Our Programs
Montessori. Means so much more than preschool.
Everyone knows Montessori from the thousands of preschools bearing the name worldwide. Not as many know Montessori as an innovator in primary and secondary education. That's changing.
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In fact, a 2011 article in The Wall Street Journal suggests that a Montessori education “might be the surest route to joining the creative elite, which are so overrepresented by the school’s alumni that one might suspect a Montessori Mafia: Google’s founders Larry Page and Sergei Brin, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, videogame pioneer Will Wright, and Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, not to mention Julia Child and rapper Sean “P.Diddy” Combs.”
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What is it about the Montessori approach that fosters radical leadership and vision? Basically, a model of learning that places children at the center of their educational universe and teaches them how to master that world. By pushing them to evolve into experts. By helping them rehearse how to take charge in the real world.
Make this video of Alissa talking about curriculum??? From Yelp...?
Early Childhood: Pre/PreK/K (Ages 3 - 6)
The journey to self-empowerment begins at the earliest ages, with a thoughtfully designed curriculum for 3 to 6-year-olds that prepares children to navigate their own bodies; the social environment; and their physical surroundings. During this time, our students gain a critical sense of mastery that translates to future classroom experiences, and they gain comfort and confidence with Montessori practices. Our Early Childhood Program is not just daycare. We educate the senses of our young learners as a precursor to the more complex learning that will come later, and we expect these children to be inquisitive and capable of great leaps in creativity and competence. We provide them a vibrant culture, precision materials, and a caring, committed community where these innate drives can thrive.
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In the Classroom
Early Childhood Program at Montessori Family School is located at our Berkeley Campus and nurtures young children’s quest for independence. Our EC classrooms look different than what you might think of as traditional “preschool”. The learning environment consists of carefully prepared activities—hundreds of options, from painting to map-making, letter formation, math-related blocks and beads, and on and on—just waiting for the children to choose them. In this carefully constructed world, our students seek out their own interests, and pursue their capacities, obtaining assistance and guidance from highly trained and experienced Montessori teachers (and classroom peers) who understand how to nurture autonomy and personal growth while making a child feel safe and supported at all times. Children take personal responsibility for choosing their work, returning materials to their proper places when completed, and clearing their workspaces as needed. This ownership, in turn, means children get all the credit for their superb accomplishments. They learn a crucial lesson: They can do it!
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Each EC classroom has two full-time, trained Montessori teachers, with no more than 22 students.
For a taste of the types of learning materials that populate our rich learning environments, we invite you to visit this page at the American Montessori Society (of which MFS is a member school) which describes them so well: https://amshq.org/Montessori-Education/Introduction-to-Montessori/Montessori-Learning-Materials.
Vision for Early Childhood Program
Our vision for the Early Childhood Program at MFS is that each child ends each day brimming with pride over his or her accomplishments, joy over his or her successes, and excitement over what’s to come. We see each student graduating from our EC program fully prepared to continue charting his or her own course of learning, and finding every success—while having begun to manage the meaning of first-time failures—in the next stages to come. Our children are comfortable in their own shoes, believers in their own abilities, and small leaders (with big ideas) over their own paths of learning.
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Goals for Early Childhood Program
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Our goals are that children refine their gross motor skills, obtain a sense of competence over their own bodies, become comfortable and confident in managing a Montessori classroom, develop a deep-seated sense of self-confidence and competence, and obtain a solid cognitive foundation for beginning reading and math concepts. They also learn to become part of a community, including learning from and providing guidance to others, making enduring friendships, and constructively grappling with inevitable moments of conflict.
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Schedule of the Day
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Children can start in before-school care as early as 8:00am. Children arriving for the regular school day can be dropped off between 8:45am-9:00am. We have a designated drop-off area, where a teacher or staff member will be waiting to greet children. A teacher or staff member will walk students into their classroom.
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Students begin the “work period” in the classroom at 9:00am and this continues until lunchtime. During the work period, children can eat a snack, visit our cultural studies area, work individually, in a pair, or in a group doing different activities.
Lunch begins at 11:30am and continues until 1:15pm. Students have time to eat their lunch and get substantial outdoor time on our large play yard. Those students who stay for a 1/2 day will be picked up by a parent/caregiver between 12:00pm-12:30pm. Children who nap will have supervised rest in the nap room between 12:00pm-1:15pm.
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​The children come back into the classrooms after lunch and those students who do not nap will have a quiet time. During quiet time the children may listen to music, hear a story read aloud by a teacher, or read to themselves. Quiet time lasts for about 45 minutes.
In the afternoon, students will have another work period, until 3:00pm when regular school ends. Students who are picked up at 3:00pm will be escorted by a teacher or staff member to our drop-off/pick-up area until their parent/caregiver arrives.
Students may be in Afterschool Care until 6:00pm. Afterschool is fun and engaging with structured activities set up and time for free play on our yard. Spanish is also integrated into the Afterschool curriculum.
Early Childhood Curriculum
Studies by Maria Montessori and contemporary researchers support the notion that a child’s first three years of life, and the next three years of education outside the home, are the most important in shaping his or her personality and ability to learn. Children learn more during this period of time than at any other, and set important patterns for the future. Skills learned become the foundation that help them grow in independence.
Each of our preschool classrooms is divided into five distinct areas, each of which is devoted to learning about a particular subject.
