The multi-age curriculum allows students to develop their skills over a multi-year period. Skills follow a progression and younger children benefit from examples set by the older children and older children benefit from being in a leadership position.
Peace Education
Peace curriculum is an integral part of the Montessori curriculum designed to help each child reach their full potential as a positive contributor to our society. The curriculum is designed to be nonreligious and non-culture specific rather to focus on the inner wellbeing of the child.
Guiding principles: Inner wellbeing develops from six basic areas. To aid the child in their development, these are addressed through the curriculum:
- Awareness of community and one’s impact on it (grace & courtesy, problem-solving, conflict resolution)
- Connecting with ourselves and others with compassion and love (modeling a culture of love and compassion)
- Understanding that all humans have basic needs and rights (everyone eats, plays, sleeps, wants to learn)
- Awareness of self (breathing, yoga stretches, sensorial work, naming emotions)
- Awareness of cultures (our own and others, geography studies)
- Awareness/Appreciation for our environment (wonder and awe for all that surrounds us science studies)
In the Classroom: The Montessori environment is interwoven as activities can be found throughout the classroom/day that exercises these skills. Many areas of practical application in the classroom are listed above. Specific “peace” works include: making silence during line activities, having a quiet table where a child can use materials that encourage calmness, emotion work, introducing vocabulary of peace words, learning about peacemakers, thankful work, and yoga cards for control of body movement.
Discipline
Maria Montessori said, "It is clear therefore that the discipline which reveals itself in the Montessori class is something which comes more from within than without.” Montessori views self-discipline as a set of skills that children master through repeated, deliberate practice, in a carefully prepared environment. Rather than being taught discipline by others, she believed they learned discipline through interactions with others. The teacher establishes clear and consistent limits and communicates those limits to all the children while keeping developmentally appropriate expectations in mind and understanding that mistakes will be made.
The Montessori approach avoids the use of rewards and punishments. Instead, Montessori uses natural and logical consequences Conflict resolution and respect for the environment, (both physical and environmental), are important aspects of the Montessori approach. MMS believes that discipline handled in a way that respects the dignity and the will of the child and fosters a positive self-concept that will likely become internalized by the child. At MMS, the ultimate goal is that students do the right thing, not because they will be punished if they don’t, but because they don’t want to adversely affect the people and world around them.
In a Montessori environment, the teaching of these concepts takes years to impart through developmentally appropriate experiences and methods. This is accomplished through a variety of methods including:
- Redirection – substituting another material or suggesting another activity
- Positive reinforcement and encouragement – such as using specific praise or other intrinsic rewards. Food will not be used as a reward.
- Modifying the environment to meet the needs of the child.
- Explaining consistent, clear rules to the children.
- Engaging children in problem solving.
- Maintaining realistic, developmentally appropriate expectations of children’s interests, skills, and behaviors.
- Phrasing things positively rather than negatively. For example, saying “please walk” rather than “don’t run.”
- Acting as a role model for acceptable and appropriate actions.
- Offering choices when possible and being willing to accept the choice the child makes.
- Offering a breather: inviting a child to sit apart from the class if they feel they need a break, either with a teacher or alone if they choose.
Dress
Children learn self-respect through self-mastery. Gross motor development is critical to a Montessori curriculum. Children need to be free to run, jump, climb, and work with success. Children should wear supportive, rubber soled shoes with backs to school each day. Shoes should not have heels. If sandals are worn, they should have rubber soles and straps in the back. In addition, they should encourage, by design, safety, and freedom when running and climbing. If a child comes to school wearing improper school shoes for their safety they will not be able to participate in any gross motor activities like Creative Movement and recess.
You can assist your child by purchasing comfortable loose clothing with large buttons, big zippers, and large shoe boots that slip on or close with Velcro, and hats and gloves that your child can easily put on and take off. Bib overalls are particularly difficult for children to fasten on their own. Remember our goal is independent dressing. Children work with water, paint (washable, nontoxic tempera), and a variety of foods. Aprons are worn but stains still happen. Clothes that you do not want stained should not be worn.
Although our winter months are cold and snowy, we go outside throughout the year unless the office determines that the weather is not safe. Please be sure to send snow boots, snow pants, a warm coat, mittens, and a hat during the winter months.
Snack
At MMS, we encourage and model healthy eating to promote good health. Snack time is an opportunity for students to enjoy a variety of healthy food choices. It is a time to refuel for a better learning experience and practice good table etiquette and conversation with friends. Students help with snack prep and clean up. Milk and water are available with snacks in the classroom.
