Montessori Tides School – Jacksonville Beach, FL

Math for the child is like all the other subjects found in the Montessori Tides curriculum, it develops from the child’s own interest and desire to learn. Many people misunderstand, at first, what it means for a child to desire to learn math at such a young age (3-6). They remember how they learned addition, subtraction and multiplication tables, hours upon hours of tedious and painful repetition.

Today this same boring method is still the approach in many conventional preschool and elementary school settings. I will never forget the day when my daughter was in 2nd grade and made an alarming statement, “I hate math as much as my teacher hates teaching it”. I can assure the root of her statement wasn’t the child’s lack or teacher’s lack. Clearly the school system had allowed math to take on

Montessori Tides School continues to stoke the flame. In the video below, Nancy Hatton, Lead Lower-Elementary Directress shares to you a living and breathing story about teaching the child.

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Brad Hatton shared once, “Montessori teachers don’t find Montessori, Montessori finds them.” I feel this quote speaks volumes to the kind of teachers Tides beholds…those who are filled with a great love.

One day while observing in Ms. Nancy’s classroom a child was visiting from a conventional school with no prior Montessori experience. On that day I had a very special thought explode in my mind about Ms. Nancy. “There is nothing she couldn’t take on and that I am convinced of.” I now understand fully there is not a child Montessori Tides couldn’t teach because they

At Montessori Tides you can observe a school where students joyfully chose math over everything else, and where teachers simply serve the development of the mathematical mind.

Ms. Nancy shared, “My presence is to simply spark interest, light a torch, and then watch the children research and follow their inner drive to discover and unfold their joy for learning.”

Above all, Nancy feels teaching mathematics must be offered in a spirit of enjoyment and not an imposed requirement. Montessori manipulative materials are activates that nourishes the mathematical mind, but the real value is found in Ms. Nancy approach to present mathematics in a spirit of fun and ease.

Estimation Guesses

In searching to serve her student’s best, Nancy discovered a fun and cognitive way to better teach estimation. Each week a different student is responsible to take home a jar and fill it with reasonable sized materials that can be easily

In the video below, Nancy Hatton, Lower Elementary Teacher, presents a new math lesson: The Multiplication Bead Board. She and her student draw a clearer picture of how symbols on paper can only make sense to a child after sensorial experience. When a school removes real objects from learning math concepts, the study can become dry and meaningless. Montessori felt, by feeding a child’s natural interest in all aspects of mathematics, we serve by giving sensorial experiences first and only then the representatives on paper.

The development of the mathematical mind starts with practical life and sensorial exploration in toddler level. Once a child has journeyed through primary, their skills are refined and developed, bringing it all together in the lower elementary level.

Montessori materials are certainly ingenious, watch to see one fresh touch!

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