The Second Plane of Development
Maria Montessori divided human development into four planes, each defined by needs and learning sensitivity. The second plane, characterized by Montessori as ‘the Metamorphic Age’, is from age 6 to 12. This is a period of intellectual growth, socialization, reasoning, imagination, cultural interest, and heightened social justice awareness. To address all these needs, the Elementary curriculum must be vast and engaging. An interdisciplinary approach to teaching subjects (language, math, geometry, history, geography, botany, and zoology) through big-picture stories that spark children’s interest is presented to students, leading them to explore and discover the curriculum systematically, following a scope-and-sequence of materials.
At Unity Academy of Chicago, the Elementary curriculum builds on the goals of the Primary curriculum and provides learning opportunities aligned with the teachings and values of Islam.
The following are highlights of our program:
- Multi-age classrooms: Our Elementary classrooms serve children of ages 6 to 12. Children progress through the curriculum at their own pace. Since a Montessori environment meets children’s academic and social needs, the curriculum is designed to accommodate a full range of interests and abilities, from the youngest to the oldest. Older children mentor younger ones, fostering peer teaching, compassion, patience, and leadership.
- Academic preparation: Children are taught holistically and in an interdisciplinary manner. The Great Lessons are magnificent stories that span great vistas of time and space. They give the children an understanding of the cosmos. The children learn by working with hands-on materials designed to inculcate a deeper understanding of the underlying concepts. The skills learned in mathematics and language arts are integrated with botany, zoology, history, geography, geology, chemistry, physics, and practical life. The curriculum is aligned with Islamic studies, individualized Quran lessons, and Arabic. The program cultivates children’s curiosity while nurturing a sense of wonder.
- Hands-on materials: The Montessori curriculum is based on hands-on materials that isolate concepts and encourage exploration and discovery. In most materials, built-in features help children identify and correct their mistakes. Teachers present materials by following a logical scope and sequence. They are the guides who connect the child to the materials and encourage the child to practice until they can abstract the concept.
- Prepared Environment: A child-centered, meticulously designed classroom environment created by elementary teachers provides students with hands-on experiences, free exploration of materials, and systematic learning. Students learn to initiate, manage, and complete work successfully in our inquiry-based classrooms.
- Close-knit community: Our classroom is a close-knit community of peers learning to play their part in the world. The class community is a source of ‘life lessons’. Values such as social responsibility, spiritual awareness, community service, and ultimately global citizenship are the outcomes we are striving to instill in the students.
- Global citizenship: We strive to raise children with a sense of sympathy, tolerance, and a deep awareness of their place in Allah’s (swt) cosmic plan as well as their role in it. We strive to foster greater awareness of our role as a global community with a moral responsibility to serve humanity.
The Elementary Program
The Montessori Curriculum for Lower and Upper Elementary is a spiral curriculum designed to spark children’s curiosity, leading them to make discoveries and learn through hands-on materials. The areas of language, math, geometry, botany, zoology, geography, and history are taught through an organized scope and sequence that guides the child to abstract the fundamental concepts in each subject area. We have a rich array of Montessori materials in both lower- and upper-elementary classrooms.
We have created a collaborative, supportive community in which everyone learns from one another, fostering a strong sense of family and mutual respect.
The Montessori materials are arranged in a sequential order following the Montessori scope and sequence. All curricular areas are well-defined and exhibit a natural flow.
Language
The language area of the curriculum teaches reading and writing through phonetic analysis and decoding mechanics, while also emphasizing reading for comprehension and critical thinking. Students receive instruction in key components of the language curriculum, including grammar, spelling, punctuation, and word study for vocabulary development. Writing is emphasized as an important part of each day, with students writing stories, letters, and other creative forms of writing for self-expression and communication. They also develop research skills by writing detailed reports on topics of interest to them. Spelling work is individualized with several different spelling groups within a class community.
Literature circles are fundamental components of our language arts curriculum. Students are introduced to poetry and a variety of literary genres to build their comprehension skills and become familiar with in-depth textual analysis. In the Upper Elementary program, students further engage in deep study of the functions of the parts of speech, sentence analysis, sentence diagramming, and key comprehension skills, including recognizing the author’s purpose, making inferences, understanding context clues, discerning cause and effect, analyzing characters, and identifying themes. They also work on figurative language, literary genres, and poetry.
Mathematics
The Montessori math curriculum helps students develop logical, critical thinking. Students are presented with concepts in addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, fractions, measurement, money, time, and problem-solving. Students master math concepts using a range of Montessori materials. Over the three-year cycle, children move to more abstract work. We also work on memorizing and calculating facts. Students work with graphs and charts to develop data-organizing skills.
The Upper Elementary child does not want just to do and explore; they want to solve using a new method. Having already used and mastered math materials, abstract formulas now become meaningful and effective. Advanced concepts such as common multiples, factors, fractions with unlike denominators, decimals, percents, integers, exponents, and square and cube roots are studied.
Geometry
The geometry area builds upon the sensorial area in the Primary program. Students are introduced to the concepts and nomenclature of lines, angles, triangles, quadrilaterals, circles, and three-dimensional solids. Symmetry, congruency, similarity, and equivalence are introduced and practiced until a level of mastery is achieved. In the Upper Elementary program, perimeter, area, and volume are studied. Using Montessori materials, students discover formulas and apply them to identify relationships among geometric figures and determine the areas of advanced polygons. Students explore methods for determining surface area and volume, and develop theorems and formulas to solve problems.
Cultural Studies
The cultural area is a major component of the Montessori Elementary curriculum. It includes botany, zoology, history, geography, and physical science. This area is presented through impressionistic charts, timelines, nomenclature cards, and presentations that strike the imagination. The cultural subject area instills in learners the concepts of interconnectedness and the universe’s purposeful creation.
