MEC Primary Program
Primary Classrooms
MEC offers three primary classrooms designed for ages 3 – 6 years old. Mixed age groups allow younger students to aspire to work toward more difficult academic content engaging the older students, while older children are able to practice their emerging leadership skills and act as models for the younger students. In addition to academic skills, practical life and social skills are taught in the primary classrooms.
DAily Schedule
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7:30 a.m.
Students are greeted by teachers and gather on the playground. -
8:00 a.m.
Outdoor social time -
8:15 a.m.
Uninterrupted work cycle - individual work within the classroom and lessons presented by the teachers -
10:50 a.m.
Circle time -
11:00 a.m.
Outdoor play time -
11:30 a.m.
Half day students prepare to go home - 11:30 a.m. Full day students eat lunch
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12:15 p.m.
Siesta time -
2:00 p.m.
Afternoon work, indoors or outdoors -
2:40 p.m. - 3:00 p.m.
Dismissal time for full day students -
3:00 p.m. - 5:30 p.m.
Extended day students enjoy an afternoon recess and play time.
Curriculum
Practical Life
Practical life describes an array of activities that promote independence, concentration, and a sense of responsibility. Children help to maintain the classroom environment with a variety of responsibilities, including sweeping, watering plants, cleaning windows, and arranging flowers. Practical life also includes lessons on self care such as washing hands, fastening buttons, and preparing food. Children also have the opportunity to practice pouring, spooning, whisking, folding, and using small tools.
Language
Primary students are introduced to reading and writing initially through materials such as sandpaper letters, metal insets, and the moveable alphabet. Children begin learning and matching initial sounds to objects, and gradually move toward putting words together. Unique to the Montessori method, initial introductions to letters focus on the sounds they make, rather than the name of the letter. For example, when Montessori students learn to spell “cat,” they will likely say “k-ah-t” instead of “see-ay-tee.”
Geography
Primary students begin learning the physical geography of the earth - water, continents, and landforms. Children have the opportunity to put together wooden puzzle maps of continents, countries, or states. Geography also includes the study of cultures and ecology, and primary students are introduced to the people, plants, and animals that inhabit the earth.
Music
Music helps children learn to communicate and express themselves non-verbally. Musical activities improve hearing and listening, coordination, and math skills.
Sensorial
Sensorial activities focus on developing and refining the five senses: seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, and smelling. Montessori sensorial materials are designed to help children isolate a specific quality so that they can distinguish, categorize, and relate new information to things they already know.
Math
Math in the primary classroom focuses on sensorial work to ensure that children can use their sense of touch to grasp concepts of quantities, and then relate those quantities to symbols. Many of the math materials are made of wooden cubes or glass beads so that they have weight that helps demonstrate a concrete understanding of quantity. By the third year in primary, students have usually been introduced to the four mathematical operations at a basic level.
Science
The Montessori science curriculum teaches children about the world around them and engages their sense of wonder. Primary students begin by classifying items, such as living or non-living, plant or animal, etc. and then learn to name the parts of living objects. Students also learn about life cycles that coincide with the seasons. The science activities focus on capturing a child’s interest with simple activities that lay a foundation for more complex material.
Art
Art is incorporated into the curriculum to teach specific skills, focusing on how to master the process rather than how to complete a masterpiece. The Montessori philosophy promotes freedom within limits, and this is also true of art activities. Children are encouraged to use creativity and explore the materials.
Montessori Materials
For Primary Students
Click on a material below to learn more about the Montessori materials used in primary classrooms.
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Education is a natural process carried out by the child and is not acquired by listening to words but by experiences in the environment.