The working hours of Children’s House „Absorbent Mind” are from 8:00 until 18:00, Monday to Friday. Children’s House „Absorbent Mind” will close only on national holidays and the period from December 23 to New Year’s Eve.
The daily routine of the children include:
- Breakfast;
- Working with Montessori materials;
- Outdoor play;
- Lunch;
- Afternoon rest;
- Additional leisure activities – sport, dancing, foreign language studies, arts;
- Therapy with a speech therapist or psychologist if needed.
The daily routine followed by the children in the Children’s House „Absorbent Mind” strictly adheres to the principles of the Montessori Method.
„Help me do it myself”
This request, addressed to Maria Montessori by a child, becomes the cornerstone in her method of learning. In Montessori education, the role of the adult is to help children develop their innate curiosity towards new knowledge and skills related to the surrounding world. The teacher has the function of a bridge between the child and the environment for building up one skill over another, providing the necessary help and supporting the child to independence.
According to Maria Montessori „Hands are tools of intelligence“and are tightly related to brain development. In an environment, well prepared by the teacher, including natural materials meeting their needs, children work freely, explore, touch and learn. Materials have the „error control“property. This encourages children to act themselves without adults’ intervention.
The classroom environment is thematically arranged in zones (Practical life, Sensory, Language, Mathematics, Space Knowledge) in accordance with the principles of order, beauty, freedom of choice and movement, nature, reality and social life development.
Montessori’s pedagogy is based on the relation between children’s readiness and their „sensitive periods“. These periods are interwoven with the development of separate areas of the human mind and the child’s readiness to acquire a specific skill more easily and smoothly. The success of the pedagogy itself lies precisely in the natural and spontaneous interest of the child in one occupation or another. It has a free choice of activities satisfying its internal needs. And when concentrated on interesting activities, the child has a clear goal, feels capable and confident.
Social skills are facilitated by mixed age groups. Bigger children set an example and help little ones, thus feeling significant and capable, and little children learn from bigger ones.