This AMS (American Montessori Society) original video features Montessori teachers explaining the environment, materials, and structure of a Montessori elementary classroom.
Upper Elementary (9-12 yrs.)
Upper Elementary
Extended day and Full day programs available.
Ages: 9 years-12 years
Using the ideas of Maria Montessori, our Upper Elementary program curriculum and learning environment invites each student to become an active participant in his or her own learning process. The transition from Lower Elementary is a time of great change for Upper Elementary students as they move from the concrete world of their earlier years to the threshold of abstract thinking found in the older classrooms.
The Upper Elementary Program for grades 4 – 6 builds upon the skills and content of the Lower Elementary global cultures curriculum while expanding the students awareness of their place in the world’s history. By focusing on a variety of civilizations, students learn about significant historical contributions that have been adopted and adapted by societies through time, and they begin to understand how the past has shaped present-day societies, geographies, and current events. Students are able to delve into these subjects through challenging, guided activities and independent research appropriate to their various developmental abilities.
With their knowledge of world culture and history, Upper Elementary students are ready and eager to have an impact on their surroundings, to learn how they can make a difference. The Upper Elementary curriculum offers a practical approach to these relevant issues. Students are urged to “think globally, act locally” by participating in weekly school-wide service work that might include collecting food for the hungry, caring for their classroom garden, or reading to children in the Pre-primary and Primary classrooms. In Upper Elementary, students have research based projects, opportunities to participate in PSIA competitions, science fair projects, art competitions, and more.
In addition to field trips to cultural institutions in and around our community, Upper Elementary provides the first of MANT’s overnight study trips. Every spring, Upper Elementary students and their teachers travel out of the city for an overnight academic excursion. These locations are chosen for their natural environments, their ecosystems, and their opportunities for community-building activities. Students have a chance to explore, examine the interface of different species and climates, and to test their growing sense of independence, while staying away, briefly, from their families.
In Upper Elementary at MANT, the student is gently guided through the developmental leap away from young childhood and toward emerging adolescence. Our focus is on building the foundations of organization, self-confidence, cooperation, and curiosity essential to continued academic success. Our teachers provide a growing academic challenge while remaining respectful of the ever-complicated emotional responses of children as they deepen their understanding and empathy towards the world and its people.
Please Click here to find out information on the Curriculum your child will be taught at MANT.
“We do not believe in the in the educative power of words and commands alone, but seek cautiously, and almost without the child’s knowing it, to guide his natural activity.”
-Maria Montessori