Elementary Program
Lower Elementary 1st – 3rd Grade at Bristow Montessori School
Classroom Environment
Elementary students are starting to realize that the world is an enormous, interesting place. They are primed to study continents, cultures, scientific concepts, and great literature. The world becomes their classroom. The carefully developed elementary curriculum guides the child through identifying, classifying, and researching all of the fascinating concepts in each chosen field of study. The areas of practical life, language, math, geometry, botany, zoology, geography, and history are all represented in the classroom, with materials that lead the child to abstract the fundamental concepts in each area.
An elementary Montessori classroom is a warm community: a multi-age, stimulating environment with a highly trained teacher and materials that invite exploration and research. Children learn to face challenges with confidence and begin to find their own place in the world around them.
Elementary classrooms are arranged to allow for group discussion as well as individual work and incorporate interest centers filled with intriguing learning materials, fascinating mathematical models, maps, charts, historical artifacts, computers, scientific specimens, and apparatus. The prepared environment is designed to develop basic skills as well as spark the child’s imagination, creativity, and reasoning skills. The unique curriculum challenges the child to look for answers to the questions that bubble in the elementary child’s mind.