In botany, students learn about the structure, parts, and functions of plants. They learn about the diverse types of plant life on our planet and how to derive connections between the world of plants and other living domains through research, demonstrations, and experiments.
Our Upper Elementary students work with advanced botany nomenclature for specific parts of the plants, plant classification charts, and materials for botany experiments, to delve deeper into the world of plants.
In zoology, children learn about animal classification and characteristics. Students develop a deep understanding of the animal kingdom through nomenclature cards, stories, and charts. The system of scientific classification is introduced. The children learn about the vital functions of both invertebrates and vertebrates. The Timeline of Life is studied as classes of animals are presented in the order in which the corresponding fossil evidence was discovered.
Children can explore the universe, their world, and different world cultures through geography and history. Children work on maps of the continents and develop a deep understanding of each continent through the study of terrain, flora, fauna, and climate.
History is taught through timelines and charts. In this area, students develop an understanding of their place in the world. Students are introduced to the larger concepts, then move on to the deeper details.
Astronomy lessons are given with an emphasis on the child’s place in the universe. Study of stars, planet research, and the study of celestial bodies are conducted.
The structure and formation of Earth, rock types, volcanology, minerals, weathering, the work of water, plate tectonics, oceans, and mountains are among the physical science topics students will explore.
Practical Life
Practical life in the Elementary program retains the essential aspects of self-care, care of the environment, grace and courtesy, and purposeful movement. However, at the elementary level, there is greater emphasis on connections and higher-level goals. Students perform jobs to maintain their classroom and school environment. Keeping the classroom environment clean is the responsibility of all the students. This gives them a sense of attachment and accountability towards their classroom environment. Elementary students routinely help to maintain their classroom and school environment.
Students engage in cooking, preparing, and setting up snacks for their peers, washing dishes, loading and unloading dishwashers, folding laundry, vacuuming, mopping, taking out compost, watering plants, and gardening, among other housekeeping tasks.
The students feel a sense of ownership and pride in community service projects such as raising funds for different causes. They engage in charitable activities, gathering food, clothing, and toys to support less privileged members of our society. Elementary students have a heightened sense of social justice and, at times, write letters to raise awareness of social issues.
Grace and courtesy lessons take a complex turn, addressing how to solve problems, facilitate peace among peers, stand up for what is right, and participate in class meetings. Here, children learn sympathy, independence and interdependence, community involvement, social responsibility, and peace-keeping – all important traits for building future global citizens.
Islamic Character in the Elementary Program
The ultimate success will be for the pious ones! [7:128]
As human beings, when we look at the entirety of existence, we are struck with awe. Whether our gaze goes up to the limitless heavens, down to the subatomic level, outward to complex societies, or inward to the unfathomable soul, we see His Face. To live in this sense of awe is the state of taqwa or piety.
To engender taqwa and an Islamic character in our students is the primary aim of our school. Islamic character is a way of being in the world, not merely knowledge or skill. The Montessori method is well-aligned with this idea of character development and spirituality. Thus, we infuse our Montessori programs with acts of worship and the sources of divine guidance that can lead us to the “ultimate success.”
The Islamic character curriculum at the Elementary level is structured to assist students in building a relationship with Allah (swt), the Quran, and the Ahlul Bayt (as) through the following approaches:
Quran & Arabic
Tajweed is the practice of reciting Quranic verses correctly, as they had been done by Prophet Muhammad (s). At the Elementary level, students’ goal is to develop fluency in reciting the Quran correctly and progress toward understanding and applying tajweed rules.
Makharij involves giving every letter its right and articulating it from the correct places in the mouth, nose, and throat. Learning the correct makharij of Arabic letters is the foundation of tajweed. Once makharij are mastered, students progress to learning the basic and advanced tajweed rules and their application during recitation.
Worship
In the Elementary program, students take their acts of worship to a deeper level. Students consolidate their learning of Quranic Arabic by memorizing more challenging surahs. Group memorization is teacher-led: the whole class practices and memorizes the text together. Individual memorization is student-led and differentiated by each student’s age and understanding level. Students also work on correcting and memorizing the adhkaar of salaah, ziyaarahs, and supplications narrated by the Ahlulbayt (as). Teachers lead the formal prayer, with students mirroring the movements and recitation. As some students reach the age of accountability, they perform wudhu and the obligatory salaah with concentration. Students begin attending salaat al-jumu’ah, which is a great source of inspiration for them each week.
Virtues Calendar and Role Models
It is very important for children to connect with the messages Allah (swt) has sent in the Quran by learning about the noble values it mentions and the role models who exemplify them.
This connection is nurtured by introducing a verse and its background of revelation. The students learn the verse’s vocabulary and are supported in understanding its meaning and implications.
The connection is also reinforced by events and observances in the Islamic calendar, such as Ramadhan, Muharram, and the birth and death dates of our infallible role models.
Object lessons
“A child who has become master of his acts through long and repeated exercises and who has been encouraged by the pleasant and interesting activities in which he has been engaged, is a child filled with health and joy and remarkable for his calmness and discipline.” (from The Discovery of the Child by Maria Montessori)
Object lessons are practical experiments and concrete examples of abstract ideas, principles, or virtues learned from the Quran and the Ahlul Bayt (as). For example, consider the verse:
“Hold fast, all together to Allah’s rope and do not be divided.” [3:103]
The message of this verse can be made real for students by demonstrating the strength of a stack of dowels or sticks. Students can only break the dowels or sticks when they are separated from the stack.
