4 Beautiful Locations Islandwide At House on the Hill, we strive to embody the true Montessori method and philosophy in every lesson and activity. Book A Tour Montessori materials are designed to match the natural inclinations and developmental needs of children. They encourage self-correction and tap into a child’s inherent motivation to learn and improve. Concrete and tangible, they provide children with objects to touch and manipulate in order to internalise abstract concepts. These materials are often made up of small, intriguing objects that pique a child’s curiosity and allow them to playfully recreate the world around them. “The study of grammar is to language what the study of anatomy is to science. By studying grammar, we become better writers and readers.” Lori Bourne, Montessori for Everyone The Montessori Grammar Farm is a perfect example of these qualities coming together. Not only does it allow children to practice building simple combinations of words and phrases, it also provides an opportunity for the younger children to build on their vocabulary through interactions with the objects. More commonly referred to as ‘The Farm’, this is a set of instructional materials used to teach grammar concepts in the Montessori classroom, laying the roots for good communication, reading comprehension, writing, speaking, story-telling and more. Children are given opportunities to interact with the materials to learn about the different parts of speech: nouns, verbs, adjectives, and articles and how they are used in sentences. It provides a setting for activities of language enrichment, grammar, reading, and eventually writing. The Farm consists of a barn, people, animals, fences, a tractor, and many more. This fun material introduces grammar by using characters and labels, making it very interactive and interesting for the children. Other variations of this type of material include dollhouses or city plazas. Strong grammar skills are essential for young children, and in particular, help our students as they transition to higher levels of education, such as the Singapore Ministry of Education Primary 1 syllabus and international schools. The children are invited to investigate the Montessori grammar farm model that includes animals, objects, and label cards that correspond to each figure. By utilising The Farm material, the children are able to develop their language skills by constructing basic word combinations, identifying the objects, and vocalising their sentences or phrases. Despite not having been introduced to the parts of speech yet, the label cards are colour-coded to match the system used when teaching about verbs, nouns, articles, and other parts of speech. Through the use of a material that stimulates their interest and curiosity, the children’s comprehension of formal written language and its principles can be improved without them being aware that they are “practising their grammar.” The Montessori Grammar Farm in Action The Nursery to Kindergarten Montessori classroom provides an opportunity for early grammar instruction, which can be facilitated through materials like The Farm. After learning about the function of nouns, a child can apply this knowledge by labelling the various nouns found on the farm, such as sheep, goat, farmer. Similarly, a child who has received lessons on articles and adjectives can distinguish between different items or use more descriptive language, such as identifying the brown cow versus the black cow or a fluffy, white sheep. Finally, a child who is practicing with verbs can add some action by placing cards that describe activities such as planting tiny seeds: The farmer plants tiny seeds. By using this material, children can enhance their reading skills by practicing reading words within a given context, comprehend the role of different words, and develop the groundwork for reading and writing creatively. Once children have gained an initial understanding of grammar through sensorial activities, they can proceed to comprehend it at a more profound level. They now have the tools and confidence to master literacy, indispensable knowledge as they move from preschool to primary school, and beyond! Addendum Grammar in Montessori Montessori’s approach to grammar assigns a specific shape and colour to each part of speech to convey its unique significance. For instance, the Noun is depicted as a black pyramid, which represents the solidity and immobility of one of the earliest human structures. The colour black symbolizes carbon, which is thought to have been the first mineral discovered by humans. This visual cue suggests that nouns, or words that denote people, places, or things, may have been among the earliest words spoken by humans. Conversely, the Verb is represented by a red sphere, evocative of the shape and energy of the sun, which sustains life. The verb animates objects and imbues them with movement, much like the sun animates all living creatures. Dr. Montessori designed a series of Grammar materials that bring this work to life. To make learning grammar more engaging and memorable, each part of speech is presented through an interactive story or game. For instance, when teaching adjectives, the teacher might gather a group of children and ask them to fetch a book for her. As the children return with different books, the teacher rejects them one by one, claiming she was thinking of a different one. After several unsuccessful attempts, the children realize they need more information to fulfill the teacher’s request. At this point, the teacher explains that when there are many options, we need to use more precise language. She then specifies, “I want the small book with the green spine,” illustrating how adjectives can modify nouns to provide additional details and specificity. Further Reading: How To Introduce English Grammar With A Farm – Jojoebi Grammar in Montessori language — The Wonderful World of Montessori (wonderfulmontessori.com) Grammar Materials Bring Language to Life – Montessori for Everyone Blog Phonetic Animal Farm — The Wonderful World of Montessori (wonderfulmontessori.com) Phonetic Reading, Grammar (montessoriworld.org)

