Perkkaanpuiston Montessorikoulu (
Finnish for "Perkkaanpuisto Montessori School") was a school unit within a public school offering for the very first time in
Finland
Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...
proper primary school classes using the
Montessori
The Montessori method of education involves children's natural interests and activities rather than formal teaching methods. A Montessori classroom places an emphasis on hands-on learning and developing real-world skills. It emphasizes indepen ...
method of teaching. The school unit was run by the city of Espoo. Prior to the opening of the school unit, the Montessori method had only been used in
preschool
A preschool, also known as nursery school, pre-primary school, or play school or creche, is an educational establishment or learning space offering early childhood education to children before they begin compulsory education at primary school ...
s.
The school was first founded as a separate Montessori subdivision of the primary school in Lintuvaara,
Espoo
Espoo (, ; sv, Esbo) is a city and municipality in the region of Uusimaa in the Republic of Finland. It is located on the northern shore of the Gulf of Finland, bordering the cities of Helsinki, Vantaa, Kirkkonummi, Vihti and Nurmijärvi ...
. In the middle 1980s it moved to its own building in Perkkaa, Espoo. The school building was a
mint green
Spring green is a color that was traditionally considered to be on the yellow side of green, but in modern computer systems based on the RGB color model is halfway between cyan and green on the color wheel.
The modern spring green, when plott ...
wood
Wood is a porous and fibrous structural tissue found in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is an organic materiala natural composite of cellulose fibers that are strong in tension and embedded in a matrix of lignin th ...
en one-storey building divided into a large central "
living room", two main
classroom
A classroom or schoolroom is a learning space in which both children and adults learn. Classrooms are found in educational institutions of all kinds, ranging from preschools to universities, and may also be found in other places where education ...
s and a teachers' area.
The school housed all six classes of the Finnish primary school (''ala-aste'') system. Because of the low number of students — only about 30 in the entire school — the classrooms were divided among the classes so that classes 1—3 had one room and classes 4—6 had another. The students also had free access to the teachers' area during breaks.
The central "living room" housed the school library and the school's pets: a couple of
guinea pig
The guinea pig or domestic guinea pig (''Cavia porcellus''), also known as the cavy or domestic cavy (), is a species of rodent belonging to the genus ''Cavia'' in the family Caviidae. Breeders tend to use the word ''cavy'' to describe the ani ...
s and some
budgerigars.
The school building had to be torn down because of the
mildew infested in the wooden walls in the late 1990s. A new standard (non-Montessori) school was built in its place and the Montessori classes moved to the Ruusutorppa primary school (Ruusutorpan ala-aste).
Schools in Finland
Education in Espoo
Former buildings and structures in Finland
Montessori schools
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