Areas of Learning 

Children learn daily-life skills, such as how to get dressed, prepare snacks, set the table, and care for plants and animals. They also learn appropriate social interactions, such as saying please and thank-you, being kind and helpful, listening without interrupting, and resolving conflicts peacefully. The purpose of these exercises also is to develop concentration, hand/eye coordination, attention to detail and muscle development. In addition to teaching specific skills, Practical Life activities promote independence, and gross- and fine-motor coordination, which indirectly prepares a child for writing.

Children refine skills in perceiving the world through their different senses – this language is universal. The purpose of the sensorial exercises is to learn how to describe and name their experiences—for example, rough and smooth, perceived through touch. Sensorial learning equipment in a Montessori classroom, helps children to differentiate, classify and compare concepts such as length, height, weight, width and depth. Isolation of a single quality such as color, weight, shape, texture, sound and smell in each exercise helps children classify their surroundings and create order. It lays the foundation for learning by developing the ability to classify, sort, and discriminate—skills necessary in math, geometry, and language.

Activities throughout the Montessori Early Childhood classroom teach language, help children acquire vocabulary, and develop skills needed for writing and reading. “There is a little bit of an artist in every child. It is but a small step from drawing to writing.” Phonics is the base of all language. From developing pencil control using metal inserts, the child goes on to learn sounds with the help of the movable alphabet. The ability to write, a precursor to reading, is taught first. Using hands-on materials, children learn letter sounds, how to combine sounds to make words, how to build sentences, and how to use a pencil. Once these skills are acquired, children spontaneously learn to read.

The Montessori child learns math through experiencing it. With hands-on activities, children learn to identify numerals and match them to their quantity, understand place-value and the base-10 system, and practice addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. In our school, a child begins with concrete mathematical material such as number pads and the sandpaper numbers. They also explore patterns in the numbering system. With an exploratory approach, children do more than just memorize math facts; they gain a firm understanding of the meaning behind them. They eventually graduate to abstraction in mathematical computation. 

At fMZ, we believe that early exposure to multiple languages has numerous benefits for children's cognitive, social, and emotional development. Our bilingual program is designed to create a nurturing and stimulating environment where children can naturally acquire both German and English languages through play, interaction, and exploration.

In our bilingual classrooms, children are exposed to both languages through immersion. Teachers speak exclusively in either (Swiss) German or English, fostering a natural and effortless language acquisition process. This method allows children to absorb language in context, enhancing their ability to comprehend and communicate effectively. 

A wide range of subjects, including history, geography, science, art, music and P.E. classes are well planned out weekly and integrated in lessons in the cultural area of the curriculum. Children learn about their own community and the world around them. Discovering similarities and differences among people and places helps them develop an understanding and appreciation of the diversity of our world, and a respect for all living things. It also promotes the development of physical health and hobbies at an early age which can be used later in life.