Reggio Emilia Inspired Curriculum; DaVinci Kids
Children have unique learning styles. Not all classroom environments are conducive to all children’s needs. Montessori Kids Universe takes pride in providing an authentic Montessori environment enhanced with a proprietary Reggio Emilia inspired curriculum; DaVinci Kids.
Montessori combined with Reggio inspired education philosophies provide children opportunities to learn based on their individual learning styles. Focus is placed on building cognitive, social, language, and creative skills that empower students to become knowledge bearers and researchers. At Montessori Kids Universe we focus on creating a nurturing and inspiring learning environment for all children in our schools. This is what separates us from traditional day cares and preschools.
Children are full of curiosity and creativity; in our classrooms these qualities are consistently emphasized. The curriculum is flexible and adapts based on the child’s ideas, thoughts and observations. We create an evolving Reggio inspired learning environment that empowers students’ curiosity, exploration, and response. Children can pursue topics of interest, while educators guide and facilitate learning. Each classroom has trained Montessori teachers who facilitate the customized learning approach based on the children’s unique needs and interests. Our sophisticated software assists our teachers in assessing the level and academic growth of each child as they progress.
Our children had fun working on a lesson in our Reggio inspired DaVinci Kids curriculum. We would like to share. Did you ever think that dinosaurs and the circus could be connected somehow? We didn’t either, until we watched the minds of children unfold the connection. Starting with a discussion about dinosaurs, the children quickly learned about different types of dinosaurs- their body parts, what type of foods they ate and where they lived. Moving into the sensory activities such as fossil digs, the children noticed body similarities between Woolly Mammoths and elephants. This sparked a discussion about elephants and how and where we can see them today. One student shared they had attended a circus and had seen elephants doing tricks. This really excited the other students who wanted to learn more about circuses and even wanted to create their own at the school. The next day, while we continued talks of what our circus would look like, a student brought up that they didn’t want to go to a circus, because their mommy said the animals are not treated nicely. This conversation dove into a completely different topic of treating animals kindly and how we can do our part to take care of all living things including our planet. This brought us back to focusing on one of the pillars our MKU schools are built on: social graces and courtesy. These topics, though so far apart, became intertwined as the child’s creativity was ignited! This is possible to the Reggio inspired curriculum
Collaboration and team-thinking are a big focus in a Reggio inspired classroom. This allows teachers to help children build communication and response skills. For example, if children have different opinions about a specific topic, the teacher will encourage all opinions and ideas and never insinuate one child’s idea is more accurate than another’s. Instead, they will facilitate a supportive discussion amongst the children so the children can learn how to constructively communicate with their peers. The child’s opinion is always respected. We encourage students to be open to others’ thoughts and theories, as well as to develop a sense of self-confidence in their own opinions.
Montessori Kids Universe’s school culture is based on respect, compassion, love of learning, service, independence, interdependence and excellence, between children, teachers and parents. Following the Reggio inspired curriculum helps fulfill this. Find a Montessori school near you to take a tour and see the MKU difference.