Ages 9-14 (4th through 8th Levels) - Multi-age classrooms are team taught.
- Sequenced learning environments include fewer but more complex Montessori materials.
- Time management skills are developed through daily and weekly lesson plans and long-range projects.
- Homework is introduced in the 4th level.
- Experiments are conducted in the science lab adjacent to the classroom.
- Stanford Achievement Tests are given annually.
Work time continues to be one of concentration and exploration into a greater variety of subjects than in Lower Elementary. Students are expected to do most of their work at school, edit their written reports, give oral reports, acquire proficiency on the computer keyboard, and research more extensively. Students learn computer keyboarding through the Mavis Beacon software. They also learn to do research on World Book Encyclopedia software and on appropriately filtered internet websites.
Several long-range projects are assigned each year, with requirements appropriately customized for each level. Students do oral presentations of their completed projects to the entire class, after which they answer questions and obtain feedback from classmates and teachers.
Teamwork and cooperation continue to be developed by allowing students to work with a classmate in the completion of some research assignments and extra-credit projects.
This age group has also acquired the maturity for greater participation in intramural sports, band, chorus and musicals.
Science is emphasized as a core subject with experiments done in a laboratory adjacent to the classrooms. Each student chooses a long-range science project for Science Day, named thus to emphasize that the work is done at school. Many beautiful Montessori math materials are used to encourage higher level thinking, and to extend such materials as the binomial and trinomial cubes into their corresponding algebraic equations.
Initiative and creativity are encouraged by allowing students to present their own ideas to the teachers for extra-credit projects, such as writing a story or completing a research paper.
Students are involved in several community service projects each year. Life skills continue to be very important with this age group, which has also acquired the maturity for greater participation in intramural sports, music groups, chorus, drama and musicals. |
