Programs

Christopher Academy programs

2.5 - 3 years              3 full-day program

2.5 - 6 years              5 full-day program

Includes half-day Kindergarten

2.5 - 3 years               3 half-day program

2.5 - 6 years               5 half-day program

Includes half-day Kindergarten

5 - 7 years                  5 full-day program

Kindergarten — First Grade

Practical Life

The Practical Life area develops the child's sense of order, concentration, coordination and independence. The Practical Life area incorporates several other "themes", including care of self, care of the environment, care of others, and grace and courtesy. Through these seemingly simple activities, children grow in their ability to concentrate, in their sense of order, in their ability to coordinate their movements and in their independence.

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The Practical Life area may include activities such as pouring, using tongs, folding napkins, washing tables, polishing silver, feeding classroom pets, dressing oneself, or learning lessons in grace and courtesy.

Sensorial

The Sensorial materials include activities designed to refine and enhance the child's blossoming sensory awareness. Modern Research is proving that the senses help the brain to learn and discriminate. These include opportunities for each of the children's senses: seeing, hearing, touching, tasting and smelling. Our classrooms also include materials designed to enhance the child's stereognostic sense, that ability to identify an object by holding it in one's hand.

Mathematics

Like concepts presented throughout the Montessori classroom, even those more abstract concepts of mathematics have been made concrete for the children in our classrooms. Beginning with simple number concepts like understanding quantity and identifying numerals, the math materials include advanced presentations in cubing numbers, factors, fractions, and mathematical operations.

Language

From early experiences with a richly verbal environment to the more advanced grammar and structure lessons, the Montessori child benefits from an environment within which language is both practical and poetic.

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Reading is taught by a well tested phonetic approach that begins as soon as a child enters our program. Writing skills develop through the use of the Moveable Alphabet, and expand to children’s journalling, story-writing and creative expression.

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Montessori classrooms are filled with joyous language, as children share their discoveries with each other, learning and developing new skills in a comfortable community of peers.

Cultural Materials & Supplemental Activities

Children are naturally interested in the world around them, and the Cultural materials make available that entire world. These may include lessons in Botany, Geography, Anatomy or Zoology. Children may investigate pictures of children from around the world, then identify their homes on maps. They may learn the names of leaves and trees around our campus, then classify those into their genus and species. They may prepare and taste foods from around the world, learn cultural dances or begin to identify country’s flags.

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The Cultural materials include activities such as the World Puzzle Maps, through which children identify continents and countries around the world and the Solar System, through which children begin to understand the magnitude of the universe. Children may experiment with chemical reactions or care for seedlings until they are able to be planted in the garden. 

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The Cultural materials ground children in a sense of the interconnectedness of life and secure in the child a sense of stewardship for the Earth and all its inhabitants.