Welcome to Appleton Public Montessori
Appleton Public Montessori (APM) is a charter school within the Appleton Area School District. APM was established in 2005 as a charter school within its host school, Johnston Elementary. The two schools developed a strong working relationship to the benefit of students and families, and both schools flourished.
However, with the establishment of the Children’s House serving children ages 4 and 5, it became necessary for APM to look for its own building in which to grow and mature to its potential. We started with two classrooms and have grown over the years to have six classrooms.
Thus, in 2013 Appleton Public Montessori moved to its present site within Plamann Park. As its own entity, APM now has the ability to fully grow into everything it has envisioned for itself.
What is an authentic Montessori education?
The Montessori method is a child centered approach utilizing multi-aged classrooms. Each of our rooms offer a prepared environment with specific, hands on, sequential materials. Each child contributes to their learning or work plan by selecting work and concentrating on it for up to three hours during work time. Our students programming also includes Spanish, performing and visual arts and physical and environmental education. We have many goals for the children at APM, but most of all we hope they “learn to love to learn.”
Mission
Appleton Public Montessori seeks to nurture the full potential of every child through the presence of the Montessori philosophy in all learning environments, encouraging intrinsic motivation, and instilling a love of learning, now and for a lifetime.
Who We Are
Appleton Public Montessori is committed to the development of the whole child by implementing curriculum and methodology based on the Montessori philosophy of education and human development. We seek to maximize the potential of every child in a structured, hands-on, and beautifully crafted environment that encourages critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity. In a classroom filled with peace and joy, students become intrinsically motivated to love learning now and for a lifetime.
Guiding Principles
- To enable each student — through individualized instruction based on observation and understanding of learning styles and abilities — to become an independent, responsible, and self-motivated learner.
- To structure learning environments which foster student-initiated inquiry/research and projects which develop understanding and appreciation of the world beyond the classroom.
- To encourage collaboration and communication in a beautifully crafted environment filled with peace, mutual respect, and joy.
To build character by instilling the importance of having each student be the very best they can be, contributing positively to the greater community at large.
- To engage families in the education of their children through ongoing communication, community events, and joint planning to address evolving needs and circumstances.
Methodology
- To create a prepared environment incorporating hands-on, concrete educational materials in a specified, orderly arrangement.
- To honor work blocks that allow each student to direct his or her learning time and pace under the guidance of a trained teacher.
- To build independence, responsibility, and self-discipline by allowing students to set their own goals and work to accomplish them.
- To nurture each child’s social and emotional development with the immersive study of virtues to facilitate personal growth.
- To form multi-age classrooms that promote leadership skills, cooperation, and community.
- To start preparing for life and career skills through practical life experiences.
- To build respect and appreciation for the environment through integration of the outdoors into curriculum.
- To acquire understanding of the world through the study of foreign language, Cultural Arts, and year-long cultural projects.