River Garden

Curriculum Overview

The program’s curriculum is designed to foster critical and creative thinking. A respect for tradition, coupled with a commitment to educational excellence and innovation, guides the implementation of an enriched curriculum. This program will help students become positive, productive, and respectful members of society, developing a sound sense of self-understanding as well as social and emotional well-being.

The Montessori classroom is organized into five interest areas: Practical Life, Sensorial, Language, Mathematics, and Social Studies/Science. Students select materials and places to work, and become immersed in the activities they have chosen. Teachers may watch, allowing students the time and freedom necessary for them to solve problems, to practice a skill for mastery, and to raise new questions. The teacher may intervene to help a student organize his or her thinking, pose new problems or teach a new skill. Teachers monitor the students’ use of materials in each interest area and change the activities when students are ready for new challenges or different approaches to master the skills or learn the concepts being presented.

The River Garden Program is unique because it offers an integrated curriculum. Each unit will have its own specific content objectives, but all units share fundamental characteristics. The curriculum seamlessly merges Islamic ideas and concepts into the five interest areas to illustrate that Islam is a part of everything we do in our lives. Lessons on the five pillars of Islam – Faith, Prayer, Fasting, Charity, and Pilgrimage – are presented in a practical and meaningful way. Various activities will emphasize basic principles of faith such as believing in one God, His creation, and His Prophets. Children start the day with prayer and may return to the spirituality station throughout the session if they wish. They also have the opportunity to memorize Qur’an and begin learning how to read Arabic. Finally, there is a charity box set up so that children may bring in their own items to donate as often as they wish.

By presenting Islamic ideas and concepts within each subject area, students will understand that education is more broadly defined than the learning of information related to math, language or science. River Garden aims to inculcate a love for God and our beloved Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings upon him) in every facet of life, for which the classroom is an early stage microcosm. As they travel through the various interest areas, they continue to develop their relationship with God. River Garden teaches children to develop the ability to make intelligent and responsible choices and to have strong convictions as they grow into this world.

Practical Life
The activities in this area allow students to participate in the real work of caring for the environment, caring for themselves, and learning to be positive members of their classroom community. Students may learn to perform the ritual ablution before prayer, to sort and measure a variety of objects, and to take responsibility for the orderliness and cleanliness of their classroom.

Sensorial
The purpose of the sensorial materials is to sharpen the student’s awareness and observational skills. Students work with materials that may challenge them to distinguish among sounds, smells, textures, or hues. Through the activities students develop their sense of order and sequence. Students also master spatial concepts and mathematical vocabulary that they will need to explore their world.

Language
The materials and activities in this center encourage the student’s natural language development through storytelling, categorizing and matching activities. Rhyming games, the movable alphabet and other activities that invite inventive spelling fill this interest center. Children are eager to become literate when they are surrounded by meaningful print and encouraged to read and write for real, authentic purposes. The language center invites students to process print both accurately and purposefully. Good books are also a part of the classroom language center, and students can listen to them, look at them, and eventually read them. Activities in this center will be provided in both the English and Arabic Languages.

Math
This center encourages students to move from concrete experiences to abstract concepts. Students develop number concepts, counting skills, the ability to manipulate numbers, discover patterns and solve problems.

Social Studies/Science
The focus of the social studies curriculum is the children’s world – their families, friends, homes, clothing, food and other parts of their daily lives outside of the classroom. The goal of this center is to help children develop an appreciation of the qualities that make each of us unique as well as the qualities and conditions that link us as human beings. In the science portion of the center, students explore the natural world and sharpen their observational powers, and their ability to categorize. They explore the world of plants, animals and life cycles. They learn the prayer times and their sequence according to the time of day.

Our hope is to build a community where understanding and mutual respect are encouraged, and where appreciation of the individual, civility, gratitude, honesty, kindness, consideration, responsibility and community service are nurtured as the child’s moral development progresses. We believe that the joy and excitement of learning is innate in a child, and we hope to encourage students to become critical thinkers as well as independent and life-long learners.