Lower & Upper Elementary
Children ages 6 to 12 years
"To consider the school as a place where structure is given is one point of view. But to consider the school as a
preparation for life is another. In the latter case the school must satisfy all the needs of life."
- Maria Montessori (from Childhood to Adolescence)
​
Dr. Maria Montessori (1870-1952), the Italian physician, educator, and founder of The Montessori Method of education described the elementary-age child as a very different being from the younger, preschool child. In Dr. Montessori's view, successive levels of education must correspond to the successive stages of the development of the child. Thus, the educational approach for the students ages 6 to 12 is not a direct continuation of what has gone before but instead builds upon the foundation laid in early childhood.
​
Dr. Montessori reminds us of three important tendencies emerging at the elementary school age: the transition of the child's mind from concrete to abstract reasoning, the birth of moral sense, and the intensification of the drive to explore the natural and social environments.
​
The child at this stage of life shows a growing capacity for tackling problems, reasoning, socializing and harnessing the imagination.
- American Montessori Society (Montessori: The Elementary School Years Ages 6-12)
​
Social and Moral Development
The multiage classroom environment continues from the primary onto the elementary with children grouped between the ages of 6 - 9 (also known as Lower Elementary) and 9 - 12 (also known as Upper Elementary). The multiage classroom not only encourages a sense of familial community but provides a mentorship opportunity for students to reinforce their own skills as they mentor their peers.
​
In our school age program, children exhibit an intense desire to create deep and meaningful connections with their peers. They begin to take ownership of their conduct within their personal relationships and show care for the world around them. The class itself provides opportunities for students to be stewards of their community through projects, trips, and outreach experiences.
Physical and Motor Development
The Montessori Elementary classroom is characterized by freedom of movement, open work space, and uninterrupted blocks of time for individual and group projects. The features all help support children ages 6 to 12 as they work and gain control over their growing bodies and as their drive toward autonomy becomes more sophisticated.
​
Regularly scheduled periods of physical exercise that include noncompetitive sports and games help develop gross motor coordination while emphasizing the benefits of teamwork. Tackling physical challenges is a focus of this age.
​
Lessons for language, mathematics, cultural studies, and science include Montessori materials that help refine small motor skills. As the children grow, the many hands-on projects of the curriculum provide increasingly sophisticate and challenging small motor exercise.
​
​
Cognitive Development
Montessori elementary studies are based on a cultural curriculum that integrates history, geography, mathematics (including geometry and algebra), life and other sciences, language, literature, art, and music. The interdisciplinary approach helps children understand the interconnectedness of the universe as they develop creative and critical thinking skills.
​
The elementary students embarks on lessons, projects, and field trips that include individual work, cooperative work in large and small groups, and opportunities for decision-making and evaluation. A hallmark of The Montessori elementary classroom is that the children follow their own interests in choosing their work and designing follow-up projects, fostering strong internal motivation. At the late elementary level, seeds are panted for advanced concepts in math, chemistry and physical and earth sciences.
​
In keeping with Dr. Montessori's process-oriented educational philosophy, assessment of performance is based on a systematic collection of information, including observations by teachers, portfolios containing example of work, and conferences.
Impact of Montessori Education on the Child
A child who has completed a Montessori elementary program will have developed competence in social, emotional, physical, and cognitive areas. By experiencing firsthand the value of working cooperatively in a community of trust, the student will have a strong sense of her place in the world, including respect and responsibility for self, community, and the environment, and an understanding of the importance of creating a personal code of morals. She will have set the foundation for a lifelong love of learning, knowing that one may use both concrete information and one's own imagination to explore the world. Through working with a wide array of stimulating learning materials as well as real-world experiences, the student will have honed the multidimensional skills necessary for succeeding in the 21st century, including critical thinking, the ability to communicate and work collaboratively, and the ability to think creatively across disciplines.
Montessori Vs. Traditional
Mixed Ages and the Protégé Effect
In a traditional classroom, many students learn from the teacher who is the designated person that the children learn from. It is assumed that everyone is at the same level and will learn at the same pace. In the Montessori classroom, however, the children are of varying ages and skill levels. This allows them to learn from each other and to reinforce what they know. When an older or more skilled child gives a lesson to another child, they have numerous benefits such as:
-
Increased confidence and leadership ability from being able to teach another skills and knowledge that they themselves know.
-
Improved communication skills from having to communicate ideas and directions to their peers.
-
Increased understanding of the basics, as they are required to review the basics that they are teaching another. This helps to reinforce their knowledge, allowing them to gain that confidence from understanding the material or even refine their understanding of those concepts.
For the child who is receiving instruction by their peer, they are able to be active participants in their education. When interacting with another child of similar peerage, they feel that they are able to open up and identify more with what they are learning.
​
Individualization
Montessori schools are quite different from traditional, in that they are founded on the belief of individualization. We understand that not every child will learn at the same pace as their peer; some may learn sooner than others and others at a later time and that is ok! Some may learn better by working on the floor, at a desk, or needing to move about frequently. Differences in learning and working is taken into consideration in the Montessori classroom, and we do our best to work with what will be in the child’s best interests.
​
Hands On
A traditional school incorporates hands-on materials and activities, as it helps children feel engaged with what they are learning. However, a Montessori classroom takes this concept and ramps it up quite a bit by incorporating the hands-on experience in many areas of the classroom. The language curriculum, for example, utilizes symbols that children can use to visual parts of speech. Each part of speech is represented by a symbol that has its own story and reason for existing. A noun is represented as a large, black equilateral triangle because people believe that nouns may have been the first words spoken by humans to communicate, whereas a verb is signified by a red sphere because it signifies action and motion!
​
Intrinsic Motivation
Children who do well in a Montessori environment are intrinsically motivated to learn because it is matched to them and their level. They are allowed and encouraged to ask questions and to be able to curious! When we allow children to be curious, it allows their mind to be active and observant. As the mind is a muscle, the only way that it can become stronger is with exercise that curiosity is easily able to provide. This curiosity as sometimes stifled and silenced in the classroom, as some teachers may find it more of a distraction than a child’s investment in the world that we live in.