Infant Program
Montessori Infant Program
The Montessori Infant Program provides children aged 0-2 with opportunities for learning through movement, exploration, and connection. Learning goals for infants focus on movement skills, language development, developmental milestones, fine motor development, social skills, and the joy of every child.
Age Group:
0 to 2 year old kids
Learning in the Infant Community
The Montessori Infant Program provides children with a nurturing learning environment that is full of educational materials that meet their specific developmental needs and interests during the first two years of life.
The Montessori Infant Program provides children with a nurturing learning environment that is full of educational materials that meet their specific developmental needs and interests during the first two years of life.
Similarly, the daily routine reflects this age groups need for consistency and repetition, while embracing children’s individual needs, interests, stage of development, and learning styles.
Once children complete the Infant Program, they progress to the Montessori Toddler Program, where they gain a formal introduction to all five areas of the Montessori Curriculum.
Infant Learning Goals
- Uses simple gestures to communicate
- Explores objects in different ways
- Chooses an activity and packs it away
- Plays alongside others
- Knows the names of body parts, colours, and shapes
- Beginning to use one to two word phrases
- Demonstrates independence skills such as self-feeding
- Achieving physical development milestones such as crawling, walking, climbing and jumping
Infant Curriculum
Practical Life
The Practical Life Curriculum provides infants with opportunities to practice daily life skills such as self-feeding, cleaning, dressing, washing and self-care.
Example materials and activities include:
- Treasure baskets
- Fabric matching
- Spooning
- Pegging
- Nesting objects
Sensorial
Infants learn through movement and exploration. Learning goals for infants include healthy physical development. Through the Infant Curriculum, children develop fine motor, gross motor, and fundamental movement skills.
Example materials and activities include:
- Imbucare object permanence boxes
- Three discs on the vertical dowel
- 3D object fitting exercise
- Sensory balls
- Puzzles
Movement Skills
Infants learn through movement and exploration. Learning goals for infants include healthy physical development. Through the Infant Curriculum, children develop fine motor, gross motor, and fundamental movement skills.
Example materials and activities include:
- Tummy time
- Visual mobiles
- Stair climbing
- Bead maze
- Pull toy and rolling toy
Language
The Montessori Language Curriculum introduces infants to spoken and written language. Children use language materials to explore names, sounds, songs and music.
Example materials and activities include:
- Colour and object matching cards
- Object picture matching
- Reading
- Puppets
- Music and songs
Wellbeing
Children’s happiness and wellbeing is at the core of everything we do. The Infant Curriculum nurtures children’s potential through positive, warm interactions, and collaborative partnerships with families. This includes respecting and valuing each family’s culture, beliefs, parenting style, and preferences for their child.
- Each child’s individual eating and sleeping schedule can be accommodated
- Breastfeeding and supplying expressed breastmilk is welcome
- Cloth nappies can be accommodated
- Families are supported and invited to contribute to the program
Early Years Learning Framework
The Montessori Curriculum and the Australian Government’s Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF): Belonging, Being & Becoming work together to nurture children’s potential. The EYLF incorporates five outcomes:
- Outcome 1: Children have a strong sense of identity
- Outcome 2: Children are connected with and contribute to their world
- Outcome 3: Children have a strong sense of wellbeing
- Outcome 4: Children are confident and involved learners
- Outcome 5: Children are effective communicators
Infant Daily Routine
The infant routine outlines the typical daily flow for children aged six weeks to two years in the Montessori infant community. The infant’s daily routine provides a consistent pattern of activities for learning time, meals, rest, and outdoor play. The predictability of the routine helps children to feel secure and positively influences their emotional, cognitive, and social development.
Montessori Materials for Infants
- Imbucare Box
Imbucare Boxes help children recognise two shapes in the same size. It supports the development of visual discrimination, hand-eye coordination, and introduces the concept of object permanence.
- Coloured Discs on a Dowel
The Coloured Discs on a Dowel introduces infants to discs that vary in size and colour. This materials helps develop visual discrimination, a sense of order, and introduces simple counting.
- Treasure Basket
Treasure baskets introduce children to different objects and textures. They aid in the development of sensory perception, coordination, concentration and fine motor skills.
- Dressing Frames
Dressing Frames introduce children to buttons, zippers, velcro and ribbon tying. They are used to develop hand-eye coordination, concentration and independence.
- Three Shapes Puzzle
The Three Shapes Puzzle introduces the circle, triangle and square as well as the primary colours. It assists in the development of visual discrimination, the pincer grip, and fine motor skills.
- Imbucare Peg Box
The Imbucare Peg Box is a tray with 6 pegs to develop hand-eye coordination. This material also teaches colour sorting.