Click here for an overview of the Elementary Curriculum
Our Elementary program is fully recognized by the Association Montessori International (AMI) and is designed for children from 6-12 years old (grades 1-6). Elementary is a full day experience offered at our Phoenixville campus. Classes meet Monday-Friday from 8:15am-3:15pm.
The Montessori Elementary program expands your child’s knowledge utilizing the foundational concepts established in the Primary program. Your child is entering a new developmental period; this imaginative, social, creative child needs a planned environment and expansive course of study to support his burgeoning independence and potential. The Montessori Elementary program, for children between the ages of six and twelve, is designed to meet the needs of your child in this phase of development. This experience will shape not only their knowledge and skills, but also their attitude about learning for the rest of his life.
The elementary child is a natural explorer of the world around him. He brings to his work two important tools: a powerful reasoning mind and the ability to imagine. These intellectual tools, combined with the natural urge to collaborate with peers, opens a field of exploration so vast that virtually any concept can be explored and integrated into a comprehensive whole.
In the classroom the children are deep in the process of researching, classifying and ordering phases of history, botany, geology, geometry, language and mathematics. Subject areas are integrated throughout the curriculum rather than being presented as separate disciplines. The teacher uses stories, pictures, charts and timelines to enrich the child’s understanding and spark his interest in learning.
The age blend continues in the elementary years. Lessons change from more individualized to small collaborative group lessons at the elementary level as the child begins to search out his place in the group. Besides continuing to build skills in core curriculum subjects, the student is presented lessons in “Cosmic Education”. This part of the Montessori curriculum for the older child helps the child discover and appreciate the interconnectedness of life on earth. The goal of Cosmic Education is the development of the individual who tries to find his place, his purpose in the cosmos.
The elementary child has reached a new level of development. Before he was interested in things: working with his hands, learning their names. Now he is interested mainly in the how and why…the problem of cause and effect.
~ Maria Montessori