4 Beautiful Locations Islandwide At House on the Hill, we strive to embody the true Montessori method and philosophy in every lesson and activity. Book A Tour Play is an important aspect in children’s learning development. When children play, it gives them many different ways and opportunities to learn through play. Information is usually best retained when play experiences are fun and spontaneous. “Play is the work of the child” – Dr Maria Montessori Here at House on the Hill, we want to cultivate and explore this natural creativity and engagement further. Therefore, we are excited to introduce Loose Parts Play, together with gardening and exploration of nature-themed projects as part of our afternoon activities curriculum from 2023! Using the outdoor spaces as our play areas, the children will have numerous opportunities to explore, discover and learn in, about and through the outdoors. The freedom to play with spontaneous ideas and creation using a collection of small objects provides the children with opportunities to make, build, experiment and invent. Loose parts materials can be used in combination, redesigned, pulled apart or put back together, carried around, manipulated, put into patterns or used as visual representations for children’s imaginations. Loose parts also invite children to explore and discover, imagine and create, enquire and experiment, play and tinker about as they build on their developmental skills in a supportive learning environment. The material in itself has limitless use in the world of the child’s creation. At House on the Hill, our loose parts play is about guiding the children to make connections to their daily experiences. We allow the children to recreate these thoughts, ideas and feelings by documenting them using the loose parts material to make their experiences visual and concrete. With our recent trip to the zoo, the children recreated their zoo trip experience using leaves and pebbles from our garden, plus our collection of toilet paper core and ice-cream sticks. How do we include this in our play environment at school? Here is an example of the children’s play experiences after they took a school trip to the zoo: This group of children explored with toilet paper cores, leaves and rocks. They discovered that the toilet paper cores are good for making structure, and so they decided to add the leaves as the shelter. Once they created their structure, they decided that they still needed to renovate the zoo for more details. This meant that the animals were not ready to move in. Instead, they would be in transit from Malaysia! ? Come, join us in our next play and discover if the animals did arrive from Malaysia…. Here is a second group of children playing with the same topic: This group explored with ice cream sticks, leaves and rocks.  Each of them created enclosures of different sizes. Some were larger than others to fit larger animals like the elephant. They added animals  to their enclosure (using rocks) to represent the elephant, cheetah, hippopotamus and lion. Can you make a guess which is the elephant enclosure? Hint: In that enclosure, there are both elephants as well as lots of food for the elephants. Why do we want to include this in our Montessori environment? The importance and benefits of loose parts play Loose parts play is open-ended; the same material can lead the children to create different uses for it in many different ways. When they play, the fun is all in the process, and not the outcome.  For example, a brown leaf can be an elephant in one child’s play, the next time, the same brown leaf can be a skateboard in another child’s play. The possibilities are endless! This means it helps to expand the child’s creativity and imagination to use the same material in many different possible ways for the different play theme setting. Children are the content creators in this play, and teachers act as facilitators to lead and guide them through their story-line. This child-directed play helps the children towards more independent play. Besides fostering imagination and creative play, the children build upon their problem-solving skills, determination, patience, as well as communication skills, to discuss and work together towards a common goal. As the children use the loose parts to integrate in their play, there are many connections and applications to the subject areas. For example, in the subject area of Math, children could apply the concept of sorting and classifying as they arrange the loose parts into different categories or grouping them with similar characteristics together. In the creating the zoo enclosure example, they discovered the differences in size and dimension when they add more sticks. By adding more sticks, the shape of a square also changed into a rectangle. In another subject area of science and geography, the children discovered how to place the toilet paper core to make a more balanced structure using simple engineering skill to create the shelter for their animals. They also learn from one another, when one friend shared