As of August 2008 Hand in Hand Learning center will change to Mustard Seed Montessori School, the new website is www.mustardseedmontessorischool.com

Our new e-mail is: mustardseed@embarqmail.com

What we are all about
I believe that children between the ages of 2-5 years still need to be with their parents as much as possible, since these years are the most impressionable years of their lives and the bonding process is still in progress.  It is important that the parents are the biggest influence in the child's life, rather than an institution.  The parents can choose whether they want their child to go to preschool 2, 3 or 5 days a week, either from 8:00am-12:00pm or from 1:30pm until 5:00pm.

The model for my preschool is the German Kindergarten.  The emphasis is on creativity and social skills , for example: problem solving, learning to cooperate, sharing and respecting each other.  We work on the academic skills as well (letters, numbers, concepts, shapes, etc.)  We have weekly/biweekly lesson plans.  The program is bilingual.  With every lesson plan the parents receive a printout with the appropriate vocabulary in German.
 

The classroom is divided into 9 learning centers.  They are: dramatic play, manipulatives, blocks, sensory table, math/science table, library, music, art and language arts.  We call play work since for children playing means working.  As adults we are product oriented, children are process oriented.  A child enjoys what she/he is working on while she/he is in the process of doing it, the outcome is not important.  I try to offer a wide variety of materials in order to promote the child's creativity, which in turn promotes pre-writing skills and pre-math skills.