PRIMARY COMMUNITY (Ages 3-6)

The Primary Program  is for your child when he or she is ready for the next developmental stage in his or her life. It begins at the age of three and takes them all the way through the end of their Kindergarten year. During this time, your child develops and reorders his or her brain in preparation for the higher order work he or she will face in elementary school. Your child learns the skills and gains the experiences necessary to work successfully and confidently, building the foundation for their entire educational future!

The AMI Recognized Curriculum at the Primary Level is designed to meet the needs and development of your child at each age level. Every material in the classroom supports an aspect of child development, creating a link between your child’s natural interests to the classroom work. There are four areas of the classroom: practical life, sensorial, math, and language. Science, art, music, movement, geography, foreign language, and other studies are integrated into these four areas. The classrooms are beautifully prepared environments where everything is organized, clean, and attractive. There are plants throughout the space, pictures on the wall, and natural wood chairs and tables on which to work. Studies show there are substantial benefits of the multi-age environment. The consistency of having the same teacher for all three years, the community building that takes place, and the advanced social skills devloped are just a few! The wide age span also allows the older children to mentor and serve as role models for the younger children while the older children learn leadership skills.

The daily schedule in the Primary Program begins with the morning arrival and greeting. We then proceed with a 3 hour morning work cycle where your child can work with developmentally appropriate materials and activities of his or her choosing. This long time period nurtures focus and concentration in your child and allows him or her to delve deeply into an activity without fear of interruption. Your child can select snack at any point during this morning period. After the morning work cycle, there is community circle, lunch, and recess. After recess, there is a quieter, 2 hour afternoon work cycle in which the younger children may nap as they need, then choose work once they are ready. The late-afternoon period allows for large group activities, outdoor gross motor skills, arts and crafts, and other interactive gregarious and individual work until the close of aftercare.

Primary Scope & Sequence

Our Scope and Sequence consists of four subject areas: practical life, sensorial, language, and math. Art, cultural studies, health and physical education, geography, music, and science are interwoven into these four areas. 

PRACTICAL LIFE

Transition Exercises: Transition exercises are not specific to practical life exercises. These activities act as a bridge from your home environment to the prepared environment in a Montessori school. These exercises provide a sense of psychological safety for your child when he or she first enters the Community. The exercises include folding, watering a plant, dusting, and cutting. Simple (six- or seven-piece) geometric or jigsaw puzzles as well as plain wooden building blocks are not practical life exercises, but they do serve as transition exercises for the very young or new child. These latter examples are not kept on the practical life shelf but on a separate cupboard.  These activities require a minimal presentation (because of your child’s familiarity with similar activities from home), and the materials for these exercises do not stay in the classroom for very long.

Preliminary Movements: The preliminary exercises are intended to isolate movements needed for future practical life exercises. These exercises allow your child to practice important movements before he or she tackles more complex exercises that incorporate them. If these exercises are not practiced beforehand, your child might become confused with the subsequent, more challenging exercises.

Care of the Person: The second group of exercises involve care of the person. These activities are related to how your child takes care of his or her body or of things associated with his or her body. This is an important part of your child’s development toward independence and self-confidence. The following are examples of lessons (and materials) in this area:

Social Relations: Grace and courtesy is the fourth group of exercises and can be summarized as social relations. “Grace” is the coordination of your child’s own body and its movements, and “courtesy” is how your child relates to others. Grace exercises would be how to walk or talk in the prepared environment, and courtesy activities would include how to greet others, when to say “please” and “thank you,” and how to open doors. Learning opportunities for grace and courtesy occur throughout the course of each day for each child, based on the particular circumstances your or another child is in at the moment. These lessons can occur spontaneously.

Analysis and Control of Movement: The final group of exercises in the practical life area is analysis and control of movement. We focus your child on the awareness of the body, its movements, and how to bring it under control of the will, not on the activity outside the body. Examples include walking the line and the silence game. The mindfulness curriculum is found in this area of the curriculum. The epitome of control of movement is when your child chooses not to move or speak for a brief period. This requires your child to have the strength to control his or her will, the epitome of self-control.

LANGUAGE

The language area consists of an evolution from spoken language to writing to reading. In spoken language, we assist your child in developing the ability to communicate orally and to listen expertly. In writing, we assist your child’s language development by preparing the hand and the mind for writing and facilitating your child’s explosion into writing. In reading, we assist in your child’s development by preparing the eye and the mind for reading by learning the mechanics of reading and learning to interpret reading, going from single words to phrases to full sentences, and culminating with total reading where the child employs his or her comprehension with imagination.

SENSORIAL

A Montessori classroom allows your child to develop the skills of classifying, refining sensory perceptions, abstracting, enhancing memory, and training his or her mind towards precision. This is the beginning of the development of your child’s mathematical mind and the ability to abstract, and the sensorial materials help lay the seeds for its development or serve as its catalyst.

MATH

When we look at the whole of the math area, it can be summarized as five groups of activities: The 1-10 work, the Decimal System work, Continuation of Counting work, Memorization work, and Passage to Abstraction work. The Numbers 1-10 work is introduced first to your child. The Decimal System and Continuation of Counting come next, and we present them concurrently. Memorization Work begins once your child understands all of the exercises in the 1-10 Work and has some understanding of addition. The final area, Passage to Abstraction, occurs when your child is older, for it requires a thorough understanding of mathematical operations with all materials and the ability to understand abstract concepts.