Under Twos
The Miro Room is a nurturing and homely space for infants and toddlers aged 10 months to 2.5 years
Miro Room
The Miro Room, and garden, is a beautiful homelike space that provides its community with a sense of warmth and family – a safe place to share our days together. Both the Montessori and Pikler philosophies, where respect of the child is placed firmly at the centre of all that we do, guide both the educators practice and their preparation of the environment. The Miro Room at our Tukuka Street site was purpose built to meet the needs of our youngest tamariki. It is licensed for twelve tamariki / children with three registered kaiako / teachers. The philosophy at the Miro Room is guided by both Emi Pikler and Dr Maria Montessori.
session Times
8.30am – 12.30pm, Monday to Friday
8.30am – 2.30pm, Monday to Friday
8.30am – 3.30pm, Monday to Friday
We encourage a minimum enrolment of 12 hours per week as this will enable you child to develop strong relationships with both the teachers and the other tamariki, as well as become familiar with the space and its routines. With this familiarity, your child will be able to feel safe and comfortable ready to explore and learn.
As the region’s first provider of Montessori education for this age group, our teaching team constantly strive to provide experiences that delight and challenge.
As you enter Miro Room you might see tamariki focused on their threading, making themselves a snack or delighting in the illustrations of a book. Look a little closer and you will find teachers quietly working alongside our young friends giving them the time and space to develop concentration and persist through their frustrations. Mastering a puzzle, putting on their own shorts, or releasing into sleep in the bedroom all take practice. Outdoors in the garden another child is curled up in the swing while two tamariki run gleefully up and down the hill. Half an hour later every child may have transferred to a completely different activity, such is the life of a toddler. It’s a period of intense emotions, passion, and discovery!
The Importance Of Kotahitanga Or Community In Miro Room
In te reo Maori “Miro” is the name of a native brown pine, but it also means to spin, twirl and twist. We named our space Miro Room because we aspire to weave our hearts, minds and actions together to create one strong peaceful unit.
We work alongside parents to build a community of whanau / families and tamariki – as our relationships strengthen so does our knowledge around how best to meet the needs and aspirations of each unique individual. Family picnics, parent information evenings, a community calendar to highlight, celebrate and acknowledge the uniqueness of each family. Running alongside these are the day-to-day informal chats and more formal feedback around your child’s learning and development.
We strongly value all that you are happy to share with us. This too is in response to research which continues to press the critical role love and strong relationships play in literally growing the infant and toddlers brain. Children must feel safe and secure in order for learning to occur.
Every child in our community has a key teacher, or primary caregiver. For us, primary caregiving does not mean that each child is involved exclusively with one adult. Rather, each staff member remains committed to the care of all children but with one person taking overall responsibility for communicating with a child’s family. The key teacher also carries out the intimate care moments for your child and they benefit from this predictability.
Areas Of Ako / Learning In Miro Room
The Montessori curriculum for infants and toddlers is focused on four main areas of learning; the drive for independence, movement, language and sensory exploration.
From an incredibly young age, children delight in being involved in everyday life; be it bringing in the washing, putting objects in a shopping trolley or sweeping the floor.
Contribution to their community builds on a child’s independence, sense of satisfaction and self-esteem. In Miro Room this could include preparing a snack, caring for plants, setting the table or eating as a community.
It’s a tricky task but we seek “never to help a child with a task at which he feels he can succeed” – such wonderful opportunities to develop persistence, concentration, resilience as they seek to solve their daily challenges.
From the moment of birth children seek to move; first eyes and mouths, heads, arms and legs. Before you know it their inner teacher is driving them to roll, crawl, sit and stand. Our environment enables infants and toddlers to continue this growth with hills, stairs, trolleys, wagons and wheelbarrows in answer to their urge for movement. As soon as one milestone is mastered we see them striving to increase its level of challenge, they truly do learn to move as they move to learn.
Not only do children learn the words of their mother-tongue without being ‘taught’ but they also absorb the syntax and meaning with perfect pronunciation. At Montessori tamariki experience language through books, poetry, waiata, telling stories, language games, music and of course lots and lots of conversations.
We strive for our language to be rich, full of real words used in real-life experiences in acknowledgement that these very young tamariki simply soak up all the language that surrounds them. Language is like a magical gift that the children unfold with wonder and delight every day.
Not only do children learn the words of their mother-tongue without being ‘taught’ but they also absorb the syntax and meaning with perfect pronunciation. At Montessori tamariki experience language through books, poetry, waiata, telling stories, language games, music and of course lots and lots of conversations.
We strive for our language to be rich, full of real words used in real-life experiences in acknowledgement that these very young tamariki simply soak up all the language that surrounds them. Language is like a magical gift that the children unfold with wonder and delight every day.
Practical Life
Movement
Language
The Sensory Explorer