Elementary

Lower Elementary

Ages: 6-9

Montessori elementary classes harness the young child’s natural curiosity, imagination, and burgeoning social skills. The teacher tells epic stories that give a framework for integrating all of human knowledge. Throughout the child’s six years of elementary school, every new piece of information is connected to the greater whole, so the child has a useful body of knowledge, not a mass of “random facts.”

The curriculum is unapologetically academic, offering rigorous study in mathematics, geometry, physical science, biology, grammar, history, reading, art appreciation, music, and art production. More than this, the children learn to create meaningful relationships, how to work together, how to make and execute a plan, and more. In a Montessori Elementary classroom, the whole child is educated.

The prepared environment offers the child more than the curriculum requires. Individuals and small groups dive passionately into topics that interest them, researching, writing reports, making posters, and completing detailed projects, which they then present to the whole class. In this way, the children create a culture of work and knowledge, sharing their discoveries and learning from each other.

Upper Elementary

Ages: 9-12

The elementary child asks of the adult, “Teach me to think for myself,” and it is at the culmination of the entire elementary program that the child achieves this.

Upper elementary subject areas expand from lower elementary to include Western history, sentence diagramming, Greek and Latin roots, astronomy, geology, and more. All areas of study in the lower elementary program are continuously built upon, bringing abstract thinking, new depth, and integration to familiar material.

By the end of their sixth year, the child will move completely away from the Montessori materials and be able to work abstractly with pencil and paper alone. This is possible because of the deep understanding that comes from years of hands-on learning, which enabled them to create mental models of complex concepts.