Upper Elementary

The elementary program offers a continuum built on the Casa experience. The environment reflects a new stage of development and offers the following:

• Integration of the arts, sciences, geography, history, and language that evokes the native imagination and abstraction of the elementary child.
• Presentation of knowledge as part of a large-scale narrative that unfolds the origins of the earth, life, human communities, and modern history, always in the context of the wholeness of life.
• Presentation of the formal scientific language of zoology, botany, anthropology, geography, geology, etc., exposing the child to accurate, organized information and respecting the child’s intelligence and interests.
• The use of timelines, pictures charts, and other visual aids to provide a linguistic and visual overview of the first principles of each discipline.
• A mathematics curriculum presented with concrete materials that simultaneously reveal arithmetic, geometric, and algebraic correlation.
• Montessori-trained adults who are “enlightened generalists” (teachers who are able to integrate the teaching of all subjects, not as isolated disciplines, but as part of a whole intellectual tradition).
• Emphasis on open-ended research and in-depth study using primary and secondary sources as well as other materials.
• Community building through regular class meetings where children help each other solve problems, individually and collectively.
• Regular guidance and structure in resolving social conflict in a peaceful and effective manner.
• “Going out” to make use of community resources beyond the four walls of the classroom.