about the distance of Malaysia to Singapore, hence the animals were still in transit. These play experiences, when facilitated by the teachers, can help extend their learning. By adding the fun element in play, the children enjoy the whole process of their creation using their child-initiated ideas and imagination. How can parents also include loose parts play with children at home? Similar to our classroom environment, play can also be extended to your home environment. Start with any open-ended materials that can be played with in multiple ways. Common toys will be wooden blocks, magnetic tiles, rainbow blocks, pebbles, assorted flat marbles, play silks, assorted sizes of LEGO bricks, etc. When your child is playing with these materials, allow them to take the lead to shape the content of their creation. Protect your child’s space and time and try not to interrupt or direct them in their thought process. Use lots of observation to have an understanding of what your child is thinking. When conversing with your

Dr. Maria Montessori wrote “Free the child’s potential and you will transform him into the world”. Her philosophy is something that we hold close to our hearts here at House on the Hill as we relate this to the art experiences we provide for the children in their preschool years. Children are naturally inquisitive from birth. They make sense of what is happening around them by learning through observation and exploration. Through the process of art experiences, they make interpretations and form connection of how things work around their environment. These opportunities will also help to enhance their brain development and growth. Engaging in art activities is also a form of self-directed discovery which fuels creativity in children. It encourages risk-free exploration and freedom, which helps to builds confidence. Free expression also enables children to express their emotions and feelings, especially when children are still learning to use words to verbalise their thoughts. Art experiences in House on the Hill include activities that encourage children to explore through art elements such as lines, colours, shapes and textures. Examples of art activities include painting using crepe paper and foam, as well as crayon resin and cellophane collage. In House on the Hill, we strongly believe in the importance of reuse, reduce and recycle materials in our daily activities. We are appreciative of the support coming from the parents to have recyclable materials passed on to the school for the children to be purposefully engaged with. For example, the use of plastic bottles bases and toilet cores are useful in the process of printing outlines. Here are some suggestions of what adults can do to support in this process: 1.Support and don’t lead your child, allowing them to have freedom of choice to use materials in a safe environment In House on the Hill, we do this via the well thought out lesson plans by the teachers. With the objectives of the lesson in mind, the next crucial component includes ensuring that preparation of the materials is ready before the lesson. The children have the freedom to be engaged in using the readily available art materials to work on their masterpieces. 2. Keep it open- ended, instead of having a specific expectation. Let your child explore, experiment, and use their imagination. This is a crucial part of encouraging and building their creativity. Focus on the process, not the product. Do encourage the effort of the child as the process of exploration is more important than the end product. Acknowledge the child’s effect in the process. In the classroom our teachers use encouragement such as “I like the colours that you have chosen for your painting. They are colourful and vibrant”. This helps children to develop their self esteem and confidence. There is no right and wrong in Art Expression, every child has the ability to create their own unique art pieces. They are the masters of their artwork! 3. Art experiences in the home Art experiences do not have to happen in school settings only. Besides the art activities we have written about in this article, other examples of art experiences you can try with your child at home includes monoprinting where the painted image is transferred to another sheet of paper, while the use of playdough encourages creativity, when they can build and construct 3D sculptures. Lastly, an important takeaway for parents is to allow art discovery opportunities at home. They are a great way to encourage social-emotional development and enhancing fine motor skills.  In addition, it creates moments for quality interaction and bonding with your children. Do have a go with providing similar art discovery experiences at home and be amazed at the wonders that children will create! Some suggested further reading: Keep Up the Good Encouragement Montessori at Home: Hanging Artwork

