MONTESSORI Elementary School
THE PRIMARY YEARS
Lower Elementary: First through third grades
Upper Elementary: Fourth through sixth grades
An Elementary education at Torit builds a solid foundation for the future. With subject matter mastery and hands-on applications, elementary students gain the self-confidence to find their place in the world and to continue their academic career anywhere they choose.
Faculty members get to know students as individuals, guiding them as they develop confidence and mastery in a wide array of academic subjects. They also build the kind of work ethic that underlies 21st century skills, ranging from social interconnectedness to technological entrepreneurship. Additionally, students learn how to help others and work cooperatively, supported by field-based learning, historical dramas, science projects, community service, and much more.
In keeping with Dr. Maria Montessori’s globalism and commitment to peace education, we teach courtesy, grace, and a spirit of community to our students, future world citizens. We also teach Arabic, Mandarin, and Spanish. Our exceptional curriculum, based on the Montessori Great Lessons, is furthered by athletics, art, music, language, and after school enrichment. Our program is designed to support families in the challenging and rewarding work of raising educated, responsible, ethical, and motivated children.
Lower Elementary Curriculum
English
Students from Torit begin Lower Elementary reading paragraphs with reasonable fluency and writing sentences independently. If students need to build these skills in Grade 1, all of the materials and individualization to acquire fluent reading skills are available with trained teachers to deliver those lessons in Grades 1/2.
Lower Elementary students use their reading and writing skills for independent learning and for follow through on independent work plans in all subjects. Specifically within English, in order to build reading comprehension, writing skills and oral comprehension, students participate in reading groups, write book reports, and listen to news reports with progress toward identifying major issues and leading full group news discussions as third graders.
Torit has a significant library collection (in a beautiful setting) available as a resource to find skill-matched books in multiple genres (e.g. biography, character fiction, historical fiction, research texts, science non-fiction). The books assigned — for reading and discussion, the elements of narrative, exposition, and opinion writing — are taught for book report content and the current events discussions all progress linearly for each student from their individual starting point. Work is individualized for skill level and not “grade level constrained”.
Math
Lower Elementary students begin with review on place value and quantity for numbers from 0 through 9,999 and skip counting by 2s, 5s and 10s. Once these skills are solidified (or acquired, for those new to Torit, or still growing with the place value materials), Lower Elementary years focus on a full base-10 system number sense and basic geometry and shapes, measurement, money and time.
Sequentially, within number sense, students solidify mental rote fluency with math facts in addition and subtraction, mental and paper-based problem solving in addition and subtraction (within the context of word problems of increasing complexity), using materials to understand multiplication, division, fractions and decimals, solidifying mental rote fluency with multiplication and division math facts, and working on word problems of increasing complexity in multiplication, division and fractions and decimals. Students also practice understanding patterns within numbers.
Within basic geometry, students work with line, circle, triangle, a variety of polynomials, and the concept of symmetry. Within measurement, students learn units of measurement for solids and liquids, learn to express measures through graphs, understand and calculate area and perimeter, and solve simple problems, both on paper, and in ops management, that challenge their understanding of all areas of measurement. Both money and time are introduced with lessons in class but are practiced extensively as further described in the unique Torit Ops Management curriculum.
Science
Torit embraces Montessori’s uniquely formulated foundation for science and history in the form of Five Great Lessons: Coming of the Universe, Coming of Life to Earth, Coming of Humans to Earth, Development of Writing Systems, Development of Numbers Systems. Each of these Great Lessons are taught in Lower Elementary and allow a jumping off point for the following aspects of science: Properties of Matter in the forms of Solid, Liquid and Gas, including magnetism and electric currents; Space; Chemistry and chemical reactions; Light, Sound, Color, and Simple Machines; Basic Biology, including extensive zoology and classifications of the animal kingdom; and Earth Science, including climate and weather. Each year, students learn the basics of the scientific method, research, perform experiments, and present conclusions in a science fair.
Social Studies
The extensive and sequenced history curriculum at Torit builds from the Montessori Great Lessons and incorporates the globalism imbued by our heavily international staff. Building on the Second Great Lesson (“Coming of Life to Earth”), Grade 1 students begin the concept of time and timelines, starting from prehistoric eras and the arrival of plant and cell life, continuing through ancient civilizations spanning all the continents. In addition to a wonderful sequence and understanding of time, the Lower Elementary history curriculum provides Montessori’s Fundamental Needs framework, giving students a way of comparing cultures and civilizations across time based upon common elements that define civilizations today. This is great preparation for the comparative country analysis that culminates Upper Elementary in the final semester of Grade 6.
While learning about ancient civilizations, Lower Elementary students solidify a sense of geography and culture by placing historical civilizations on today’s country maps. Our social studies curriculum also highlights cultural geography through the celebration of Eid, Diwali, Hanukkah, Christmas, and Lunar New Year. While American history and comparative modern history are largely saved for Upper Elementary, Lower Elementary students learn about and discuss basics of civics through historical field trips in and around Boston. Perhaps the best part of history for our students is bringing it to life in their annual historical drama productions.
World Languages
Our world languages program focuses predominately upon auditory comprehension and verbalized response (oral communication). Reading and writing do also play a part in both Lower and Upper Elementary classes. Students in Lower Elementary take three languages: Arabic, Mandarin and Spanish, participating in each language class twice per week and completing exercises featuring their own teachers - and others - via computer, between classes. Through the course of Lower Elementary, students move from simple sentences using a wide range of nouns, verbs and adjectives across everyday life topics (introductions, family, foods, places) on to more complex monologues and dialogues. Reading and writing are introduced in Arabic and Mandarin and are a regular part of the Spanish program.
Coding and Robotics
Computers are first introduced in Lower Elementary. As such, Lower Elementary students begin with the basics of turning on and off the computer, logging in and out, completing typing lessons and accessing a school-assigned email account for links to foreign language auditory exercises or math fact memorization games. Students also discuss normative rules of using computers, including the practice of saying only what you would be willing to speak in person. When ready, Lower Elementary students begin learning coding off screen by comparing an expository paragraph with an algorithm and then a piece of code. Students write algorithms and code offscreen before beginning a coding program. Scratch is the onscreen coding language that forms the basis for Lower Elementary basics of simple coding and eventual progress to robotics (after practicing the design/build elements of robotics off screen). The connections between coding and various math concepts such as coordinates and logic statements are introduced toward the end of Lower Elementary and are emphasized heavily in Upper Elementary.
Ops Management
In Lower Elementary, students are introduced to the operations management curriculum in four primary ways:
1. Taking inventory/surveys throughout the school that are graphed/logged as patterns and presented for use in supplies ordering and lunch/snack planning
2. Cooking / food prep that involves measurement and math to match a recipe to the number being served and may also involve trips to the store with a budget and money
3. Creating and selling items including cards for each of our celebrated holidays (Diwali, Eid, Hanukkah, Christmas, Chinese New Year and Valentine’s Day) and crafts for the Christmas Craft Fair incorporating a curriculum of basic profit and loss
4. Taking measurements of classrooms for rug placements and table layouts involving perimeter and area lessons
Some photography by Nycebutterfly Photography