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Practical Life
Does this area enhance the development of task organization and cognitive order through care of self? care of the environment? exercises of grace and courtesy? and coordination of physical movement. Activities in this area may include preparing and serving a snack for the other children, using pinchers to transfer small objects from one bowl to another, watering plants, scrubbing a table clean, or tying their shoes.
Sensorial
This area enables children to order, classify and describe impressions in relation to length, width, temperature, mass, color, or other characteristics. Activities in this area may include stacking cubes to make a tower, comparing wooden rods and arranging them according to length, or arranging cylinders of varying diameter.
Language
Language arts include oral language development, written expression, reading, grammar, and children’s literature. Reading and writing skills are developed through the use of sandpaper letters, alphabet cutouts and various presentations allowing children to link sounds and letter symbols effortlessly and to express their thoughts in writing.
Mathematics
The Montessori math program makes use of manipulative materials that allow children to better internalize concepts of number, symbol, sequence, and operations. Activities in this area may begin with many materials to introduce and solidify the concept of 1 through 20 and the meaning of zero.
Social Sciences
This area of the classroom exposes the child to the basics of geography, history, culture, and life sciences. Activities in this area may include making a map of the continents, working with land and water models to create a lake, or playing bells. Music, art, and movement education are part of the integrated cultural curriculum.
Pre-Cosmic Education
Pre-Cosmic education is woven throughout the curriculum in Children’s House. Children develop gratitude and appreciation for families and friends, animals and plants, and to others in the neighborhood by learning the elements of grace and courtesy. Storytelling plays a role as children develop their own stories, autobiographical, stories of others, biographical and tell stories about nature, animals, and other people. Children also work to develop the values of honesty, kindness, fairness, cooperation and responsibility.
Art, Music, Physical Education and Library
While the children who attend Children’s House will encounter music, art, and movement as part of the Montessori Curriculum and by working with specialists in these curricular areas. All children will work with our physical education teacher on movement and fitness and will visit the school library to check out books and take advantage of the resources available there. The 5’s (kindergarten age) children also take advantage of the expertise offered by our music and art teachers by attending these classes with other children their age. Mauston Montessori also offers children a variety of opportunities to learn and grow outside the Children’s House classroom. Every day MMS students are encouraged to play outside, weather permitting. Through such activities as running, skipping, throwing balls, raking, tumbling, and jumping, children develop large motor skills, enhance muscle development – and have fun! In addition to regular playtime.
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Five Great Lessons
The Five Great Lessons are a series of five stories that give students an overall impression of the grand topics of the universe, the earth, and life on earth. These stories form the heart of the Montessori integrated elementary curriculum. The lessons answer questions like, where did the world come from? How did humans get here? Why are humans here? Maria Montessori believes that exploring such questions with elementary students would build a strong foundation for their intellectual, spiritual, and psychological development.
Cosmic Education and Peace
Cosmic education is described as the soul of Montessori elementary education. Cosmic education is an overall approach to education that involves helping students develop an awareness that everything in the universe is connected and interdependent and forms a harmonious whole, also that they themselves are part of and contribute to that whole.
Language Arts
The Montessori lower elementary language arts program builds on the knowledge that students gained in their early childhood years and deeply immerses them in the world of reading and writing. The Language Arts curriculum guides children through penmanship, reading, word study, the mechanics of writing, grammar (parts of speech), simple sentence analysis, spelling, vocabulary building, literary elements, creative writing, and research skills.
Mathematics
The Montessori math curriculum helps students explore their natural curiosity about numbers and quantity through concrete activities. The first half of the mathematics curriculum addresses whole numbers as students learn about addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, factors, and multiples, division with the Golden Bead Material, hierarchies of numbers, bead frames, and long division.
The second half of the mathematics curriculum addresses four different sections of fraction topics that include understanding what fractions are, writing fractions and finding equivalences, adding and subtracting fractions, and multiplying and dividing fractions. Geometry is also addressed as students explore shapes, points, lines, planes, solids, angles, closed figures, circles, other curved figures, triangles, quadrilaterals, polygons and geometric solids.
Geography
Through the study of geography, students can gain an appreciation of the world’s beauty, fragile ecosystem, and the interdependence of its diverse people. Therefore, geography is not just the study of the earth, but also the people and other living things that inhabit the earth. In Montessori, geography is broken down into two different parts: physical and cultural.
History
History is the study and recording of the past. Events that have already happened cannot be re-experienced. Humans in today’s world cannot smell, taste, hear, or touch life as it was experienced by humans long ago. People today must depend upon drawings, writings, narratives, archeology and artifacts to piece together the story of human life on earth.
