PRIMARY CURRICULUM

Ages 3 to 6 

PRACTICAL LIFE

These exercises lay the foundation of a Montessori classroom. These are everyday life skills that children learn in order to function in society. These activities satisfy the need for imitation, repetition, and help develop coordination. They enable children to expand their attention span and develop concentration essential for all academic learning to manifest. Independence, self-confidence, body consciousness, and self-awareness develop steadily through the use of materials for: caring for oneself and the environment, social skills of grace and courtesy, and control and refinement of movement.

Preliminary Exercises of Practical Life

    • Carrying exercises, stringing beads, sorting, pouring, scooping, opening and closing.

Care of Person

    • Dressing frames: button, zipper, snap, buckle, laces, hook & eye, and bow. Hand washing and grooming.

Care of the Environment

    • Polishing, table setting, flower arranging, dusting, sweeping, care of plants, cloth washing, lunch clean up, use of bathroom, care of classroom, care of animals, and food preparation.

Grace and Courtesy

    • Greeting, listening, respect for other children, and respect for adults

Coordination

    • Silence Game and Walking on the Line

LANGUAGE

This allows for enrichment of vocabulary, phonetic and non-phonetic sound recognition and assimilation, function of words, and complete reading and writing. These basic skills are acquired through the use of materials in three-dimensional forms. Once these skills are mastered, the child is ready for interpretive reading and creative writing.

VISUAL DISCRIMINATION

  • Matching, similarities and differences, sequences, categorizing

WRITING

  • Metal inset (pencil control), sandpaper letters, left to right movement, upper case, lower case, sequences (1,2,3 letters words), sentence composition

PRE-READING

  • Identification of upper and lower case letters, pronounce consonant sounds, pronounce short vowel sounds

READING

Movable alphabet (phonetic sound assimilation, phonograms, level 1: 3 letter phonetic words, level 2: r-controlled vowels, level 3: phonograms/vowel difficulties, level 4: phonograms/consonant difficulties, level 5: compound words, puzzle words, sight words, phonetic books, level books

PARTS OF SPEECH

  • Noun, adjective, conjunction, preposition, verb, adverb

COMPREHENSION

  • Reads and understands words, reads for enjoyment

WORD STUDY

  • Compound words, singular/plural, prefixes, suffixes, homograph, homophones.

MATHEMATICS

Mathematical materials provide the means for the discovery of mathematics and the fundamental skills to calculate. Concepts are understood by use of concrete forms before abstracting theories. After understanding has been achieved, memorized learning is meaningful

NUMBER 1-10:

  • Linear counting, symbol, quantity, association of symbol and quantity, odd and even, writing numbers, bead stair counting

DECIMAL SYSTEM

  • Introduction to hierarchies, golden beads quantity, symbols (units, tens, hundreds, thousands), decimal system layout (1-1000), formation of number 1-9,999, addition, subtraction, division, long division, multiplication, word problems.

PASSAGES

  • The in-between numbers, counting from ones, teens, tens, hundreds, thousands. Skip counting, equality/inequality

FACTS AND TABLES

  • Use of Addition charts, subtraction charts, multiplication charts, division charts to master facts. Memorization of addition, multiplication, subtraction, and division tables.

ABSTRACTION

  • Small bead frame: notation, + - x / , hierarchy. Using mathematical concepts to solve problems.
SENSORIAL

All the faculties of intelligence are developed through exploration of the various materials of varying dimension, color, shape, texture, smell, and taste. The special materials are organized for developing and refining each sense while isolated from the other senses, thus enabling the utmost refinement. These are essential for the ability to discriminate differences, similarities and identities, and for enhancing the memory, the imagination and consequently the appreciation and interpretation of the fine arts.

VISUAL

  • Differences in tall/short, thick/thin, large/small, thin and tall/ thick and short, pink, differences in dimension, thickness, and length
  • color: consciousness, limited and unlimited variations
  • geometry: (basic figures, three sided figures, rectilinear figures, many sided figures, continuous circle/unbroken lines, four sided figures, curvilinear figures), geometric solids (cube, rectangular prism, triangular prism, square pyramid, triangular pyramid, cylinder, cone, sphere, ellipsoid), grading with rectilinear figures, polygons, and circles, constructive triangles (right, scalene, isosceles, equilateral, unequal, obtuse), binomial cubes (binomial theorem), trinomial cubes (trinomial theorem)

TACTILE

  • Rough and smooth, variation of roughness, variation of smoothness, variation of textures

AUDITORY

  • Discrimination and variation of sounds, music bells

BARIC

  • Differences in weight

STEREOGNOSTIC

  • Consciousness of possibilities (paring, sorting, mystery)

OLFACTORY

  • Discrimination of variety of scents: vanilla, cinnamon, lavender, rose

GUSTATORY

  • Discrimination of tastes: sweet, sour, bitter, salty

 

CULTURAL ARTS

Geography, Botany, Zoology, Art, and Music expose children to the world and enable them to appreciate the importance and the beauty of nature, the diversity of people and their cultures.

ART

Periods, artists, creative expression, art mediums.

MUSIC

Periods and its composers, musical instruments, bells, movement.

GEOGRAPHY

Days of the week, month, land and water forms, solar system, earth: (layers, globe, hemispheres, continents, oceans, zones), maps: world, USA, North America, South America, Asia, Africa, Antarctica, Australia), parts of a flag.

BOTANY

Study of plants, life cycles, parts and functions. Gardening.

ZOOLOGY

Vertebrates/invertebrates, animal kingdom, animal homes, life cycles 

BIOLOGY

Parts of the body, internal organs, senses, important systems

HEALTH

Nutrition, physical hygiene, exercise

COMMUNITY SERVICES

Awareness of civic sense, community helpers, conservation, recycling.

HISTORY

Famous people, historical events 

 

 

 

 

 

The Stamp Game is a concrete way for a young child to understand the process of Addition, Multiplication, Subtraction, and Division. Children are able to add, multiply, subtract, divide 2 or more digits.