Toddler Program

Children from 18 months — 3 years old

Montessori educators refer to the child from birth to three years as, “the joyful child.” Arbor’s Toddler Program focuses on joyful, yet purposeful, learning that fosters independence, creativity and self-esteem in our youngest students. Our two Toddler classrooms offer a Montessori early childhood education program for children 18 months to 3 years old, and take advantage of the toddler’s natural drive to act independently.

A child must be a confident walker to be eligible for enrollment in the Toddler Program. In this small group setting of 12 children, toddlers learn from and help each other under the careful guidance of a trained teacher and assistant. The early experiences within the Toddler community are thoughtfully designed to prepare children for years of future growth.

A toddler wears a yellow apron and a white baking hat while rolling out dough in the toddler classroom.

A toddler student sits at a low table drinking milk from a glass mug.

A Natural Desire for Independence

Your child has a natural drive to be independent which we encourage by creating an environment where everything is just the right size for them to do things on their own. Our teachers toilet train your child so that they are independent in the bathroom.

They also teach them other self-care skills. Child-sized tools that fit their tiny hands allow them to prepare a snack and serve it to friends. A miniature broom empowers them to clean up on their own. Your child learns a set of concrete life skills but, more importantly, develops self-confidence and the belief that they can choose to make a genuine impact on their world.

Social & Emotional Discovery

The development of emotional intelligence begins at birth. Our toddler students grow together into a close-knit, caring community under the thoughtful guidance of our faculty. Toddler develop self-awareness and the ability to articulate their feelings. They develop a greater capacity for self-regulation, as well as empathy and interpersonal skill with their peers; these skills will serve them for life. When children work, learn, and grow together, they learn more than any of them could learn alone.

Beautifully Focused Classrooms

Arbor's bright and sunny toddler classrooms are specially designed for your child between the ages of 18 and 36 months: a world scaled down to their size. All furnishings and materials meet the needs of the young child, art is hung at the child’s level on the walls, and low shelves make materials easy to reach.

Many early childhood programs are overstimulating, chaotic, and loud. Here, your child has the chance to paint, cook, water the garden, sing songs with friends, and play with materials that develop fine and gross motor coordination. Activities in the classroom foster independence and support speech and language development. In an environment that offers such appropriately sized challenges, children are expected to take on greater responsibility for taking care of themselves and others.

The calm atmosphere and lack of distraction of the toddler classrooms helps them to develop impulse control and concentration, planting the seeds for learning in this classroom and beyond.

Freedom & Movement

To be a toddler is to be curious. There are so many things to see, touch, hear, feel, and do in the classroom! Beautiful materials that stimulate their senses are rotated frequently on low shelves to pique your child’s curiosity. They are encouraged to move freely around the classroom, to choose activities and explore their own interests. Teachers observe your child closely, providing just the right lesson when they are ready and then allowing them to practice again and again (and again!) until they master it. Mistakes are viewed as learning opportunities in an atmosphere of patience, trust and respect.

Children between the ages of 0 and 3 years spend much time working on the refinement of movement. In Toddler classrooms, movement is encouraged and constant. Much a young child's learning takes place through movement in the development of muscular memory or the senses. Many materials and activities are designed to promote this style of learning through the setup and performance of the work.

Absorbing Language

Toddler faculty surround children with rich and stimulating conversation to support this once-in-a-lifetime period of rapid language development. Your child, trying to blow bubbles, might be encouraged with, “blow! Can you make the air move just like the wind?” Your child’s mind effortlessly absorbs the new vocabulary, which plants the seeds for reading, writing, and self-expression in the future.

Fostering Joyful Learning

What's Next?

Between 2 to 3 years of age, your child’s language skills and self-expression will develop rapidly; they will express a growing confidence in independence and a keen interest in broader concepts. When they are ready, in terms of personal independence and social readiness, students move up from the Toddler Program to Arbor's Primary Program, for ages 3 to 6 years old.

Inquire for Toddler

Explore Primary

Logo Image

In This Section