My daughter completed the three-year primary program at Violeta. It was an outstanding experience…read morefor our family.
Her first interaction with Violeta was a picnic for incoming families, followed by an individual home visit by her teachers before the first school year began. From day 1, the teachers and students are not strangers, thanks to the introductory events. Here's how Violeta continued to support my child's development:
The mixed-age model was very effective at giving her practice leading and taking leadership from other children. In the first year, she mimicked the advanced children and took interest in more advanced tasks. By her third year, she was proud of receiving the more difficult presentations from the teachers (like division) and assisting younger classmates in learning skills she was already proficient with (like tracing, grading colors, and phonetics). I am thrilled to see my daughter, at age 6, already has teaching experience herself.
Setting the table, using a napkin to wipe her mouth between messy bites, doing dishes, washing napkins, pouring her own glass of water from a pitcher, sewing with a needle and thread, tying her shoes, preparing a snack for herself and a friend, planting and harvesting from the garden, asking for help and helping others. Every day the teachers did this with the children, so my daughter's life skills are second nature now. The teachers are very thoughtful in how they design and prepare the environment to allow every student to practice at their own level before advancing to more challenging tasks and skills.
Perhaps most importantly, Violeta has cultivated my daughter's motivation to learn, her skill to learn through observation and hands-on practice (standard in Montessori), and her ability to focus. At home, she self-initiates projects and remains on task without losing focus. She is attentive to her environment, thoughtful about what is around her, and happy to spend a day without screens.
Violeta does not use screens. The school offers many ways for children to experience all their senses: smelling distinct scents in bottles, listening to world music with headphones, tending to living plants and animals, exploring the outdoors twice a day, and working with natural materials like arranging flowers for display.
With bilingual instruction reinforced by proactive daily practice (e.g., Spanish mealtime conversations, workbooks, audiobooks, bedtime stories and more) beyond school hours, my daughter's language development has thrived. She has learned to do math, read, write, and build relationships with all ages in Spanish and English. For her, fluency has been a natural outcome of bilingual practice at home and at school.
