Crabapple Creek is a Montessori-based preschool program. This philosophy was developed in Italy in the early 1900’s by Dr. Maria Montessori. The classroom is set up as a prepared environment with beautiful and well-made wooden materials that allow the children to teach themselves. The teacher serves as a director who guides the children to find work that is challenging for them, observes their progress, and keeps records of work that has been presented and work that has been mastered. The program follows a carefully designed plan to help the children learn about the world through activities that are interesting and fun. The Montessori philosophy allows children to make many decisions on their own, and they can learn at their own pace in the way that works best for them.
Our curriculum includes:
- Language Activities to learn letter names, sounds, and beginning letter concepts. Children work on pre-reading skills including rhyming, opposites, and categories. Those who know their letter sounds work on phonetic words and simple readers.
- Math Activities that include recognizing numerals, counting quantities, and putting these together. We learn shapes and introduce many beginning math skills such as addition, skip counting, odd and even, sets, and the concept of zero.
- Practical Life Activities such as pouring, peg boards, buttoning, zipping, and bow‑tying, to develop fine motor skills.
- Sensorial Activities using puzzles and matching and ordering colors, shapes, sounds, smells, textures, and tastes.
- Science Activities to explore the world and nature through hands-on experiments.
- Art Activities to foster creativity, including painting, play dough and clay, and craft projects.
- Read-aloud Story Time from the best books in children’s literature during every class session to learn wonderful life lessons, develop attention span, and expand vocabulary.
- Regular Tablet Experience to develop the technical ability to use the computer as a learning tool.
- Daily Spanish Class to introduce the concept of a foreign language and learn counting, simple phrases, and songs.
- Daily Exercise to develop coordination and learn to gallop, hop, and skip.
- Music and Movement Experiences
- Monthly Cooking Projects
- Outdoor Recess (weather permitting) on our huge shaded playgrounds, complete with tree houses, slides, sandboxes, and swings.
- Nature Walks throughout the year exploring our 15‑acre campus.
- Indoor Recess with toys and walks on Crabapple Drive during bad weather.
We also support the following philanthropic community programs:
- St. Anthony and Holy Trinity Food Pantry
- White River Fire Department Christmas Angels
- Compassion International Child Sponsorship in Foreign Countries
