Our Programs - Lower Elementary
Our Lower Elementary program includes 1st to 3rd graders. In this classroom, students continue to have free rein to explore based on the 3-hour uninterrupted work cycle. The curriculum becomes broader and the accountability stakes are raised. Children in Montessori Elementary independently design and follow a work plan each day, documenting their own progress with their teacher's support. Children now begin to manage their time, checking off weekly practice work, exploring different paths through the curriculum, and creating impressive projects of their own.
Our Elementary classroom is specifically designed to meet the learning and developmental needs of our children. Math, language, science, geography, history, music and art are all introduced as part of the great breadth and depth of the human experience. Working in small groups with specially created Montessori materials, elementary-aged children develop a deep understanding of fundamental concepts in each of these subject areas. As the child becomes increasingly able to work on an abstract level, reading, writing and math become tools for learning about the world. Above all, the curriculum in the elementary years is designed to capture the imagination of the child and engender a lifelong love of learning.
Four Classrooms
Our Dual Language Elementary program is a 1st-4th grade model Montessori classroom spread across 4 sun-filled rooms, each with unique characteristics.
Our community room holds meetings, collaborative artwork and special group projects, presentations and performances. Here, our children continue developing their voices, their leadership traits, their comfort with group dynamics and hone problem solving skills.
A technology room (below) gives our Elementary children a space to experiment with computer programming, robotics, engineering and the scientific method.
Our practice room allows students time to bring their skills to mastery as they manage their time and move their own way through the 3 year curriculum.
Finally, a library cove provides a special, secluded place for discovery both in chasing fantasies and researching new projects and interests to share with classmates.
Great Lessons
The Great Lessons are an important and unique part of the Lower Elementary Montessori curriculum. These lessons are bold, exciting, and are designed to awaken a child's imagination and curiosity. The child should be struck with the wonder of creation, thrilled with new ideas, and awed by the inventiveness and innovation that is part of the human spirit.
The Five Great Lessons are traditionally presented in Lower Elementary, and are presented every year so that children see them more than one time. Each year that the lessons are presented they know more, they excitedly wait for the moments that will impress their new, younger classmates - they begin to own the story of knowledge that we all share.
Unlike the Primary environment, where the child is introduced first to "small" ideas that gradually widen into larger concepts, the elementary child is introduced right away to large concepts - the largest of all being the beginning of the universe. Then they can be shown how all the smaller ideas fit into the larger framework.
Special Events
The Lower Elementary program is highlighted by special events that frame the school year for its students. These events occur annually and present opportunities for children to put their talents to work at a different scale.
The Arts Festival is a whole community event showcasing the talents of children from the Toddler classroom up into the Elementary. Process over product, the entire collective effort and each piece is celebrated at this beautiful spring event.
Each year students compete in the Scripps National Spelling Bee where a group of qualifiers is selected at the school-wide bee and continue on to the New York City event.
The First Lego League is a coding and robotics competition and celebration where elementary students program lego-based robots to solve problems and accomplish tasks in a makeshift world. The competition is both regional and worldwide - children proudly take their robots to events throughout the city.
At the Winter Concert every child at school participates in the telling of one of Maria Montessori's 'Great Lessons' using their musical skills, instruments, dance, and theatricality.
C'E's Spanish Spring Musical affords elementary program students the chance and venue to perform a musical entirely in Spanish. This yearly celebration and culmination of the Spanish program is led by a team of musicians and choreographers.
Elementary Teacher and Coordinator - Ashton
Ashton is a Lead Elementary teacher. They are responsible for the Math and Science curriculum in our Elementary school and its alignment with the cultural curriculum in our Primary program. Like many other Montessori Elementary programs, C’E Montessori does not include screens in the 1st-4th grade classroom. Ashton has used different resources like Cubetto and First Lego League to ensure that children at C’E Montessori are coding and experimenting with robotics as early as Kindergarten. They use and develop a problem solving curriculum featuring the design cycle to constantly challenge students to ask questions, find problems, hypothesize, test, and try to come up with solutions to every kind of problem on a daily basis. They are originally from Alabama, where they graduated as an Elementary Level teacher at Auburn, and has lived and taught in New York City now for three years.
Elementary Lead - Julia
Julia is an artist and Montessori educator that began her journey in Montessori at two years old. She was in a 2-5 Primary classroom in New Hampshire and never forgot the joy she felt discovering her artistic and language talents. She is AMA Montessori Elementary trained for Lower and Upper elementary classrooms. At Wesleyan where she graduated with a degree in Political Theory, she began to work with the services bureau of Connecticut where she observed the vital role of schools and support for early childhood education in creating a path for better mental health and physical health outcomes for children and overall quality of life for the whole community. After graduating, she immersed herself full time in teaching, working abroad in Reims and back here in Brooklyn. Julia is a collage artist and her work is proudly on display here at C'E as well as galleries around Brooklyn. You'll be happy to know that her interest in history and politics comes from her youth in New Hampshire spent acting as a period piece personality to recreate important moments from the past at her local history museum.