Studying history and archeology provided elementary students with a wealth of fascinating information about the world. In the history curriculum, students will study recorded history tracing back to the Sumerians who invented one of the first known written languages.
Science
Science is the study of the natural world. Students begin by learning to be a scientist by studying measuring and instruments, observing and recording, and conducting investigations. They then use this knowledge to study energy, Botany, Chemistry, Technology, Astronomy, Earth Science, Zoology, Food Science and Ecology.
Advanced Practical Life
Practical Live Activities refer to presentations and activities that provide students with opportunities to learn, practice, and develop motor skills, develop confidence in their abilities, develop independence, and learn to get along with others. In the Montessori classroom, these activities focus on developing real-life skills that give students ample opportunities to learn to control their own movements, care for themselves and others, and practice grace and courtesy.
Art, Music, Physical Education, Library, and Keyboarding
While the children who attend the E1 classroom will encounter music, art and movement as part of the Montessori Curriculum, and take advantage of the resources that are available at West Side School. Elementary-aged students will attend art, music, physical education library lessons where they will develop these skills with the help of the teachers who specialize in these subject areas. Students will learn digital citizenship, research using technology and keyboarding skills which will be integrated into their day.
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Five Great Lessons
The Five Great Lessons are a series of five stories that give students an overall impression of the grand topics of the universe, the earth, and life on earth. These stories form the heart of the Montessori integrated elementary curriculum. The lessons answer questions like, where did the world come from? How did humans get here? Why are humans here? Maria Montessori believes that exploring such questions with elementary students would build a strong foundation for their intellectual, spiritual, and psychological development.
Cosmic Education and Peace
Cosmic education is described as the soul of Montessori elementary education. Cosmic education is an overall approach to education that involves helping students develop an awareness that everything in the universe is connected and interdependent and forms a harmonious whole, also that they themselves are part of and contribute to that whole.
Language Arts
The Montessori lower elementary language arts program builds on the knowledge that students gained in their early childhood years and deeply immerses them in the world of reading and writing. The Language Arts curriculum guides children through penmanship, reading, word study, the mechanics of writing, grammar (parts of speech), simple sentence analysis, spelling, vocabulary building, literary elements, creative writing, and research skills.
Mathematics
The Montessori math curriculum helps students explore their natural curiosity about numbers and quantity through concrete activities. The first half of the mathematics curriculum addresses whole numbers as students learn about addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, factors, and multiples, division with the Golden Bead Material, hierarchies of numbers, bead frames, and long division.
The second half of the mathematics curriculum addresses four sections of fraction topics: understanding what fractions are, writing fractions and finding equivalences, adding and subtracting fractions, and multiplying and dividing fractions. Geometry is also addressed as students explore shapes, points, lines, planes, solids, angles, closed figures, circles, other curved figures, triangles, quadrilaterals, polygons, and geometric solids.
Geography
Through the study of geography, students can gain an appreciation of the world’s beauty, fragile ecosystem, and the interdependence of its diverse people. Therefore, geography is not just the study of the earth, but also the people and other living things that inhabit the earth. In Montessori, geography is divided into two parts: physical and cultural.
History
History is the study and recording of the past. Events that have already happened cannot be re-experienced. Humans in today’s world cannot smell, taste, hear, or touch life as was experienced by humans long ago. People today must depend upon drawings, writings, narratives, archeology, and artifacts to piece together the story of human life on earth.
Studying history and archeology provided elementary students with a wealth of fascinating information about the world. In the history curriculum, students will study recorded history tracing back to the Sumerians who invented one of the first known written languages.
Science
Science is the study of the natural world. Students begin by learning to be a scientist by studying measuring and instruments, observing and recording, and conducting investigations. They then use this knowledge to study energy, Botany, Chemistry, Technology, Astronomy, Earth Science, Zoology, Food Science, and Ecology.
Advanced Practical Life
Practical Live Activities refer to presentations and activities that provide students with opportunities to learn, practice, and develop motor skills, develop confidence in their abilities, develop independence, and learn to get along with others. In the Montessori classroom, these activities focus on developing real-life skills that give students ample opportunities to learn to control their own movements, care for themselves and others, and practice grace and courtesy.
Art, Music, Physical Education, Library, and Keyboarding
While the children who attend the E2 classroom will encounter music, art, and movement as part of the Montessori Curriculum, and take advantage of the resources that are available at West Side School. Elementary-aged students will attend art, music, physical education, and library lessons where they will develop these skills with the help of teachers who specialize in these subject areas. Students will learn digital citizenship, research using technology, and keyboarding skills, which will be integrated into their day.
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