Extended-Day Kindergarten | Ages 5 to 6 years

Program

The Extended-day program at North Star allows children who are school-aged and who show social, academic and emotional readiness, to stay for a full day of school. Completion of the third year of the Three-Year Cycle (The Extended-day Kindergarten year) is critical for the child to experience to the fullest, benefits and positive outcomes of a Montessori education.

Daily Activities

During the morning, the extended-day children are in the regular Casa environment. This allows them the opportunity to role-model, assist younger children thereby solidifying their knowledge, and to practice their leadership skills. This experience not only assists the child academically but also aids the child in the development of self-esteem and self-confidence.

During the afternoon, the Extended-day children from both Casa classes combine together to create the Extended- day cohort. These children spend the afternoon going into deeper and longer work with the materials and their studies. They also participate in the extensive physical education programs, field trips, and have guest speakers visit.

Developing Skills For Life

In the short term, the skills developed in the kindergarten program will ensure academic success, as they are necessary for more advanced work that requires a longer commitment of time, perseverance when challenges arise, and problem solving. A child who possesses these competencies and who loves to learn, aided with a natural curiosity, will have the capacity to set out and accomplish whatever they choose. As you can see, these faculties go beyond short term academic success; they are life long.

Kindergarten Materials

Your child has also been exposed to a multitude of materials that help develop concrete experiences of abstract concepts such as size, shape, and quantity which is later utilized in geometry, mathematical operations and equations. Sound, colour, and texture is also vital for the child to intelligently interpret his or her world. Your child will be working with various Language materials to help them understand how words are built with sounds and how to recognize the graphical symbols of these sounds. He or she has also been exposed to a rich tapestry of vocabulary that is easily integrated into their daily language use.

Environment

All of this has been happening through the child’s experiences with the environment, which has been carefully prepared by the guide, to ensure that the child is able to spontaneously follow his or her inner needs so as to develop optimally. The timing of these experiences has been imperative as the child at this age forms their personality and character through their experiences. That is, the experiences the child encounters between the ages of birth to 6, will become a part of who he or she is, which includes the faculties and abstract concepts that were previously discussed. The Kindergarten year is the final year that your child will have this special ability to naturally make the effortless acquisition of knowledge a part of who he or she is.

Daily Activities

During the morning, the extended-day children are in the regular Casa environment. This allows them the opportunity to role-model, assist younger children thereby solidifying their knowledge, and to practice their leadership skills. This experience not only assists the child academically but also aids the child in the development of self-esteem and self-confidence.

During the afternoon, the extended-day children from both Casa classes combine together to create the extended- day cohort. These children spend the afternoon going into deeper and longer work with the materials and their studies. They also participate in the extensive PE program, field trips and have guest speakers visit.

Completing the 3 Year Cycle

Most importantly, besides academic excellence, when children are given the opportunity to complete the 3 year cycle, which includes the Kindergarten year, self-confidence, independence, critical thinking, perseverance, a love of learning, and the social graces to be positive contributors to society becomes a PERMANENT part of who they are. Your children are still constructing who they are, and the final year is critical to ensure everything will stay in place, when they complete their task.