Bright Water Montessori School
Bright Water Montessori School will provide you and your children:
- A safe and nurturing environment
- Beautiful and engaging classrooms
- Family involvement and parent education events
- Regular communication from staff
- Activities to develop independence
- A language rich environment in Spanish and English
- Individual and group activities
- Peaceful resolution skills
- Art and music exploration
- Large and fine motor development
- Environmental education
- Outdoor and indoor play
- Readiness for school and life
The Montessori Method
Maria Montessori, Italy’s first woman physician and one of the great educators of the twentieth century, was born in Chiaravalle, Italy in 1870. She pioneered the work with children that we carry on today at Bright Water School.
Her work became known as the "Montessori Method." In 1929 she founded the Association Montessori Internationale to continue her work. She saw the child as the most legitimate hope for a new world. During World War II her method was regarded as a movement for world peace. By the time of her death in 1952, she had gained an international reputation as an educator and advocate for children.
Montessori fervently believed that children have an inner force that gives them the power and drive to achieve their full potential. When children are given the proper measure of guidance and freedom, this inner force enables them to focus on what they need to know and they learn with wonder, joy, and confidence.
A vital part of the Montessori approach is a carefully prepared environment that is beautiful and orderly. It includes didactic materials designed to meet the needs of each child at his or her particular level of development. The well-trained sensitive and loving adult serves as the key link between the child and the environment. Through skilled observation, the adult is prepared to offer children instruction that will stimulate their interest and activity.
Bright Water School's philosophy is inspired by the educational vision of Dr. Maria Montessori; the models for the classrooms and for the developmental learning materials were created by her.
As Montessorians, we believe that each child is born to be an independent learner and that the full potential of each person is realized only through an ordered, challenging, nurturing environment that is physical, intellectual and spiritual.
We believe that the child and his or her needs are the central and commanding focus of the learning process. It is the role of the school to observe, to know and to defend the child as he or she proceeds through the stages of development.
We see in each child the future of our society, of our nation and of our planet. The child in the process of fundamental development has unlimited possibilities and the future rests on our ability to cultivate these potentials.
We believe in cultural and economic diversity and make every effort to recruit families with different ethnic, racial and religious heritages.
We believe that the learning process is governed by certain basic human tendencies or needs:
- The need to communicate, to use language
- The tendency for order, the need to organize, classify, and interpret reality
- The need for independence and activity, the drive to work constructively
- The need for social relationships
- The need to experience reality through imagination
