Nuevo Montessori - Fantástico!
by
Chris Moore
CAVE CREEK - A new day is dawning for preschool education in Cave
Creek. The RisingSun Montessori Day School is incorporating a new
classroom, a new teacher and a new language into its curriculum.
Although the new classroom was built with the original school structure,
it has remained empty and unfinished until now. The recent inclusion
of the second classroom effectively doubles the size of the school
and Mara Fishman, the school's owner and director, is hoping to
double the enrollment by adding as many as 18 new students in the
spring semester. Several new children have already enrolled and
applications for the 2006 07 school year, which begins in September,
are now being accepted.
The new teacher is Claudia Martinez who says she will bring a "very
strong academic program" to the school. Born in Mexico, she
comes to Cave Creek after teaching for three years with a mathematics
focus at The Montessori Academy of Broward in Pembroke Pines, Florida.
Her husband landed a job in Scottsdale and Martinez went on the
Internet looking for a teaching position in the Valley.
It just so happened that RisingSun's newly finished classroom was
looking for a teacher. She e mailed Fishman and the result, says
Martinez, "worked out pretty well for everybody."
"It's one of those things that's just meant to be," Fishman
said, describing the good fortune of finding Martinez at this point
in time. "I had a new classroom and I needed another teacher.
I asked the universe for this woman."
And voila! Not only were everyone's practical needs fulfilled, but
Martinez brings an added dimension to RisingSun for which Fishman
was not planning but is delighted to provide.
Español!
Under Martinez's direction, the new classroom at RisingSun will
be bilingual, incorporating Spanish language into the curriculum.
The bilingual approach runs "for the length of the school year,"
Martinez says, "and is supported by complementary Montessori
materials used to help children learn Spanish."
Currently, all of the students at RisingSun are English speakers,
so the curriculum is primarily delivered in English, but according
to the Montessori concept of "the absorbent mind," children
will begin to "absorb the new language and eventually begin
to speak it," says Fishman.
"Children have 'sensitive periods' when they are ideally ready
to learn new skill sets," Fishman explains. At 2 to 3 years
old, the concepts of
organization and order, she says, are easy for children to absorb.
From 4 years to 9 years, language skills become readily accessible.
Introducing a new language at this point in the child's education,
Fishman stresses, "will allow the child to pick it up more
quickly. It's never to soon to learn a new language."
Aside from enriching the curriculum bilingually, the addition of
Martinez adds depth to the overall education offered at RisingSun.
"We balance each other out very well," Fishman says of
Martinez. "Claudia's focus is academic a mine is socialization-themind/body/spirit."
As one might expect for a school with the motto, "A Community
for Children in the Heart of Cave Creek," Fishman considers
community and family important elements of a child's formative years
and of a Montessori education. That's why when the new classroom
needed eight new tables and 16 new chairs she threw a party and
invited her students' families to come and help out.
On March 15, eight children and 10 12 parents, plus a few friends
for good measure, gathered in back of the school and stained the
new wooden furniture red, purple and burgundy to go with the purple
wall of the new room. For two and a half hours on Wednesday, they
all did their part to improve their school and make their children's
education just a little more colorful. Plus they got to eat a barbeque
lunch and have some fun.
"The community of this school is just wonderful," Fishman
says. Soon, though, the bright young students in the bright sunny
classrooms of
RisingSun Montessori Day School will be able to describe their wonderful
community using another word: Fantástico!
RisingSun Montessori Day School is located at 38246 N. Hazelwood
Circle in Cave Creek. For information, mail to P.O. Box 4649 at
the above address, call (480) 595 KIDS (5437), e mail info@risingsunmontessori.com
or visit www.risingsunmontessori.com.
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