Every week in our newsletter is a title for “Enrichment Curriculum.” You have enrolled your child in a Montessori school –- so what is this enrichment? The Montessori curriculum is highly academic and developmental. As a stand-alone program, it’s awesome, but because our children are with us eight to ten hours a day, we have the opportunity to add an enriching program over and above the Montessori curriculum.

Our enrichment program has 57 topics that range in broad categories through the year as holidays, continents, the work that adults do (such as science, health, social, and service professions), specific sciences (such as astronomy, geology, physics), and general kid topics (like art, music, wild animals, and Christopher Columbus). These are the kinds of programs your child would have if he were enrolled in a conventional preschool. Each topic has seven skill sets that simply imprint on our children’s minds. These skill sets are:

o Language – In each topic, children are exposed to such topic-specific words as Declaration of Independence, paramedic, tundra, pioneer, and mineral. At three, a child probably won’t recall much about these words. By the time the child is six and going into first grade, she remembers the lesson from last year and can explain the basic concept.

o Music – The children learn culturally literate songs like Yankee Doodle Dandy, Jingle Bells, and Mary Had a Little Lamb. If you don’t remember all the words, ask to see our song book; you already know the tunes.

o Art – Our art curriculum specifically is to be work that the children do themselves. It’s all kinds of media using paint, glue, clay, glitter, crayons, and whatever else presents itself. Sometimes this is shelf work where it’s available all day for the child to choose, and sometimes it’s only put out when we can contain the mess.

o Creative Dramatic – We all learn by doing, and our preschoolers love to pretend they’re atoms, lions, growing seeds, or a character in a folk tale. This exercise enormously changes thinking patterns and expands creativity, not to mention that it’s great fun.

o Special Topics – These projects cycle through safety, ecology, cooking, science, and every fifth week, manners. Amazingly, the children remember that we made butter, we saw how sediment settles out in the lake, or what to do if there’s a fire in our house.

o Outside Activities – We have games like Red Rover, build lakes and rivers in the sand, and walk like a rhinoceros.

o Motor Development – Our motor development program has two parts. One segment cycles through strength, stamina, coordination and flexibility. The other part was developed by occupational therapists, and it cycles through exercises for vestibular function, bilaterality, motor planning, and proprioceptive exercises.

The way preschoolers learn is like sponges. They soak all this up in an effortless way, and when they’re in the fourth grade, they think everybody knows about the Diwali holiday or how to make poi.