About the Nonprofit
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New Vista Montessori School was founded in 2001 by a group of dedicated parents and teachers. We educate students ages 2-6. NVMS is the Roanoke Valley's only non-profit Montessori school. This means that our income is spent in the areas that most directly affect the students (i.e., high-quality teachers and school equipment.)
New Vista educates our youngest students in the 2-3 year old class. This "foundation" class stresses potty training, social skills building, development of fine and gross motor skills, improvement of language and speech, science concepts, and number/letter/shape concepts. With the 3-6-year-old program, ideally, children enter this program at 3 years of age and remain with the same teacher for all three years. This looping allows the child and teacher to get to know each other very well, and it creates a comfortable bond between the two. The multi-age classroom provides a backdrop for success in all ages. The younger children will attempt lessons that they see their older peers working on and can often acquire these skills with ease. By the same token, the older children assist in teaching the younger ones, sometimes presenting lessons in the same way that the lesson has been presented to them. This is an excellent confidence and independence builder for the older child. It also fosters a natural feeling of respect between the younger and older child.
In our Montessori prepared environment, the child can move ahead at his/her pace or repeat work as needed. Each lesson, regardless of subject, is presented with actual material to touch, feel, and explore. Teaching in this way allows the learning to progress from the concrete to the abstract. The child is self-motivated and self-directed because the classroom is structured so that the work is beautiful and appealing.
