emmarentia@littlehill.coza.

061 164 7578

About Us

Welcome to LittleHill Montessori

LittleHill Montessori opened its doors in 2005 with the vision to provide your child with a warm and nurturing environment that would allow them to learn and grow. All our Montessori preschools are purpose-built and fully equipped to the highest standards to help support your child’s development.

 

Our authentic Montessori preschool welcomes children between 18 months to 6 years old with programmes that include half-day and full-day options for your convenience. Holiday programmes are also available.

“Montessori is an education for independence, preparing not just for school, but for life. “
[Dr. Maria Montessori]

Our Aim

We aim to provide your child with a dynamic and authentic Montessori experience that ensures they are cared for with love and respect. Each classroom is light, airy and inviting and provides an environment that fosters your child’s natural learning ability. The children can move between the indoor and outdoor environment, which allows them to go from learning to write numbers to playing in our beautiful park-like playground.

 

We believe that fostering a sense of independence, creativity and problem-solving within your child from an early age is vital to them growing up and becoming incredible humans. The ability to concentrate and complete a task is also encouraged.

 

Each child is welcomed as the unique individual they are into our Montessori preschool family.

Our School

At the heart of every Montessori preschool is an environment that promotes hands-on, self-regulated, collaborative and joyful learning – and LittleHill Montessori is no different. You can be sure your child will receive the best care with our well-prepared Montessori environment, that cultivates independence, creativity, problem-solving and concentration throughout those crucial early developmental stages.

 

Our goal is to cultivate a lifelong learner through our intentional classroom designs, materials and daily routines. This encourages your child to select work and assume responsibilities through their natural desire to learn, ensuring they grow to be an asset to our society.

Our Curriculum

The Montessori Curriculum is an integrated approach where diverse concepts are presented across the program and in different ways as the children progress through the program.

Practical Life

The Montessori Practical Life Curriculum includes skills needed in the child’s daily life, such as dressing themselves, preparing food, caring for their environment, manners and courtesy. This helps develop social skills while encouraging a sense of self-confidence, independence and self-worth.

Sensorial

The Sensorial Curriculum involves a progression through a specially designed set of wooden materials designed by Dr. Montessori herself. These exercises provide children with opportunities to explore using their senses. This helps children develop keener eyes for spotting details and discerning contrasts. Each of the materials used for sensorial teaching is designed to isolate a specific defining quality such as weight, texture, shape, color, smell, size and sound.

Mathematics

The Montessori approach to teaching Mathematics offers a clear and logical strategy for helping students understand and develop a sound foundation in mathematics and geometry. Learning begins with concrete concepts and skills that form the foundations of mathematics, progressing through to abstract concepts for later mathematics.

Language

This is taught using three methodologies originally developed by Dr Montessori and form the basis for Montessori education.

  • Metal Insets are a Montessori tool used to prepare children for writing. It requires children to trace geometric shapes and carefully draw horizontal lines in these outlines. This facilitates the lightness of touch, eye-hand coordination and directionality required for writing.
  • The Sandpaper Alphabets are where children trace each letter as it would be written, using two fingers of their dominant hand. As they trace the letter’s shape, they receive three distinct impressions: they see the shape of the letter, they feel its shape and learn how it is written, all while hearing how the teacher pronounces the word.
  • Large Movable Alphabets are used to help children build and recognise sounds in words. From here the child’s journey to independent reading begins.

Cultural Studies

This covers Science, Technology, Botany, Zoology, History, Geography to Art and Music.

 

Simple Science experiments such as sink and float, magnetic and non-magnetic objects are prepared and placed on the shelf for children to explore.

 

Children learn about plants and animals, why they are important and how to care for them.

 

The aim of History here is to give children a sense of the passage of time, the structure of a day, names of the days of the week and months of the year, the seasons, and how to work with simple timelines. They also learn the stories of famous people from the past.

 

For Geography children are given concrete experiences of the structure of the earth . First, we create a bigger picture for the children, then move gradually to the details: names of countries, rivers and mountains, and touch on the cultures of other countries. The framework is always our relationship to the earth: how we meet our basic needs (shelter, food, clothing, transportation, defense, ornamentation, and self-expression) under varying geographic conditions.

 

We introduce children to various cultures from around the world, increasing their awareness and understanding of the beautiful diversity of people, animals and places to be found on our planet.

 

The study of Music intertwines with other areas of the curriculum. These lessons teach the children the basic skills used in controlling a brush, cleaning up, working on paper, using a coloured pencil, simple weaving, and so on. Students are encouraged to express their feelings, experiences, and ideas through Art and Music.

Facility

Our Montessori preschool is purpose-built and designed with your child in mind. Our beautiful ground and large airy classrooms are designed to cater to your child’s developmental needs, encouraging them to reach their full potential. Safety and security are of paramount importance to us, and our school and classrooms are fitted with CCTV cameras which allow us to closely monitor your child’s movements.

The Montessori principles are at the heart of our facility. Therefore, our spacious playground offers a variety of apparatus, including a jungle gym, sandpit and bike track to ensure your child’s motor skills are challenged and refined.

To view our beautiful preschool, don’t hesitate to make an appointment for a tour.