History  |  Rewards and Incentives  |  Parent Reviews  |  Curriculum  |  Environment  |  FAQs

Why Choose CMC? - History

Creative Montessori Center was founded in 1972. CMC was intended to be a premier school at a reasonable price. We have gone through many changes over the years: staff members have come and gone, locations have changed, “Specials Classes” have varied, even grade offerings have fluctuated. Through it all, CMC has stood by their promise of providing an exceptional education.

Since 2005, CMC has been at its current location in Trenton, MI. We offer a comfortable, welcoming environment in a neighborhood that is convenient to many communities. Our classrooms are unique, vibrant, and dynamic. Each directress has designed her classroom to meet the needs of her students. Our staff is well-trained (all of our teachers are Montessori certified), and is made up of extraordinary ladies with a passion for children and education.

One thing that sets CMC apart from other schools is the extra-curricular classes that are offered. Each day, a different “Special Class” takes place, including Spanish for all students. Our pre-primary students enjoy Art, Sign Language, Music, Discovery (Humanities, Geography, & Cultures), and Phys. Ed. Our Kindergarten students also receive instruction on computers, Music Theory, and “Montessori Manners”. Our elementary students learn Art, Music, Instruments and Music Theory, Discovery, Computers, Keyboarding, Phys. Ed, Current Events, and “Montessori Manners”. Our 4th-6th graders also receive instruction in the French language.

The Montessori philosophy stresses the importance of community and peace. The staff at CMC is committed to helping the students to become a positive force in their environment. The children learn how to help maintain this environment: from the classroom, to the surrounding school grounds, and even to the world beyond our walls. The students of CMC are very involved in their community. Please take a look at our Community Page, to see just a sample of the many ways our students have reached out.

History  |  Rewards and Incentives  |  Parent Reviews  |  Curriculum  |  Environment  |  FAQs

Why Choose CMC? - Rewards and Incentives

• Parents paying by semester (twice yearly) will receive a discount of $50.00 per semester.
• Parents who pay their child’s FULL YEAR by July 1, 2010 will receive a discount of $200.00.
• Parents who pay their child’s SEMESTER tuition by July 1, 2010 will receive a discount of $100.00.
• Families with more than one student in CMC’s preschool program will receive a 15% discount on the second child, and a 25% discount on the third child.
• Families with more than one student enrolled in CMC’s kindergarten or elementary program will receive a 50% discount on the second child.
• Parents who refer a new student will receive a discount of 5% off their child’s monthly tuition for the duration of the new student’s first year with CMC*.

*This discount is limited to 4 students. If the referring parent has already paid their child’s tuition for the school year, they will receive a $45.00 refund for each referred student (up to 4).

History  |  Rewards and Incentives  |  Parent Reviews  |  Curriculum  |  Environment  |  FAQs

Why Choose CMC? - Parent Reviews

T.S. of Monroe says: “My son is far beyond his peers in school, because of his CMC background. His Sunday School teacher commented that he was the smartest in his class.”

K.S. of Allen Park had her children in CMC and says: “The public school couldn’t offer my daughter a regular math class because she was so advanced.”

P.P. of Grosse Ile says: “I could really see a difference in my children that attended CMC. They were far beyond my first child in what they had learned.”

History  |  Rewards and Incentives  |  Parent Reviews  |  Curriculum  |  Environment  |  FAQs

Why Choose CMC? - Curriculum

The Montessori curriculum is organized as an inclined spiral plane of integrated studies rather than a traditional model in which the curriculum is compartmentalized into separate subjects, with topics considered only once at a grade level.

The Montessori course of study is an integrated thematic approach that ties the separate disciplines of the curriculum together into studies of the physical universe, the world of nature, and the human experience.

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Why Choose CMC? - Environment

A Montessori environment represents a social and emotional environment where children are respected and empowered as individual human beings. It is an extended family where a young child learns to believe in himself. Confident in himself, the child opens up to the world around him and finds that mistakes are not something to be feared, but rather the endless opportunity to learn from experience.

Creative Montessori Center has Montessori certified teachers, with an assistant in each classroom. Our teachers are very well established at CMC, with 30 combined years in our program. CMC has consistently maintained a low turnover in staff, which provides a stable environment for the children.

CMC offers separate instruction for our Pre Primary program, which is Art, Music, Sign Language, Phys-Ed, Discovery and Computers.

CMC offers separate instruction for grades 1 through 3, which is Art, Music – History & Appreciation, Music Theory, Discovery, Current Events, Computers, Keyboarding, Spanish, French and Phys-Ed.

