Elementary
1st-6th grade
Wheaton Montessori School’s Elementary Program continues to focus on inspiring children to learn to be self-directed and independent while deepening communication, collaboration, and problem-solving
skills. The beautiful environment and advanced academic activities in the elementary classrooms focus on structured, meaningful activities that are developmentally designed to inspire our children.
A Day in the Life of an Elementary Student
Much like in our primary classrooms, Wheaton Montessori elementary students work in mixed-age classrooms of students, ranging in age from 6 to 9 or 9 to 12. Children can find peers with whom to collaborate and cooperate on lessons, projects, and research.
The teacher typically presents lessons to small groups of students at a time; each child is then encouraged to repeat the work and explore the lesson as often as necessary for mastery. The scope of lessons and meaningful work in the elementary classrooms is broad, focusing on the child’s entire universe and their relationship with it. Rather than working on specific subjects in isolation, elementary students work in longer, uninterrupted cycles of integrated subject matter and learning, developmentally appropriate for the elementary-aged mind.
Along with their work in the classroom, elementary students spend time in self-directed exploration out in their surrounding world, known as “going-outs.” Trips to the library, museums, aquariums, and studios are common for this age group. We take advantage of the wealth of opportunities in Chicagoland, visiting Cosley Zoo, Lincoln Marsh, and Willowbrook Wildlife Center in addition to the Shedd Aquarium, Museum of Science and Industry, DuSable Museum, National Museum of Mexican Art, and more.
“The Big Trip”
Once a year, our upper elementary students take a larger trip. Past trips have included a week at the Teton Science Center in Jackson Hole, MarineLab in Key Largo, NatureBridge at Olympic National Park, and the Catalina Island Science Institute.
Parent Testimonial
A number of factors contributed to the decision to keep our son at Wheaton Montessori (for Elementary school):
- Getting to know the elementary students and the way they treated the Primary students and the way they acted, their good manners, their enthusiasm.
- Knowing that our son would be allowed to find his passions and pursue them and that he would be encouraged along the way.
- Knowing he would be able to work ahead of the other students if he showed the aptitude and the desire.
- Knowing that his unique way of seeing the world would be encouraged and nourished.
- We wanted to continue the wonderful success and progress we had witnessed in the multiple years of preschool and kindergarten.
- The AMI accreditation gives us great confidence that the procedures in the classroom are tried-and-true.
- My son likes his school community and every day is a good day at his school.
– David B., Wheaton Montessori School parent