South-West University

"Neofit Rilski"

Established 1976

Workshop – The Montessori educational program for children aged 3 to 6

A little over 100 years ago the first woman - Medical Doctor in Italy, Maria Montessori opened an unusual child care facility in one of the workers' residential suburbs in Rome. From this time over 20 000 child care facilities are named after her.

Jenny Piriankov started applying the Montessori Method in 2002 after graduating from the College of Modern Montessori in South Africa as a Montessori Directress in her private kindergarten in Johannesburg and in 2008 she opened a Montessori Child care centre in Sofia. Today she works as a manger and a Montessori Directress in her private kindergarten - Kamelini Montessori. At the same time she is an Assistant at the department for education of preschool and primary school teachers at the South-West University in Blagoevgrad, where she shows the students in their second year how in practice the method works.

Key points in the workshop's agenda, to which Jenny will draw the attention are:

Foundations of the Montessori philosophy
Exercises in the area of:
- Practical life - how the kids learn to deal with many challenges in their early childhood
- Sensorics - discover the world through your senses
- Mathematics - the natural way to learn maths without any pressure
- Language - first writing and reading attempts - it's actually not that difficult
- Cultural:
  - History - where do we come from, what was there before we came
  - Geography - what are the most common land and water forms, what are the continents, what are actually the stars in the sky
  - Biology - the plants and animals around us, the human being as a part of the living planet.
  - Social sciences - learn to listen effectively, to place things in order, to ask politely, who manages our state, our city.
  - The role of the adult in the prepared environment.