CMC offers separate instruction for grades 4 through 6, which is Art, Music History, Music Theory, Discovery, Current Events, Computers, Keyboarding, Instrumental Music (optional), Spanish, French and Phys-Ed.

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Why Choose CMC? - FAQ

What should we look for when we visit Montessori schools?

  The Montessori Learning Environment

• Montessori classrooms should be bright, warm, and inviting, filled with plants, animals, art, music,and books. Interest centers will be filled with intriguing learning materials, mathematical models, maps, charts, international and historical artifacts, a class library, an art area, a small natural-science museum, and animals that the children are raising. In an elementary class, you will also normally find computers and scientific apparatus.
• You should not find rows of desks in a Montessori classroom. There will not be a teacher’s desk and chalk board in the front of the room. The environment will be set up to facilitate student discussion and stimulate collaborative learning.
• Montessori classrooms will be organized into several curriculum areas, usually including: language arts (reading, literature, grammar, creative writing, spelling, and handwriting); mathematics and geometry; everyday living skills; sensory-awareness exercises and puzzles; geography, history, science, art, music, and movement. Most rooms will include a classroom library. Each area will be made up of one or more shelf units, cabinets, and display tables with a wide variety of materials on open display, ready for use as the children select them.
• Students will typically be found scattered around the classroom, working alone or with one or two others. Teachers will normally be found working with one or two children at a time, advising, presenting a new lesson, or quietly observing the class at work.

Will My Child Be Able to Adjust to Traditional Public or Private Schools After Montessori?

• By the end of age five, Montessori children are normally curious, self-confident learners who look forward to going to school. They are normally engaged, enthusiastic learners who honestly want to learn and who ask excellent questions. Montessori children by age six have spent three or four years in a school where they were treated with honesty and respect. While there were clear expectations and ground rules, within that framework, their opinions and questions were taken quite seriously. Unfortunately, there are still some teachers and schools where children who ask questions are seen as challenging authority. It is not hard to imagine an independent Montessori child asking his new teacher, “But why do I have to ask each time I need to use the bathroom?” or, “Why do I have to stop my work right now?” We also have to remember that children are different. One child may be very sensitive or have special needs that might not be met well in a teacher-centered traditional classroom. Other children can succeed in any type of school. There is nothing inherent in Montessori that causes children to have a hard time if they are transferred to traditional schools. Some will be bored. Others may not understand why everyone in the class has to do the same thing at the same time. But most adapt to their new setting fairly quickly, making new friends, and succeeding within the definition of success understood in their new school.

Is Montessori for All Children?

• The Montessori system has been used successfully with children from all socioeconomic levels, representing those in regular classes as well as the gifted, children with developmental delays, and children with emotional and physical disabilities. There is no one school that is right for all children, and certainly there are children who may do better in a smaller classroom setting with a more teacher-directed program that offers fewer choices and more consistent external structure. Children who are easily overstimulated, or those who tend to be overly aggressive, may be examples of children who might not adapt as easily to a Montessori program. Each situation is different, and it is best to work with the schools in your area to see if it appears that a particular child and school would be a good match.

Why do Montessori classes group different age levels together?

• Sometimes parents worry that by having younger children in the same class as older ones, one group or the other will be shortchanged. They fear that the younger children will absorb the teachers’ time and attention, or that the importance of covering the kindergarten curriculum for the five-year-olds will prevent them from giving the three- and four-year-olds the emotional support and stimulation that they need. Both concerns are misguided. At each level, Montessori programs are designed to address the developmental characteristics normal to children in that stage.
• Montessori classes are organized to encompass a two- or three-year age span, which allows younger students the stimulation of older children, who in turn benefit from serving as role models. Each child learns at her own pace and will be ready for any given lesson in her own time, not on the teacher’s schedule of lessons. In a mixed-age class, children can always find peers who are working at their current level.
• Children normally stay in the same class for three years. With two-thirds of the class normally returning each year, the classroom culture tends to remain quite stable.
• Working in one class for two or three years allows students to develop a strong sense of community with their classmates and teachers. The age range also allows especially gifted children the stimulation of intellectual peers, without requiring that they skip a grade or feel emotionally out of place.

How Can Montessori Teachers Meet the Needs of So Many Different Children?

