Junior Ages 5–8

Junior Ele­men­tary Program

The pas­sage to the sec­ond level of edu­ca­tion (age 6–12) is the pas­sage from the sen­so­r­ial, mate­r­ial level to the abstract. A turn­ing toward the intel­lec­tual and moral sides of life occurs at the age of seven. ~Dr. Maria Montessori

Dur­ing the sec­ond plane of devel­op­ment there is a great trans­for­ma­tion in the child, like a new birth. No longer inter­ested only in them­selves and their fam­ily mem­bers they want to explore soci­ety and the world, to learn what is right and wrong, and to explore mean­ing­ful roles in society.

The pri­mary expe­ri­ence con­tin­ues in the ele­men­tary pro­gram, where the Montes­sori mate­ri­als are a means to an end. These sci­en­tif­i­cally designed mate­ri­als are intended to stim­u­late the imag­i­na­tion, to aid abstrac­tion and to present a uni­ver­sal view of the human work and purpose.

Stu­dents in the Junior ele­men­tary class build upon skills and con­cepts intro­duced in the pri­mary environment.

Montes­sori mate­ri­als, along with time­lines and impres­sion­is­tic charts, are used to intro­duce new concepts.

Math­e­mat­ics, lan­guage arts, geog­ra­phy, his­tory and the cul­tural sub­jects engage the rea­son­ing mind and active imag­i­na­tion of the ele­men­tary age child. Through­out the week, teach­ers incor­po­rate Span­ish lan­guage and music into the work period. The ele­men­tary envi­ron­ment is designed to meet the child’s grow­ing social inter­est and pro­vides oppor­tu­ni­ties for both indi­vid­ual and group work. The CMS Ele­men­tary pro­gram is designed to encour­age explo­ration, research, col­lab­o­ra­tion and sharing.

The Ele­men­tary cur­ricu­lum offers a con­tin­uum built on the Pri­mary level expe­ri­ence. The envi­ron­ment reflects a new stage of devel­op­ment and offers the following:

  • Inte­gra­tion of the arts, sci­ences, geog­ra­phy, his­tory, and lan­guage that evokes the imag­i­na­tion and abstrac­tion of the ele­men­tary child
  • The sci­ences of zool­ogy, botany, physics, chem­istry and geol­ogy intro­duce stu­dents to accu­rate, orga­nized infor­ma­tion with respect to intel­li­gence and interest
  • His­tor­i­cal knowl­edge as part of a large-scale nar­ra­tive unfolds to reveal the ori­gins of the earth, life, human com­mu­ni­ties, and mod­ern his­tory in the con­text of the whole­ness of life
  • The math­e­mat­ics cur­ricu­lum is pre­sented with con­crete mate­ri­als that simul­ta­ne­ously reveal arith­metic, geo­met­ric, and alge­braic correlations
  • Empha­sis on open-ended research and in-depth study using pri­mary and sec­ondary sources as well as other materials

The exquis­itely designed Montes­sori ele­men­tary cur­ricu­lum is inte­grated not only in terms of sub­ject mat­ter but also in terms of moral learn­ing. The desired out­come is an appre­ci­a­tion and respect for life, moral empa­thy and a fun­da­men­tal belief in human progress, through the con­tri­bu­tion of each individual.