Northeast Stars is progressive: constantly evaluating performance, always seeking out the best industry practices and cutting-edge techniques and tools to implement and create an unparalleled experience for families in our community.
Choose our traditional full-time program (Monday-Friday, 8:30am-3pm) or our half-day program (Monday-Friday, 8:30am-Noon) or ourSpace Sharing Programto meet your part time needs. Our after school program accommodates families who need care Monday-Friday between 3pm and 6pm.
Your child will benefit from
Low teacher/student ratio for personal attention per student
College educated teachers with Montessori training
Hands-on, child-centered Montessori curriculum
Daily activities to build confidence and improve self-help skills
Class work helps develop reading, writing and math skills
Spanish, music, sign language, yoga and science
Fieldtrips to festivals and museums
Monthly library visits
Diverse student body and staff that provides rich cultural experience
Culture and community awareness through outreach projects
To learn more about our school, select the links below.
Since 2003, Northeast Stars has played an integral role in the development of hundreds of children. Several characteristics have made the school successful and given it a competitive edge.
The school is diverse in students, teachers and enrichments.
Student to teacher ratio is low, so each child gets individual attention.
Space Sharing enables families with primary care givers at home (stay-at-home mom/dad and nannies) to experience quality education to meet their part-time needs.
The administration and staff believe culture and community are invaluable, which is evidenced in the classroom as well as in the school’s charitable contributions, global awareness activities and social events.
The tuition is competitive with other private schools. Co-ops, playschools and daycares are less expensive than private schools. Our facility has specialized teaching materials and competitive salaries for staff with college degrees and Montessori training.
The teachers are college educated and they must complete ongoing Montessori training as well as professional development requirements in areas including, but not limited to, discipline, developmental delays, allergies, literacy, CPR and first aid.
Observations are conducted on regular school days. Visitors actually see how the children and staff interact. Parents get a true impression of what goes on in the classroom.
Our Parent Education Program provides families with information on child development and practical tools and solutions to improve parent-child interaction and encourage nurturing households.
The Montessori approach offers education as an “aid to life,” assisting children in constructing themselves as they develop from three year-olds to mature adolescents through a series of developmental stages. The Montessori classroom and curriculum are designed to meet the specific needs of each developmental stage. Organized in mixed age groupings, students are provided the opportunity to engage in purposeful and meaningful activities under the direction of Montessori trained teachers. Teachers must first have a minimum of a bachelors' degree in education or related fields in order to pursue the Montessori certification.
Children have an inherent love of learning and joy in discovery. These innate tendencies are given direction by the hands-on materials and the Montessori teacher so that children develop knowledge, concentration, motivation, persistence and discipline. All work is done at the pace of the individual child.
Respect is the basis for all behavior in a Montessori classroom. Respect for the child, the adult, one’s self, and the physical environment permeate all that is important in formal and informal lessons and interactions. The mixed age groupings of each classroom allow for both individual and social development. The community of the classroom provides a safe and secure place for children to develop self-esteem and confidence, while they learn to be responsible and caring members of a society. The Montessori curriculum ties separate disciplines together into studies of the physical universe, the world of nature and the human experience. Literature, the arts, history, social issues, mathematics and science are all components of the Montessori curriculum. The curriculum is entirely open-ended, with limitless possibilities of study.
Your toddler will be welcomed into a warm, secure, positive and challenging environment where he/she can comfortably begin to explore the world. Teachers provide individual attention to help your child deal with positive experiences as well as frustrations in navigating his/her independence. The toddler classroom focuses on several key developmental areas:
Language—enrichment and extension
Socialization—beginnings of social membership
Movement exploration—large and refined motor skills
Practical life—including care of person and bathroom independence
Functional independence—completion of work cycles
Grace and courtesy—living in community with others
Your toddler will engage in many activities to support sensory and perpetual development, self-help skills, physical and motor skills, and social and emotional growth such as:
Your child will enjoy a classroom with an ambience of calm and order. Children work at their own pace with the guidance and encouragement of the teacher. Children thrive in our primary classroom because experiencing learning through practical application enables them to function confidently and completely in the activities of their everyday life.
Your child will benefit from engaging in activities that focus on key developmental areas including:
Practical life: The precise movements and sequences developed doing practical activities such as polishing, buttoning, bow tying, and lacing strengthen motor skills and concentration. Pouring, scooping and sorting activities, as well as washing a table and food preparation develop hand-eye coordination. Other activities include lessons in polite manners, such as folding hands, sitting in a chair, walking in line.
Sensorial: The sensorial materials provide a range of activities and exercises for children to experience the natural order of the physical environment, including such attributes as size, color, shape and dimension. Many materials are pre-cursors to complex math and geometry. Examples of these materials are pink tower (series of ten sequential cubes, varying in volume); knobbed cylinders (wooden blocks with 10 depressions to fit variable sized cylinders); broad stairs (ten wooden blocks, sequentially varying in two dimensions); color tablets (colored objects for matching pairs or grading shapes of color).
Mathematics: In this area, materials are provided to show such basic concepts as numeration, place value, addition, subtraction, division and multiplication. For numeration, there is a set of ten rods, with segments colored red and blue and “spindle boxes”, which consist of placing sets of objects in groups, 1–10, into separate compartments. For learning the numeral symbols, there is a set of sandpaper numerals, 1–9. For learning addition, subtraction, and place value, materials provide decimal representation of 1, 10, 100, etc., in various shapes made of beads, plastic, or wood. Beyond the basic math materials, there are materials to show the concept of fraction, geometrical relationships and algebra, such as the binomial and trinomial theorems.
Language: Montessori language materials provide experiences to develop use of a writing instrument and the basic skills of reading a written language. For writing skill development, the metal insets provide essential exercises to guide the child's hand in following different outline shapes while using a pencil or pen. For reading, a set of individual letters, commonly known as sandpaper letters, provide the basic means for associating the individual letter symbols with their corresponding phonetic sounds. Displaying several letters guides children to learn the letter sounds, which finally blend together to make certain simple phonetic words like “up” and “cat”. The aim of these lessons is to show the child that letters make sounds, which can be blended together to make words.
Cultural Studies: The world’s geography and peoples are explored through such materials as maps, globes, flags, water and landforms, books, and cultural suitcases containing country-specific materials.
Integrated Art and Music: The arts are incorporated into daily classroom activities from painting and creating sculptures from basic craft materials, to studying origins and expressions of music through listening, playing and performing.
Science: The children conduct and observe various experiments with simple equipment. They learn to identify and classify. The preschool curriculum includes work in zoology, biology, and botany.
Northeast Stars continues to meet the needs of families in our community by providing education on child development to improve parent-child interaction and encourage nurturing ouseholds. The program covers a variety of topics including
What is Montessori?
Mirroring Montessori at Home
Effective Discipline
Language to Improve Communication
Raising Healthy Eaters
Note: At present, this program is restricted to families currently enrolled at Northeast Stars.
