Our curriculum

From Preschool to 5th grade, our program brings together the best of the French and the American curricula . Our program is taught equally in French and in English (except for Nursery). Students have two teachers and therefore discover two linguistic and cultural worlds. Opting for a bilingual school will provide your child with the opportu- nity to later enrol in international schools that offer International Baccalaureate
curricula in particular.

Preschool

Our program has three levels:

  • Nursery (Petite section): 3 years old
  • Pre-K (Moyenne section):4 years old
  • Kindergarten (Grande section):5 years old

Our program is structured in five areas of development:

  • Language Development (spoken and written languages)
  • Social and Emotional skills
  • Cognitive Development
  • Physical Development
  • Creativity

BSB teachers work together to create a warm and nurturing atmosphere. Our curriculum promotes mastery of basic reading, writing, and math skills.

In addition to the academic aspects, our program promotes emotional, social, creative and physical development .

Deployment of the Montessori method in kindergarten – Practical life

Introduction

Have you ever wondered why your child is fascinated with how you fold the towels, set the table, or mop the floor? Children, like all human beings, want to communicate with others, to do important work, and contribute to society.

This desire is particularly strong in young children as they develop the mental and physical skills to stand, walk, use their hands, and participate in real work.

What is Practical Life?

Practical Life activities are purposeful tasks that simulate the activities involved in everyday life.

The child observes these activities within their world and gains knowledge of them through experience using Practical Life materials in the prepared environment of the Montessori classroom. Practical Life activities are culture specific and provide children with the opportunity to develop a sense of being and belonging by participating in the activities of daily life.

Five Areas of Practical Life
  • In the Preliminary Exercises, children learn the basic movements of all societies, such as pouring, folding and carrying.
  • Care of Self incorporates activities connected with personal care and the maintenance involved in everyday life, such as washing hands, and getting dressed.
  • Care for the Environment is focused on teaching children how to interact with their environment. Typical activities include: watering a plant, washing a table, and arranging flowers.
  • Through Grace and Courtesy exercises children learn the skills associated with social interactions. Key activities include greetings, introducing oneself, and how to appropriately interrupt others.
  • Control of Movement is focused on teaching children to refine and coordinate control of their bodies through activities such as walking on the line and the silence game.

Deployment of the Montessori method in kindergarten – Sensorial life

Montessori sensorial activities are those which refine the five senses – tactile, visual, auditory, olfactory, and gustatory senses. Children are particularly receptive to developing their senses from ages 2-6, and it’s important to give children at those ages as many sensorial experiences as possible.

What is Sensorial Work

The purpose and aim of Sensorial work is for the child to acquire clear, conscious, information and to be able to then make classifications in his environment. Montessori believed that sensorial experiences began at birth. Through his senses, the child studies his environment. Through this study, the child then begins to understand his environment. The child, to Montessori, is a “sensorial explorer”.

Through work with the sensorial materials, the child is given the keys to classifying the things around him, which leads to the child making his own experiences in his environment. Through the classification, the child is also offered the first steps in organizing his intelligence, which then leads to his adapting to his environment.

 

Exercise Groups

  1. In the Visual Sense Exercises, the child learns how to visually discriminate differences between similar objects and differing objects.
  2. In the Tactile Sense Exercises, the child learns through his sense of touch. “Although the sense of touch is spread throughout the surface of the body, the Exercises given to the children are limited to the tips of the fingers, and particularly, to those of the right hand.” (Montessori, Maria) This allows the child to really focus on what he is feeling, through a concentration of a small part of his body.
  3. In the Baric sense Exercises, the child learns to feel the difference of pressure or weight of different objects. This sense is heightened through the use of a blindfold or of closing your eyes.
  4. In the Thermic Sense Exercises, the child works to refine his sense of temperature.
  5. In the Auditory Sense Exercises, the child discriminates between different sounds. In doing these different Exercises, the child will refine and make him more sensitive to the sounds in his environment.
  6. In the Olfactory and Gustatory Sense Exercises, the child is given a key to his smelling and tasting sense. Although not all smells or tastes are given to the child in these Exercises, the child does work to distinguish one smell from another or one taste from another. He can then take these senses, and apply them to other smells or tastes in his environment.

Elementary

Our program is structured in five levels divided into two cycles:

Cycle 2 :

  • First grade (at the age of 6 years)
  • Second grade (at the age of 7)
  • Third grade (at the age of 8)

Cycle 3:

  • Fourth grade (at the age of 9)
  • Fifth grade (at the age of 10)

The Cycle 2 program is structured around the following areas:

  • Proficiency in languages (French and English), both oral and written
  • Mathematics
  • Question the world (science, history and geography)
  • Physical education and sport
  • Arts education

The Cycle 3 program is structured around the following areas:

  • Proficiency in languages (French and English), both oral and written
  • Mathematics
  • Science and technology
  • History and geography
  • Physical education and sport
  • Arts education and art history