Our Programs

2 ½ to 13 years

Our classrooms are fully equipped with Montessori materials; we also maintain a low student teacher ratio. Academic achievements are done on a daily basis; with formal evaluations provided in January and June.

The academic subjects of practical life, sensorial, math, language, and cultural subjects are based on the Montessori Method. Art, Music, French and Gym are also included in our program. Dr. Maria Montessori believed that children have an innate curiosity through which spontaneous activity develops their individual desire to learn. This natural curiosity, if encouraged, will reinforce a need for continued discovery and enhance the love of learning for learning's sake. The staff believes each individual learns in different ways. They organize and prepare for the children to have personalized programs of study in which they can move at their own pace and level. This program offers any child the challenge and opportunity to excel toward his/her greatest potential while maintaining a clear understanding of what is being learned.

Casa Program

Maria Montessori's first school was set in some apartment buildings in the San Lorenzo district of Rome. She called her classroom Casa dei Bambini, which means House of Children. The nomenclature of Casa has remained as the designated name given to the classrooms for children from 2 1/2 to 5 years of age. Children in our Casa classrooms choose their work from a variety of self-correcting materials on shelves and have specific work areas. Over a period of time, the children develop in a normalized community. Normalization is the process whereby a child moves from being undisciplined to self-disciplined, from disordered to ordered, from distracted to focused, through work in the environment. The process occurs through repeated work with materials that captivate the child's attention. For some children this inner change may take place quite suddenly, leading to deep concentration. In Casa, academic competency is a means to an end, and the manipulatives are viewed as "materials for development."

Five distinct areas constitute the prepared environment.

• Practical life

• Sensorial

• Mathematics

• Language arts

• Cultural

Elementary Program

The elementary program continues from the foundations laid by Casa. The environment reflects a new stage of development and offers the integration of the arts, sciences, geography, history, and language that evokes the native imagination and abstraction of the elementary child. The elementary child also receives a presentation of the formal scientific language of zoology, botany, anthropology, geography, geology, etc., exposing the child to accurate, organized information and respecting the child's intelligence and interests. As in Casa, the Montessori materials are a means to an end. They are intended to evoke the imagination, to aid abstraction, to generate a world view about the human task and purpose. The child works within a philosophical system asking questions about the origins of the universe, the nature of life, people and their differences, and so on. On a factual basis, interdisciplinary studies combine geological, biological, and anthropological science in the study of natural history and world ecology.

Extra Curricular Activities

Our program also includes Monday after school games club, Tuesday and Thursday intramurals, Wednesday art club and Friday scrap booking. We have a music teacher who comes in to teach private music lessons for those families interested in this service.  Four Winds Montessori School also participates in the Independent Schools Association’s annual Track and Field meet as well as cross country and soccer tournaments.