Montessori Lower Elementary School Differences Detailed

When evaluating a Montessori education or a traditional public or faith-based school, here are several elementary school differences you should consider.

Age Range or Same Age Students?

In Montessori, First, Second and Third Grades do not exist. Instead, the three-year age range is called Lower Elementary (LE) School which is focused on highlighting each individual child’s developmental characteristics during their sixth through ninth years.

In a traditional school, each classroom consists of the same grade students; however, in Montessori elementary school, there’s an age-range approach where older students act as mentors for younger students.

From Absorption to Abstraction

A preschooler thinks in sensorial, unmoving, unyielding, ‘black/white’ and concrete ways.

Starting about age six, though, the child begins looking at his or her world in more creative, conceptual and abstract ways.

This type of thinking builds imagination-the stepping-off point between concrete learning and the ‘flights of fancy’ that propel kids’ thinking and play.

In Lower Elementary school, we see children building moral and social components into their personalities. What was once ‘all real’ or ‘absolute’ gets replaced with a more graduated and nuanced view of things.

Movements Towards Physicality

Kids are growing physically during the years aged six to nine. What was known as ‘movement’ or ‘freedom of motion’ during the preschool years is now formalized via augmented, systematic physical education. Montessori teaches basic athletic mechanics to power your child’s physical self.

The Prepared Environment

There is no doubt where something belongs in a Montessori school. For elementary children, everything is where it belongs but not packaged in the same way as in preschool. Students must learn to gather-which takes discipline and organizational skills to master.

A Montessori Elementary School Teacher’s Role

In the Montessori elementary setting, teachers are more active than in preschool because there are more group activities. When learning new topics, we support and direct students by giving them just enough clues to go forward by themselves. Here are some examples:

• Getting the right answer isn’t the goal…it’s the journey that’s important. We focus on the ‘how and why’ followed by ‘how do I get there by myself?’
• Making a mistake is not a problem. Mistakes can be fixed, and Montessori students learn that very early on.
• Kids who were in Montessori preschool know how to manipulate their environment and do not need to be told how to do it.
• Importantly, parents and teachers should not rush to ‘help’ children. Anything you do for children who can do for themselves hinders their development. So, Montessori teachers wait to see if help is truly needed by allowing time for students to solve the problem by themself or with their peers.

Cooperation, Collaboration, Freedom and Discipline

Collaborative work is a big component in Montessori elementary school. Students need to see what’s on each other’s paper — and you won’t find that in a traditional school setting.

How does collaborative group work happen? Each child learns one part of a topic. Then, like spokes in a wheel, the student learns all the other parts from classmates.

In a traditional elementary school, group work is not an everyday way to learn more. That approach centers around many students doing the same project by themselves and learning less in the balance.

More importantly, traditional school students are not learning at their own speed, pace or given the opportunity to follow their ‘project/subject passions.’

In contrast, Montessori independence and freedom breeds self-discipline and self-motivation that spurs students forward.

Curriculum

Montessori Lower Elementary school begins each Fall with the ‘Five Great Lessons,’ an all-encompassing strategy that blends inter-related subjects and topics. Essentially, life is examined from the infinite of the cosmos to the finite of the atom. Subject matter incorporates space, time, numbers, geology, animals, plants, communication, science and math.

In Lower Elementary, students work with each other, cooperate with each other and work together as a unit. Since each student is doing his or her part of the whole project, everyone learns more.

That cooperation and collaboration helps students understand where they fit in. Their collaborative contributions from the Five Great Lessons are a key towards building lifelong learning.

The Montessori educational philosophy has fundamental elementary school differences that vary from traditional, rigid schooling formats. Quickly, you’ll see your First Grader’s behavior as a barometer by which he or she is accepting or rejecting the way they are learning. If your child is not embracing the traditional ‘sit in your seat, memorize these facts and finish your homework’ mantra, choose Montessori. Your child will re-discover that school is fun and lifetime learning a joy.

Lifetime Montessori School is located in Santaluz, an inland suburb near Hwy 56 and I-15 in San Diego County. The Toddler thru Grade Six Elementary school is centrally located in the Del Sur, Rancho Bernardo, Rancho Santa Fe, Rancho Penasquitos, 4S Ranch, Fairbanks Ranch and the Carmel Valley communities.

To schedule a live in-person tour or a zoom tour, please visit: www.lifetimemontessorischool.com/free-tours.

Originally published at https://lifetimemontessorischool.com.