P.O.

Box 102 * Front Royal, VA * 22630

(540) 636-4257 * MLM123@earthlink.net

SPECIALIZED MONTESSORI SUMMER SCHOOL PROGRAM

Mission: For students with special needs: To provide a small, integrated Montessori program for students in need of an adapted structure due to the nature of their developmental, behavioral, or intellectual needs. For peer mentors: To provide a unique opportunity to develop individual academic and social skills within the context of a special-needs classroom. These students will be given the opportunity to provide role modeling and become mentors for individuals with special needs. Methods: The prepared environment of the Montessori classroom provides potential for repetitive practice in a wide range of skills aimed at satisfying the natural curiosity of any learner. The environment nurtures independence and stimulates intellectual development. The prepared environment includes opportunities for learning self-help and domestic skills in the area of practical life, academic skills through sensorial, math, and language materials, and leisure and community skills with fine, gross motor, play and social activities. There are opportunities to pursue advancement in spoken language, written language, reading and basic math skills. These lessons are all presented in a concrete, manipulative manner, and typically incorporate movement. The environment is predictable both physically and behaviorally, offering clear freedoms and limitations within the classroom structure. The natural community environment of a Montessori classroom enhances opportunities for social interaction. The classroom is prepared to meet the needs of the students it serves and easily adapts to the needs of each individual. The environment has capacity to enhance students strengths, while also detecting exact skills a student needs to master while continuing on the path to independence. Each task provides the instructor diagnostic information to pinpoint any obstacles to mastery. Occupational and speech goals, if shared with the classroom teacher, have opportunity to be generalized outside therapy sessions. The classroom is open for therapists to observe or to provide services within a natural context of the schoolroom. The practical life area includes self-help and domestic skills, broken down in a natural task analysis of steps. Each lesson has a direct aim and many indirect aims. Mastery results from manipulation of the materials and multiple repetitions over a period of time. All practical life lessons have the direct aim of increasing independence, concentration, and control of movement. Independence is nurtured by the opportunity to make a choice. All choices are developmentally sound and promote functional or intellectual growth. Control of movement is fostered in each task. Real utensils and tools are
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used. Part of the control and strength-building comes from carrying the materials around the classroom. More precise control comes from using tools such as small scissors, funnels, darning needles, or small beads. A plan is developed for each student, tailored to his or her needs. The teacher presents tasks to each student individually. The student then has the opportunity to make an independent choice to explore those materials when they are available. When a lesson is chosen, the work cycle begins. The lesson is carried to its appropriate place in the classroom. This may entail rolling out a work mat or choosing a table or work area. The lesson is laid out and the exploration of the presented materials begins. The work cycle is concluded when the materials are put away and made beautiful for the next person. Communication skills are fostered by use of grace and courtesy lessons. These include greetings and goodbyes, turn-taking, how to sit in a group with others and how to request attention. These are practiced in a dramatic manner that allows role-playing in a non-stressful moment. Leisure skills come in the form of painting, cutting, clay, and collage. These are a natural part of the Montessori setting. Music and poetry are presented in the forms of finger plays, movement activities, songs, dances and dramatic play. Scarf dancing and walking on the line may be implemented at various times. Puzzles are readily available and typically have the indirect aim of learning a concept such as labeling parts of animals or qualities of objects, while also defining the sense of visual discrimination. Many puzzles also have the benefit of possessing small knobs to enhance the tripod grip for fine-motor activities and writing. Playground time offers opportunities for balance, coordination, climbing and swinging on monkey bars. These activities offer the benefit of strengthening large and small muscles to aid in the refinement of fine-motor skills. The sensorial area was developed by Dr. Montessori to enhance students senses. Materials to enhance the visual sense of dimension are knobbed cylinders, the pink tower, the broad stair and the red rods. These progress in difficulty. Their direct aim is to sequence materials by size and shape. Each progression adds a new level of difficulty. The knobbed cylinders provide a wooden base to place varying-sized cylinders according to diameter and height. They have a large knob for promoting fine-motor strength and the pincer grasp. The pink tower allows students to grade materials according to size, largest to smallest. The broad stair also grades materials from largest to smallest, but does so in a two-dimensional manner, thickest to thinnest. The red rods require students to grade by one dimension, longest to shortest. Each material adds a new level of difficulty and provides opportunity for movement, development of hand strength, and grace and courtesy while moving throughout the room. The geometry cabinet provides the direct aim of learning the geometric plane shapes, and the geometric solids offer opportunity to manipulate and learn about three-dimensional geometric forms. These progress into more difficult lessons requiring the use of color and shape for building. Color matching and the opportunity to grade varying shades of colors are also part of the visual materials. Language opportunities are inherent in all visual lessons for concepts such as naming colors, concepts such as large and small, thick and thin, long and short. The sensorial area also has lessons that target the sense of smell (smelling bottles), taste (tasting bottles), hearing (sound cylinders, bells), and touch (touch boards). The kinesthetic sense can be utilized while working with a blindfold to sort objects or match different fabric textures.