• Great teachers help learners get to the point where their minds and hearts are open, leaving them ready to learn. In effective schools, students are not so much motivated by getting good grades as they are by a basic love of learning. As parents know their own children’s learning styles and temperaments, teachers, too, develop this sense of each child’s uniqueness by spending a number of years with the students and their parents.
• Dr. Montessori believed that teachers should focus on the child as a person, not on the daily lesson plan. Montessori teachers lead children to ask questions, think for themselves, explore, investigate, and discover. Their ultimate objective is to help their students to learn independently and retain the curiosity, creativity, and intelligence with which they were born. As we said in an earlier chapter, Montessori teachers don’t simply present lessons; they are facilitators, mentors, coaches, and guides. Traditionally, teachers have told us that they “teach students the basic facts and skills that they will need to succeed in the world.” Studies show that in many classrooms, a substantial portion of the day is spent on discipline and classroom management. Normally, Montessori teachers will not spend much time teaching lessons to the whole class. Their primary role is to prepare and maintain the physical, intellectual, and social/emotional environment within which the children will work. A key aspect of this is the selection of intriguing and developmentally appropriate learning activities to meet the needs and interests of each child in the class. Montessori teachers usually present lessons to small groups of children at one time and limit lessons to brief and very clear presentations. The goal is to give the children just enough to capture their attention and spark their interest, intriguing them enough that they will come back on their own to work with the learning materials. Montessori teachers closely monitor their students’ progress. Because they normally work with each child for two or three years, they get to know their students’ strengths and weaknesses, interests, and personalities extremely well. Montessori teachers often use the children’s interests to enrich the curriculum and provide alternate avenues for accomplishment and success.

Is Montessori Unstructured?

• At first, Montessori may look unstructured to some people, but it is actually quite structured at every level. Just because the Montessori program is highly individualized does not mean that students can do whatever they want. Like all children, Montessori students live within a cultural context that involves the mastery of skills and knowledge that are considered essential. Montessori teaches all of the “basics,” along with giving students the opportunity to investigate and learn subjects that are of particular interest. It also allows them the ability to set their own schedule to a large degree during class time. At the early childhood level, external structure is limited to clear-cut ground rules and correct procedures that provide guidelines and structure for three- and four-year-olds. By age five, most schools introduce some sort of formal system to help students keep track of what they have accomplished and what they still need to complete. Elementary Montessori children normally work with a written study plan for the day or week. It lists the tasks that they need to complete, while allowing them to decide how long to spend on each and what order they would like to follow. Beyond these basic, individually tailored assignments, children explore topics that capture their interest and imagination and share them with their classmates.

What if a Child Doesn’t Feel Like Working?

• While Montessori students are allowed considerable latitude to pursue topics that interest them, this freedom is not absolute. Within every society there are cultural norms; expectations for what a student should know and be able to do by a certain age.
• Experienced Montessori teachers are conscious of these standards and provide as much structure and support as is necessary to ensure that students live up to them. If for some reason it appears that a child needs time and support until he or she is developmentally ready, Montessori teachers provide it non-judgmentally.

Wasn’t Montessori’s Method First Developed for Children with Severe Developmental Delays?

• The Montessori approach evolved over many years as the result of Dr. Montessori’s work with different populations and age groups. One of the earliest groups with which she worked was a population of children who had been placed in a residentialcare setting because of severe developmental delays. The Method is used today with a wide range of children, but it is most commonly found in settings designed for normal populations.

Is Montessori Effective With the Very Highly Gifted Child?

• Yes, in general, children who are highly gifted will find Montessori to be both intellectually challenging and flexible enough to respond to them as a unique individuals.

What’s the Big Deal about Freedom And Independence in Montessori?

• Children touch and manipulate everything in their environment. In a sense, the human mind is handmade, because through movement and touch, the child explores, manipulates, and builds a storehouse of impressions about the physical world around her. Children learn best by doing, and this requires movement and spontaneous investigation. Montessori children are free to move about, working alone or with others at will. They may select any activity and work with it as long as they wish, so long as they do not disturb anyone or damage anything, and as long as they put it back where it belongs when they are finished. Many exercises, especially at the early childhood level, are designed to draw children’s attention to the sensory properties of objects within their environment: size, shape, color, texture, weight, smell, sound, etc.
• Gradually, they learn to pay attention, seeing more clearly small details in the things around them. They have begun to observe and appreciate their environment. This is a key in helping children discover how to learn. Freedom is a second critical issue as children begin to explore. Our goal is less to teach them facts and concepts, but rather to help them to fall in love with the process of focusing their complete attention on something and mastering its challenge with enthusiasm. Work assigned by adults rarely results in such enthusiasm and interest as does work that children freely choose for themselves. The prepared environment of the Montessori class is a learning laboratory in which children are allowed to explore, discover, and select their own work. The independence that the children gain is not only empowering on a social and emotional basis, but it is also intrinsically involved with helping them become comfortable and confident in their ability to master the environment, ask questions, puzzle out the answer, and learn without needing to be “spoon-fed” by an adult.

The Montessori Way: An Education for Life
By Tim Seldin & Paul Epstein Ph.D.