Elementary Program

The educational approach of a Montessori classroom at the elementary level has been called “Cosmic Education”, a concept dating back to ancient Greece. This term denotes the holistic, integrative method of learning employed at this level: the children are encouraged to explore all facets of the world around them and to view them in harmony with each other. The elementary curriculum is responsible to fulfill the obligations of the Public School Curriculum, but is by no means limited to it.

The elementary child, in contrast to the primary child, is chiefly interested in how and why things function the way they do. Maria Montessori called this the “second plane of development”. in the elementary classroom, we open doors to the various paths of knowledge. We want the children to get a glimpse of what lies beyond so they can choose their own particular paths. Storytelling is the method that we use to open the doors to the universe. The child of the second plane asks for reality, but one that can be explored by his or her imagination. The five “Great Lessons” form a framework for exploring the cosmos:

1. The Vision of the Whole universe
2. The story of the Coming of Life
3. The story of the Coming of Human Beings
4. The story of Language
5. The story of Numbers

Without the Great Lessons, the elementary class would be reduced to a matter of syllabus, curriculum material and subject matter; instead, the Great Lessons set the stage for imaginative exploration. They are further divided into nine subjects as follows.

Mathematics

Dr. Montessori believed mathematics should be easy for all children to grasp, rather than something in which just a few can excel. The elementary math curriculum builds on the primary curriculum: the students continue to work with the four mathematical operations. They also learn squaring and cubing, after which they have the foundation for extracting a number for a square or a cube. They also work in other bases other than the decimal system and explore algebra and the history of math.

Geometry

The elementary geometry program covers the following six areas: 1) Congruence, equivalence, and similarity,

2) Polygons, 3) Angles, 4) Lines, 5) Plane Figures, 6) Solid Geometry. The lessons are presented creatively to allow the child to interact with the materials and explore them for himself.

Language

Children at this age are very interested in the origins of language, the origin of sounds, the construction of sentences, and other fundamentals. Again, in the elementary classroom, the subject is presented as a series of stories that capture children’s imagination, such as the story of spoken English, the story of written symbols, and the history of writing materials and implements. We study etymology because it touches people of the past and people of different lands, bringing the subject alive.