About Us
Our Preschool – the Children’s House!
The Montessori Preschool is strategically located in Bourkelands, close to several main arterial roads that link the southernmost Wagga suburbs to the city. The site and curriculum were identified as a result of a robust needs assessment which identified a distinct lack of early childhood curriculum options in Wagga when compared to mainstream childcare.
The Montessori Preschool provides places for 96 children from one year of age to school age. Our centre has been purpose built to support an authentic Montessori learning environment. The facility is an environmentally sustainable design which offers children unique and exciting learning spaces with large light-filled rooms, specially developed living gardens and outdoor play areas.
The Montessori Preschool aims to establish a benchmark in Wagga for outdoor play as a fundamental aspect of early childhood development. The outside learning environment is unique and offers a diverse and tactile series of nature-based play spaces that provide a backdrop for the centre’s learning programs. Incorporating two sandpits, digging patch (mud pit) and watercourse, bike path, swings, obstacle course, fort, sensory pathways, trees, kitchen garden and two flexible-use softfall areas, the gardens vary in season and theme to showcase the diversity of the natural world.
Our Rooms
“We must give him an opportunity in which he can live and play” Maria Montessori
We have 4 large rooms, each named after a famous Montessori student. Our preschool employs a range of highly qualified educators including Montessori qualified Directress’s, Early Childhood Teachers and Early Childhood Educators. Our staff have many years’ experience in both early childhood and Montessori sectors providing a wonderful blend of knowledge and skills.
Our Montessori classrooms are filled with real life materials (glass and ceramic) which are accessible to children at all times and displayed on open shelving around the room. Our carefully prepared and presented inside environment acts as a stimulus to engage children leading to self-discovery of the many and varied materials and activities.
The whole environment provides children with the freedom to follow their natural tendencies towards independence, exploration, co-operation, order, repetition, imagination and communication. The building design (internal and external), the equipment and materials suit the needs of the children at each stage of their development.