Lower Elementary (6-9) Program

As students enter the second plane of development, they extend themselves socially and want to collaborate with others both in work and in play.

Lower Elementary students experience a shift in their understanding of their peers and the power of the group. They benefit from Montessori grace and courtesy lessons, as well as the principles and activities of Responsive Classroom, a social curriculum used at all age levels at WMS. The emphasis is on students learning to care for themselves, others and the environment.

The Peace Table is a key Montessori concept that also assists students with peer-to-peer problem-solving within the classroom. When students have a conflict or problem, they are asked to sit together at the Peace Table to discuss their challenges in a systematic way. They practice using “I” statements to describe their experiences and discuss options for making tough situations better. They practice their communication skills so they can express their concerns and ideas in an effective way.

In the 6-9 Program, students most often participate in small and large group academic lessons. Lower Elementary students benefit from opportunities to share strategies and ideas with their classmates.

• Associating sound/letter symbols for consonants and vowels
• Identifying familiar sight words
• Using context and picture clues
• Identifying fiction/nonfiction
• Retelling familiar stories using beginning, middle and end
• Identifying character, setting (time and place), main idea and plot
   

Writing Skills

• Using drawings to share experiences and develop text
• Experimenting with different forms of writing (e.g., labels, signs, lists, messages)
• Writing with appropriate organization, development of ideas, use of voice, word choice and transitions
• Prewriting, drafting, revising and editing components of the writing process
• Practicing sentence/paragraph structure
• Writing expressive, informative and persuasive texts

Oral Communication Skills

• Using oral language for different purposes (to inform, persuade and express oneself)
• Sharing ideas in a sequential order (including beginning, middle and end)
• Paraphrasing information shared orally by others
• Speaking clearly and audibly using appropriate expression and tone
• Responding appropriately to feedback and answering questions

• Skip counting by 2s, 5s, 10s and beyond
• Learning about place values up to 1,000 and beyond
• Studying inverse relationships of addition and subtraction, and multiplication and division
• Identifying equal parts of a whole and equal parts of a set using halves, thirds, fourths, etc.
• Identifying, constructing, and defining regular and irregular polygons, triangles and angles
• Using probability experiments to find the likelihood of the outcomes of a simple chance event

Maria Montessori believed 6-9 students are primed to participate in what she called “cosmic education,” because they are innately curious about the universe, the world and the larger stories of natural history, human history and the phenomena of the physical world.

Through the Cultural Studies lessons and activities, children are encouraged to ask questions, observe, collect and analyze data, conduct experiments and communicate information with others.

Each year begins with an exploration of Montessori’s Great Lessons - the Story of the Universe, the Coming of Life, the Coming of Humans, the Story of Numbers and the Story of Language - which provide a context for future studies of the natural and physical sciences, cultural and physical geography and history.

Your 6-9 student will be:

• Identifying the living and non-living parts of a given biome and observing how plants and animals can affect their environment.
• Exploring basic life cycles.
• Learning about the water cycle, weather, and electrical and mechanical systems.

All Lower Elementary students participate in weekly enrichment classes, which include: