How Montessori Lower Elementary School Differs

It is easy to note the differences between traditional public elementary school Grades One, Two and Three and private Montessori Lower Elementary school philosophies.

Montessori advantages include:

• Age range students rather than same-age students
• Mentoring by older students rather than no mentoring at all
• Encouraging the ‘step off’ from concrete learning towards abstract learning and imagination via attitude, curricula and teaching methods
• Building fundamental mechanics via daily athletic  play
• Adding new elements to the Montessori ‘prepared environment’ where everything is built with children in mind, everything has its own place, and everything goes in that place
• Teachers become guides who encourage students to learn on their own 
• Collaborative, group learning as opposed to individuals all learning the same thing at the same time whether they’ve mastered previous materials or not
• An attitude that welcomes mistakes as ‘how to learn’ rather than as a dividing line that marks kids down for errors
• No homework, textbooks or grades rather than all those things 
• Letting the child do for him or herself rather than a parent or teacher doing it for him/her
• Using collaboration and group learning to build a broad understanding of topical matter rather than each student being given an assignment that may be repeated again and again by each student
• Individually observing students and granting them the respect and freedom to learn at their own speed rather than everyone learning the same thing at the same time regardless of whether they understand the previous lesson
• Interrelated curricula strategies based on ‘The Five Great Lessons’ that deliver connective topics to build learning in math, science, geology, geography, animals, plants, people, inner and outer space
• A distinct difference in how children learn—in a rote and point-to-point fact based curricula or via a ‘who, what, when, where, why and how’ philosophy that creates kids who learn to think or kids who can spew facts without knowing the ‘why’ about the topic.

Summary

Montessori is based on a 110 year old philosophy that continues to gain ground with parents on behalf of their kids. This independent learning environment creates a lifetime longing for learning. If you would like to know more about Montessori lower elementary school, please visit: www.lifetimemnontessorischool.com/free-tours.

Lifetime Montessori School is located at 14727 Camino de la Luna in San Diego and has 200 total students enrolled in toddler, preschool, Kindergarten and Grade 1-6 elementary school programs.