18 months - 9 years
Inclusion is about community, about membership, about relationships, about development.
The mission of La Prima Casa Montessori’s Inclusion Program is to foster a peaceful and nurturing environment, full of infinite experiences, that will provide every child the opportunity to construct his own independence, self-confidence, responsibility, appreciation for diversity and a love of learning using the Montessori Philosophy.
Our goals are:
- To provide a positive educational experience to children with diverse abilities in a mixed age group setting that enhances the strengths, and supports the needs, of all children in our program through the use of prepared kinesthetic materials with incorporated control of error.
- To provide support services (e.g. speech therapy, occupational therapy, and physical therapy) in a naturalistic setting (i.e., the classroom) and use integrated subjects and learning based on developmental psychology to enhance skill acquisition and generalization.
- To provide all our children with opportunities to learn good communication skills, build memberships and social relationships, and develop functional skills in an integrated, active, developmentally appropriate environment.
- To enhance the competence and confidence of all the families with whom we work by involving them in identifying priority skills for their child and encouraging them to take an active role in school activities.
- To provide a process-focused systematic assessment in order to identify, teach, and support developmentally appropriate skills.
Searching for a ray of light: One mother's search for the perfect school.
As a parent of a first honors and a very “TYPICAL” child, I was blind to the rest of the world. Then years later we had our second child, who definitely opened me to a new world. He had delays. We saw many doctors in different countries, and soon realized they really could not help us, because there is not much known on what caused his delays, one suggestion was that it was caused by a reaction to his vaccinations. But we never got a diagnosis. This made it extremely hard for us, and through the years, with lots of trial and error we started to figure some things out. We gave him lots of different therapies, which helped him enormously, but one of the most important things that was still missing was a school that offered him the possibility to blossom at his own speed without standing out as a sour thumb. We finally got our ray of light when we decided to try a Montessori school. This past year at LA PRIMA CASA MONTESSORI, we saw our Baby Boy become a Big Boy. Not only has he grown academically, his self-esteem is back, and he has become so much more independent. We love hearing “I did it!” or “ Me alone!”
LA PRIMA CASA MONTESSORI has been a very important part of our team for our child, we now had a school that was working for him and his therapists that were welcomed to come in to his school environment. As his mom I never stop searching for improvements, programs, therapies, or new ways to attempt things from a different direction. I spoke to the school with some of my concerns and observations, I believed something could still be improved. Not only was I surprised to see that they truly listened to me but that they were going to do something about it. They are opening a special needs program that will be integrated with his schooling. I could not believe they are adding therapists to their program, which for a child like mine it means the world. Not only will children like mine have the benefit of an educational system like the one this Montessori has to offer but there will be professionals present for their speech and motor skills development that will push even further their potential to grow. I truly believe this is a beginning to a great educational program.
Carolina, mother of Adrian