MSSA is delighted to offer parents the Montessori Journey on Thursday, September 22 at 6:30 pm. The Montessori Journey allows parents to travel through classrooms hearing about one element of study and how that element changes throughout the years and levels.
The focus for our upcoming session of The Montessori Journey will be science, and we will see how children learn science as they move from Primary to Lower Elementary to Upper Elementary and finally to our Middle School, which for MSSA is grades seven and eight. We begin in the library, and then parents are guided through 20-minute sessions at each level with our Montessori-trained faculty who explain the curriculum and demonstrate the materials.
Complimentary childcare is available for MSSA students with a reservation.
I want to call your attention to two key components of our science instruction – and these are components that are specific to Montessori philosophy and use Montessori language.
The first is that in our Montessori classrooms, all science lessons fall under the category of what we call cultural studies. Cultural subjects include geography, science, botany, and zoology. Children learn about what it means to classify information and how the whole relates to its parts, as well as having lessons about sound, light, and heat, and then they progress to understandings of properties of matter and energy and physics. Cultural studies also include history and geography.
The second is that Montessori science work is designed within the framework of cosmic education, which is essentially the understanding that all things are connected. Within this framework of interconnectedness, lessons in science are introduced by stories that aim to spark the imagination of children while activating their reasoning minds. Cosmic here means “far- out” truly, as in relating to the universe, and science together with history provides us not only with an understanding of the creation of the universe, but also how it continues to unfold.
In their book Children of the Universe authors Michael and D’Neil Duffy write “Cosmic education teaches children to recognize the fundamental needs we all share and to respect the cultural differences by which we meet those fundamental needs. Such an education can lead us to a future of true peace such as that sought by Maria Montessori.”
I hope you enjoy hearing from our teachers and learning more about the science curriculum and your child’s journey at The Montessori School of San Antonio.