of wide array of learning from different experts and proven methods.

YTA approach to learning is “hands-on.” Dr. Maria Montessori believed (and modern science has affirmed) that moving and learning are inseparable. In our prepared classroom, children work with specially designed manipulative materials that invite exploration and engage the senses in the process of learning. Modern Montessori program emphasizes the process of discovery and exploration of the world through multi-sensory materials. This child-directed engagement strengthens motivation, supports attention, and encourages responsibility.

YTA classroom feels more like a home than a school. You won’t see desks, nor will a teacher stand in front of the room delivering a lesson to the whole class using chalk board. Instead, you’ll see children happily working individually or in small groups, at tables or on the floor near small mats that delineate their own space. Our trained and certified teachers facilitate daily interactive learning activities. Our authentic Montessori learning materials are displayed on open shelves, easily accessible to the children. Our Montessori materials are not only beautiful and imaginative, but ingenious. They teach only 1 skill at a time to allow your child to work independently and master the intended concept. The materials are also “self-correcting.” This means the child will be able to identify if they have done an activity accurately and try again without intervention from a teacher. Rest assured that our teachers are attentively observing and always ready for assistance and guidance in case needed. Classrooms also include low sinks accessible to the children, child-sized furniture, cozy and cool reading nooks, reachable shelves with work available for free choice, and child-sized kitchen utensils so the students can eat, prepare, and clean up their snack on their own. Teachers gently guide students to help maintain the organization and cleanliness of this environment to keep it orderly and attractive, and to help your child understand how to care for materials and clean up after themselves. To which these skills you will be happy to observe carrying over in your home. Our classroom is adapted to the developmental needs of each child, providing a variety of choices that engage the child’s natural curiosity and intellect.

YTA Early Childhood classroom offers your child 5 areas of study: Practical Life, Sensorial, Math, Language, and Cultural Studies.

Goals to achieve:
1. Through hands-on activities, children learn to identify numerals and match them to their quantity, understand place-value and the base-10 system, and practice addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. They also explore patterns in the
numbering system. With an exploratory approach, children do more than just memorize math facts; they gain a firm understanding of the meaning behind them.
2. Children learn daily-life skills, such as how to get dressed, prepare snacks, set the table, and care for plants and animals. They also learn appropriate social interactions, being kind and helpful, listening without interrupting, and resolving conflicts peacefully. Practical Life activities promote independence, and fine- and gross-motor coordination.
3. YTA introduces language activities, help children acquire vocabulary, and develop skills needed for writing and reading. The ability to write, a precursor to reading, is taught first. Using hands-on materials, children learn letter sounds, how to combine sounds to make word/s, how to build sentence/s, and how to use a pencil. Once these skills are acquired, children spontaneously learn to read.
4. We support that all children refine skills is through perceiving the world with their different senses and learn how to describe and name their experiences—for example, rough and smooth, perceived through touch. Sensorial learning helps children classify their surroundings and create order. It lays the foundation for learning by developing the ability to classify which tantamount in math, geometry, and language.
5. A wide scope of subjects, including history, geography, science, art, and music, are integrated to our lessons in the cultural area of the curriculum. We teach children to learn about their own and local community and the world around them in general. Discovering similarities and differences among people and places helps them to respect and develop an understanding and appreciation of the diversity of our world.