Children's House

3 to 6 year old

The Children’s House caters to the developmental needs of children aged app. 3 to 6 years old. They learn to express themselves in a variety of ways that is reflected in the set-up of the classroom. Whilst the younger children in the group are in the process of acquiring more words and concepts, the older ones are already on their way of translating and organizing these concepts into abstract thought. The activities vary from making a colourlful painting, building a solid Roman Arch, telling a story, writing about the outing to the zoo, or even quietly feeding the ever hungry fish.

In order to help children build a solid understanding of the world, the classroom includes four main components: Practical Life, Sensorial Development, Mathematics and Language. Children have the freedom to choose from the wide range of activities. During work-time, some children work autonomous, whilst others receive small group or individual presentations of specific concepts, by means of games and equipment. The teachers function as mentors, knowing exactly the level of each specific child and helping them advance at their own level and pace.

The four areas in the class are:

Practical Life

This section contains activities related to the daily life of the family. As adults, we tend to do these chores to perfect our direct surroundings. Children, on the other hand, are keen to perform these exercises in order to develop themselves. They love to wipe the windows, to clean a table with soap, to sweep and mop the floor, to arrange flowers in a vase and beautify the room, to cut the vegetables of the day and to bake the bread for lunch. Besides the development of control of movement and the understanding of cause and effect, the children also learn to look after themselves and the environment including the other children. The extension of the concentration span is an added bonus.

Sensorial Development

With the help of a well thought through set of materials addressing the different senses, the related vocabulary is expanded and refined.
The sensorial games simply invite to be touched!
Whilst exploring the concepts of the materials, children learn the nuances of the language associated with sound, colours, tastes, shapes, weights, dimensions, measurements and smells.

Language

The guiding principle in the language approach is ‘Reading through Writing’. By building a rich vocabulary the children are able to express themselves and arrange their thoughts. Being in a sensitive period of touch, the shapes and sounds of the 26 letters of the alphabet are introduced with Sandpaper Letters. In order to commence ‘writing’, to express their own thoughts, large boxes with several of each letter are present. Objects and word/picture cards stimulate new word learning followed by the first readers. 

Children learn to enjoy the ideas of others and become happy and interested readers. The door to life long learning is opened right here and now.

Extended language activities offer the basic information of biology, geography and history. Especially the 5 year olds become interested in learning more about the world!

Mathematics

The approach, together with a complete set of materials, makes the world of mathematics very interesting. In a comprehensive manner, the children encounter the abstract concepts of math in a very concrete way. Children as young as five years old can perform the four operations up to 10,000 using ‘Thousand cubes’, ‘Hundred squares’, ‘Tens’ and ‘Units’, without hesitation. This set of equipment carries the name ’Golden Beads’ and therefore add to the attraction.
Being in the period of their life when all is absorbed, the Children’s House is the perfect place to introduce the children to memorization facts.
Combining these two fundamental math components, a strong solid base is constructed allowing for further extensions in the Primary.

                 (tex : age 4)