The Elementary Program

Our elementary classes are available for students 6 to 12 years old, in what are traditionally 1st through 6th grades. Early care is available beginning at 7:30am. Most students arrive between 8:15 and 8:30. The school day ends at 3:00. For those families who need a later pick-up, the elementary late-day program is available until 5:45pm.

Elementary classes generally have between 25 and 30 students and 2 Montessori teachers. 6 to 9 year olds are the students in our 2 lower elementary classes. The upper elementary class provides a home for our 9 to 12 year old students.

In addition to work within their classrooms, elementary students participate in Spanish, PE, and choir classes with specialists several times each week. They also go out of the classroom on field trips, which may be planned by the teacher or by the students themselves. The upper elementary students also participate in overnight trips.

Elementary students have opportunities to participate in after school activities. Currently, MCS offers chess club, jazz dancing, and soccer.

The Elementary Curriculum
Around the age of 6, children move into a new stage of development. They become interested in the larger world. Therefore a new method of education is required to satisfy the changing needs and characteristics of these students. So, Dr. Montessori developed an integrated curriculum that she called Cosmic Education.

Cosmic Education is an umbrella term for a way of learning and teaching that leads to interdisciplinary knowledge, the development of ecological behavior, social responsibility, and harmonious interaction between people.

The universe becomes the basis of the curriculum, hence the use of the term Cosmic. The backbone of the curriculum is a set of five stories called The Great Lessons. These stories provide the child with a vision of the world and her place within it. They span the universe from its origin to the unique creations of humans. The stories are told with a sense of awe and accompanied by impressionistic charts, experiments, or timelines. The stories are meant to spark the children's imaginations and sense of wonder. They also suggest a level of gratitude and sentiment for the wondrous way that nature works.

After these introductory stories, students are given lessons that will expose them to the fundamentals. Students are also strongly encouraged to follow their own interests further. All students leave the program with a strong base in language arts, mathematics, geometry, science, history, geography, and the fine arts. They also have a sense of what interests them and seeds of knowledge that may later develop into deeper interests.