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Oral language is a part of each aspect of the Montessori environment. Communicating is encouraged in all forms: verbal, signing or by use of a picture schedule. It is an optimum environment for speech therapy objectives to be taught and/or reinforced. Phonetic awareness is taught by the use of sound games to pinpoint the fact that words are made up of sounds. A sound game lesson also offers opportunity for practicing sitting in a small group and taking turns. Letter formations are introduced by bringing sounds to life by tracing a sandpaper letter. This activity provides sensorial input for any style learner in that the student hears the letter sound while seeing it visually. By tracing the formation, the student feels the texture of the sand and also gains motor memory in muscles, which later may translate into writing. Sandpaper letters can be introduced in cursive or print, whichever style the students team, (parents, therapists, educators), deems more appropriate for future goals and school setting. Potential for reading can be evaluated with this activity. Spelling and pre-reading skills are addressed by the moveable alphabet, again with the option for cursive or print. Handwriting programs can be individualized for each student. Prewriting skills are inherent in many of the practical life, art, and sensorial lessons previously mentioned. Peer mentors and students who have already begun to read will continue to develop skills in all language arts and also build fluency by reading aloud to others. The Montessori math curriculum offers concrete and manipulative lessons for learning concepts. The lessons begin with the number rods, sandpaper numbers, spindle boxes, cards and counters and memory game of numbers. These lessons target concepts one through ten. Each lesson progresses in difficulty and offers diagnostic information for the instructor to diagnose any obstacles to learning. The lessons then progress to decimal system work and counting through teen and ten numbers. The materials are tangible and students have opportunity to make abstract connections with the hands-on materials Montessori made famous. The Montessori materials were originally designed for students with obstacles to learning. Each material is brilliantly designed and provides multi-sensory input for any learner. Through a relationship with the student, family and school, a specialized Montessori program can be developed for all learners.

This classroom design is based on extensive experience with special-needs learners and multiple years of Montessori teaching experience. It is also derived from experience with inclusion of children with special needs in a class of typically developing peers, as well as individual tutoring sessions with children with wide ranges of special needs. As the special needs teacher, Carrie Irre comes equipped with a Masters in Special Education and over twenty-five years experience in the field of education, Teacher Certification through the state of Virginia for Elementary and Special Education and knowledge from extensive reading, observation of and participation in specialized classes, collaborative work with Occupational and Speech Therapists, and a long career of providing adaptations necessary for the advancement of each learner.

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Students with special needs who require a small class structure with specialized support systems are eligible for this program. The goal is for the classroom community to have five students with special needs teamed with support staff, and Carrie Irre as their head teacher. The class will also offer admission to typically developing peer mentors with a teacher to support and guide them. The support staff, (one-to-one guide for all students with special needs), will assist each student to whatever degree necessary. This guide will be provided by the family and can be a volunteer, family member, or college or graduate student. On-the-job training for the guides will be provided in the classroom with some preservice requirements prior to the start of camp. The approach will be that of a team. The team will consist of the student, family, guide, therapists and teacher. Team communication systems will be integral to the students success. The summer program is six weeks in duration and the hours are 8:30AM to 12:00PM for the peer mentor group. School hours will be Monday through Friday from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 a.m. for students with special needs. Each special needs student and their guide will be asked to arrive at 9:00 one day a week for individual instruction, and each student will be asked to provide a snack for the group on their assigned early day. (Schedules and hours may be adapted based on individual need.) The role of the guide will depend on the needs of the student to which he/she is assigned. Guides will participate in lessons with their student by either observing the teachers presentation or assisting with prompting the student through the lesson as it is presented. As the students build their repertoire of skills and activities in the class, their guide can assist in their choice making. Each student will have a record of what lessons have been presented and their level of success. Materials will be available in the classroom for repetition and mastery of skills. The teacher will be responsible for curriculum planning and the introduction of any new materials. The guide will fulfill the role of shadow for assigned student, helping them to navigate the classroom, make social contacts, follow through on any specialized behavioral programs and assist with any physical, medical or augmented communication styles. The guide will be asked to take notes of which materials the student worked with during the course of the morning and his/her level of success. Communication with families of peer mentors will come in narrative form or verbal communication during the course of the summer class and will include skills-assessment information. Written reports will be provided for students with special needs each two-week interim.

2011, Mountain Laurel Montessori School, Inc.

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