Cultural Extensions
The cultural extensions are used to broaden the child's experiences and draw their attention to various aspects of our social and physical word as well as providing them with some experiences related to the laws of nature. We want to awaken and develop feelings in a child for nature. Various activities are incorporated in the child's curriculum (in both English and Mandarin) include:
- Geography: globes; puzzle maps of the continents and of each continent; exposure to unique animals and cultures of peoples from different countries (including art and music); Land and Water Forms, etc.
- Music: different composers; the Montessori Bells; Rhythm, Note recognition; musical notation; composition of music; singing and movement exercises.
- Artistic expression: various arts & crafts materials and special projects are available in the classroom.
- Biology: Animals and their parts: mammals, birds, reptiles, insects and fish; Life Cycles of butterfly, frog, chicken; Plants and their parts: parts of a tree, parts of a leaf, leaf shapes, germination of seeds, etc.
- Physics: magnetism, light; colour mixing, solid/liquid/gas, etc.
- Cooking: exploration of recipes from ingredients and their functions to oven control and taste – a multicultural experience.
Many of the Cultural activities are sensorial in nature to maximize the absorption and retention by the child who is mainly a sensorial learner at this age. A sensorial impression in the child’s mind ensures that when s/he has to deal in abstractions s/he is able to draw upon those impressions.
In extensions we prepare the child indirectly; trying to prepare a human being. We need to introduce the child to the social, cultural and natural environment. These ideas allow the child's imagination to be active as we present child with reality – facts; clear and accurate information. We must also be aware of child's chronological age as a limiting factor, instead we should look at the child's maturity, competence, and experience to indicate readiness.
Cultural studies are extensions and expand upon principles introduced in the four other main areas of the Montessori environment: Practical Life, Sensorial, Language and Mathematics. For example the Land and Water Forms (Geography materials) provide the child with new vocabulary which is an extension of language: island, lake, etc.; however they also give the child the sensorial impression of what each geographic form looks like, and involves elements of Practical Life: setting it up, pouring, drying to tidying it up, etc.
The cultural extensions, while they provide the most accurate information available, are not meant to be used as a tool merely to impart specific facts and figures. They are rather designed to help draw out the child's curiosity for the world around, and enable the child to build an orderly framework of knowledge based on the fact base to which s/he is exposed. Work with these materials encourages each child to set about seeking new information and answers to questions. At the age of three, these questions are most typically “What” questions, even when phased as “why” questions – the child is seeking to increase the fact base needed to understand and categorize the world around. As the child matures and gets ready for the elementary class transition, the questions typically change to more “Why” and “When” questions. Exposures to the Cultural extensions and the resulting foundation of facts learned in the Casa dei Bambini (IMS’ Kindergarten-Primary Montessori program) help set the foundation in a very concrete form for the child's later exploration of the “Why”. This occurs as the child enters the Second Plane of Development, where the child works with ideas and concepts in the Montessori Elementary program, placing things in relationship to others within the framework of knowledge built as s/he moves into deeper understanding of the subject matter under study.
The Cultural activities open the child's eyes to the dynamic and diverse world around them. Cultural studies are the window to the world. They are the keys to the environment.
Each year at IMS we hold Montessori Curriculum evenings to review the materials in each of the five major areas of the classroom with parents. We encourage you to come to these meetings to learn more.