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| Language Arts/Math Curriculum Overview |
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Because language serves as a foundation for much of what your child learns during the elementary years, reading, writing and oral expression skills are emphasized. Building on the foundation of sound, phonics, writing and grammar skills enable students to construct an instinctive sense of their language. In the elementary classroom enriching activities give keys to language as your child undertakes the study of words, their origins, spelling and grammatical function. Children begin this adventure with the fascinating history of language from the distant past to the present. Knowing that language continually changes, reflects history and ties together the subjects of the curriculum. Reading, writing and spelling skills blossom through the work in all subjects. Writing develops in connection with explorations, research and experiments, as children want to share what they have discovered. Creative writing allows children to acquire very early in life a valuable tool for self-expression. Reading becomes an important means to satisfy interests. Lessons are given individually or in very small groups. Having acquired the mechanics of language and a sense of its history and spirit, your child will be drawn to experience poetry, prose, drama, dialogue and discussion as these relate to their developing skills and their understanding of our language. MATHEMATICS Maria Montessori described the “mathematical mind” as a universal human attribute. The materials and methods of the Montessori classroom reinforce each child’s tendency to count, compare, compute, memorize and measure. Exactness is a skill given many opportunities for development through the careful use of the materials. A progression from concrete to abstract leads to discovery and reveals math principles and concepts which can be experienced and manipulated . Through physical and mental activity with the materials, your child will acquire a profound basis for mathematics. Montessori mathematics is based on the European model which presents the study of math as a relationship between arithmetic, algebra and geometry. The ingeniously designed materials enable children to experience many concepts traditionally taught much later, including multiples, long division, fractions, and square and cubed numbers. As an understanding of the decimal system develops, children learn computational skills of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division using whole numbers, fractions, and decimals along with related word problems. Money, time, standard and metric measurement, graphs and number patterns are developed as skills with correlations to the fascinating great story of the history of mathematics. |
| Summary |
 Our staff has developed this overview to give you as a parent a format to better understand the different parts of a Montessori educational experience. Our goal is to clarify and highlight key components of the program your child will be engaged in. The elementary class is designed to balance each child's developing imagination with down to earth concrete materials in order to facilitate the development of their innate potential to its fullest.  'Children of the elementary years have an intellectual power unsurpassed at any other age'. |