Follow Us x
It is our goal at Missoula Valley Montessori to provide a meaningful education that fosters children's innate curiosity about the world and where they belong in it. Our school is to be filled with friendly, welcoming, quality staff that will guide your children to their full potential using the philosophy of Maria Montessori. Missoula Valley Montessori strives to create a setting where children are valued and honoured, the families feel welcome and informed and the community is enriched by our presence. Through keen observation, a well-prepared environment, and our commitment to lifelong learning, we provide an exceptional Montessori education.
The Montessori cultural curriculum covers a wide range of subjects: geography, botany, zoology, art, science, and music. At Missoula Valley Montessori our cultural curriculum is the foundation of our academics. Each year we focus on one of the seven continents. Many aspects of the continent are then investigated from geography to cuisine. The children are eager to learn about people in far away places. They delight in discovering things they have in common with children across the world and learning different customs, too. Suddenly they begin drawing pictures of women dressed in saris or writing about orangutans in the rainforest. They stand stock still as they role-play guarding Buckingham Palace with a bearskin hat. Aspects of any given culture are woven through other areas of the curriculum.
During morning and afternoon gatherings songs and greetings from faraway lands are learned. Our practical life lessons will include cooking Asian food,for example. The children will learn to count in French, to say hello in Japanese. The language shelves become rich with books, terms, and alphabets from other cultures. Famous artists from a country will be discovered and imitated. Imagine the fun of painting like Jackson Pollock! Finally, each spring the primary students put on a performance to reflect all that they have learned. After studying Europe we had a mini-Olympics. Our study of North America culminated in folk dances from the Mexico, Canada, and our home, the United States. In the words of Maria Montessori, "Let us give the child a vision of the whole universe...for all things are part of the universe, and are connected with each other to form one whole unity."