Racial Harmony Day is observed on the 21st of July every year to remind all of us the importance of maintaining racial and religious harmony in Singapore’s multicultural and multi-ethnic society. At House on the Hill, we’re also taking the opportunity to celebrate the broad cultural diversity we have here at our school. On this day, the children will get to capture memories with their friends dressed in their traditional cultural outfits, at a photo booth set up for the day. They’ll have the opportunity to share about their culture with their friends at Show-and-Tell. They will be involved in a Harmony Day Bracelet craft activity and our teachers will be reading stories about teamwork and acceptance. It is a chance for our students to celebrate their diversity together, a value that is a core facet of what makes our House on the Hill community so very special.   As Early Childhood educators, we are often asked about why we have chosen this profession. For most of us, it is because we understand our children to be the future, and we want them to have and to build the best future possible. As Dr. Maria Montessori said, “The child is both a hope and a promise for mankind” (Education and Peace). Educating the future is no small task! In addition to wanting our children to understand the world around them, we must also teach them to be valuable participants in it.  The House on the Hill team at one of our training sessions (Photo taken pre-Covid) Dr. Maria Montessori and her work were both greatly impacted by the World Wars. In 1939 Dr. Montessori herself was barred from returning to Europe from India when World War II began, and she remained there for the duration of the war. The devastation of both wars affected her greatly and she saw education as the answer to preventing such hostility between people. She believed children must learn about the world–both its physical and political landscape– in order for peace to be a reality in their lifetimes. This took shape as the fifth subject of the Montessori curriculum: Cultural Studies. Today at House on the Hill, our children learn from Dr. Montessori’s curriculum as well as from one another. We are a diverse community where both teachers and students are engaged in daily cultural exchange, working towards a peaceful future. Dr. Montessori may never have imagined classrooms as diverse as ours when she first began her schools in Italy. Across our three campuses, we have children representing dozens of nationalities, languages and cultures. Our teachers and staff also hail from places within and beyond Singapore! We have an overarching ethos of practicing kindness and respect for each other. It is ingrained in our school culture, and colours and guides everything that we do, from who we welcome through our doors to how we treat each other.  The House on the Hill team at our 2019 staff retreat (Photo taken pre-Covid)  Passionate, dedicated and highly-qualified, our teachers and staff members are all hand-picked to ensure the very best possible experience for each child in our school. In a competitive landscape, we take pride in the strength of loyalty amongst our team as evident from a very low staff turnover at House on the Hill. As an employer, we provide not only a nurturing environment for our young students but also an exciting and supportive one for our teachers as well. From further studies to professional training and personal development, we encourage our staffing team to become the best they can be.   At House on the Hill, our approach towards ensuring we have diverse and happy staffing is to recruit with an open heart and mind. We have teachers of many nationalities, ethnicities, backgrounds, genders, shapes and sizes! We believe that it is beneficial for students to see and learn about as many cultures and communities as possible and encourage our teachers to share their stories about their heritage from as early as possible. The world is made up of people from all kinds different backgrounds. Our children today are global citizens and it is vital that they  are equipped with the foundational tools for navigating interpersonal relationships from a young age. We treat each other with kindness and respect as a given, both as models for our students and as good policy. Children learn from example!  Our Hari Raya 2021 Celebrations  This cascades down to our classrooms and how we interact with one another. Various aspects of Montessori education combine to teach skills that go beyond academics. Mixed-age, vertical learning teaches leadership and patience. Having just one of each material in the classroom teaches sharing and kindness. Individual pacing and instruction allow children to grow their curiosity and love learning. The care we expect for our classroom environment grows to be a care for the Earth’s environment. These are only the tip of the iceberg; every day our work is to help children grow into kind, responsible, and curious members of the world. Montessori philosophy advocates the use of natural materials, our toys are mostly made from sustainable timbers such as alder, beech and rubberwood and therefore neutrally coloured. This naturally encourages colour neutrality for the use of both genders. The focus instead is on imaginative play and refining their sensory perceptions with toys whose designs reflect years of thought, tradition and craftsmanship.    To build critical thinking skills and creative independence, we create and weave in experiences that help with fostering a lifelong love of learning. Storytelling and reading assist not only with important literacy skills, but also with opening minds, encouraging a sense of adventure, and helping to imbue our children with a lasting sense of positivity to seize every moment of life. Our curriculum team use all resources possible to build our collection of books. The emphasis is on finding books that are in line with our ethos and values. They look for suggestions from libraries all over the world, consult the internet for anything new and interesting in the world of young children’s literature and constantly keep an eye out for stories that are fun, engaging and are able to help our children to discover, learn and grow.   We take special care to incorporate cultural activities into our curriculum throughout the year, and are especially mindful to be