6-9 Year Olds
The elementary program, for children aged 6-9 years, offers a continuum built on the Children’s House (ages 3-6) experience. As in the Children’s House classroom, the Montessori elementary materials are a means to an end. They are intended to evoke the imagination, to aid abstraction, to generate a world view about the human task and purpose.
The child works within a philosophical system, asking questions about the origins of the universe, the nature of life, people and their differences, and so on. On a factual basis, interdisciplinary studies combine geological, biological, and anthropological science in the study of natural history and world ecology. The elementary classroom reflects a new stage of development and offers the following:
- Integration of the arts, sciences, geography, history, and language that evokes the natural imagination and abstraction of the elementary child.
- Presentation of knowledge as part of a large-scale narrative that reveals the origins of the earth, life, human communities, and modern history, always in the context of the wholeness of life. Presentation of the formal scientific language of zoology, botany, anthropology, geography, geology, etc., exposing the child to accurate, organized information and respecting the child’s intelligence and interests.
- Connective narratives that provide an inspiring overview as the organizing, integrating “Great Lessons.” Great Lessons span the history of the universe from the big bang theory of the origin of the solar system, earth, and life forms to the emergence of human cultures and the rise of civilization. Aided by impressionistic charts and timelines, the child’s study of detail in reference to the Great Lessons leads to awe and respect for the totality of knowledge.
- The use of timelines, pictures, charts, and other visual aids to provide a linguistic and visual overview of the first principles of each discipline.
- A mathematics curriculum presented with concrete materials that simultaneously reveal arithmetic, geometric, and algebraic correlations. This curriculum recognizes the child’s need for experience, for repetition, for various levels of concreteness, going from concrete to symbol to abstraction. The emphasis is on making formulae and rules a point of arrival and discovery, not a point of departure.
- An emphasis on creative writing, expository writing, interpretive reading of literature, research with primary sources, grammar and sentence analysis, spelling based on cultural studies and usage, and oral expression for both sharing research and dramatic productions.
- Emphasis on open-ended research that is student-generated and teacher-guided. Students are encouraged to wonder, to carry out research, to experiment, to develop knowledge, to make observations, to demonstrate skills. This in-depth study uses primary and secondary sources as well as other materials. Textbooks and worksheets, if present at all, are used by the children as reference materials, not as a basis for assigned or ongoing work.