Practical Life Studies
Practical Life teaches children to take care of themselves and their physical environment. MFS students prepare their own snacks, learn to tie their own shoes and zip their jackets, and clean up after themselves. According to developmental psychology, one of the primary drives of the preschool child is “to do it myself.” Practical Life activities are designed to allow them this autonomy. All of these activities take place in an environment that nurtures the whole child and supports their natural curiosity and love of learning.
Cultural Studies
In the Montessori system, Cultural Study encompasses the traditional disciplines of social studies and science. In the Early Childhood program, CS materials cover geography, anatomy, botany, zoology and simple physics. Children study the solar system, the earth and its layers, the animals and plants that live on the surface of the earth, and the rich history of different cultures. Materials include maps that are puzzles, flags from different nations, and teachers actively incorporate songs, music and foods from around the world to support our Cultural Studies.
Language
MFS Language materials allow children an eclectic array of hands-on learning experiences, exploring phonics, linguistics and sight words. The materials are kinesthetic, auditory and visual, appealing to the multi-sensory modes that children use to acquire information. We recognize that some children are ready to jump into reading well before Kindergarten, whereas other children will take more time. We appreciate and support each child's pace.
Math
Montessori Math materials are used in educational settings around the world. They include concrete manipulatives that give each child a sensorial experience of mathematics which allows them to later move into abstraction with a real foundation and understanding of math and its underlying concepts. Young MFS mathematicians count up to 1000, delight in materials made from golden beads that help them to experience place value, and begin to learn addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and fractions as well as problem solving, all while employing their hands to explore and experience what numbers really mean.
Sensorial Studies
Children live in a world of senses, and Montessori sensorial materials enable children to clarify, sort, classify, and comprehend their world. Through sight, touch, sound, taste, and smell, these materials “throw a spotlight” on reality and play a key role in helping children to translate concrete experiences into abstract concepts and back. The sensorial materials also provide a basis for the development of other skills such as mathematics and language.
Kindergarten Transition (Ages 4.5 - 6)
Kindergarten Transition Curriculum
Kindergarten Transition is offered to ensure every child is ready to take on the challenges of Lower Elementary, the next phase in Montessori education, involving a mixed classroom with grades 1-3. KT is ideal if your child does not have a Montessori background and would benefit from exposure to sensorial materials and experiential learning prior to leaping into the larger classroom, or if your child has Montessori experience but is too young for first grade. We are happy to discuss which classroom might be most appropriate for your child.
KT at MFS is located at our El Cerrito campus. In this small classroom, two trained Montessori teachers instruct a maximum of 18 students. This low teacher/student ratio affords children highly individualized attention as they transition to the more rigorous learning experiences that lie ahead in LE. Some children who enter on the younger end of the spectrum may spend two years in KT.
The KT program follows the same Early Education Montessori curriculum as described above using developmentally appropriate materials, and including Practical Life Studies, Cultural Studies (science and social studies), Language (reading and writing), Math, and Sensorial Studies. As throughout Montessori, KT emphasizes the experiential nature of learning. Children move at their own pace, pursue particular subjects that are of interest to them, and teach and learn from each other.
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To meet their broader developmental needs, children participate in a number of weekly resource classes, such as music (using the Orff Schulwerk system), art, Spanish, and physical education.
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Elementary (Grades 1 - 6)
Elementary is where things really begin to take off. Children's minds and bodies are more developed, and they can begin to build off past successes to tackle increasingly complex, longer-term projects. LE students at MFS start to take on true ownership over their studies, compiling and tracking their own weekly Work Plans. They flex their creative and intellectual muscles in a classroom brimming with possibilities. They adopt and actively benefit from peer-based mentorship, as the learning environment begins to more closely resemble a self-sustaining social organism.
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In the Classroom
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Lower Elementary at MFS comprises roughly 40 students across Grades 1-3, with two experienced Montessori teachers and assistant teachers leading their studies.
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Upper Elementary is made up of about 32 students from Grades 4-6, with three qualified teachers.
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In this environment, children zoom ahead at their own pace, taking on whatever math or reading assignments for example they may be ready for, but obtaining extra assistance with whichever materials may be more of a struggle. Most importantly, they are learning to master their own immediate environment and manage their own academic world, rather than simply accumulating knowledge and skills. They are preparing to become leaders of their own lives, whether they know it or not.
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Vision for Elementary Program
XXXXX Our vision for the Early Childhood Program at MFS is that each child ends each day brimming with pride over his or her accomplishments, joy over his or her successes, and excitement over what’s to come. We see each student graduating from our EC program fully prepared to continue charting his or her own course of learning, and finding every success—while having begun to manage the meaning of first-time failures—in the next stages to come. Our children are comfortable in their own shoes, believers in their own abilities, and small leaders over their own paths of learning.
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Goals for Elementary Program
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XXXXX Our goals are that children refine their gross motor skills, obtain a sense of competence over their own bodies, become comfortable and confident in managing a Montessori classroom, develop a deep-seated sense of self-confidence and competence, and obtain a solid cognitive foundation for beginning reading and math concepts. They also learn to become part of a community, including learning from and providing guidance to others, making enduring friendships, and constructively grappling with inevitable episodes of conflict.
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Schedule of the Day
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Include?
Lower Elementary Curriculum
Montessori endeavors to start with "big picture" lessons, then work toward the parts, in order to help children understand how people, places, events and cultures are interconnected, even while seemingly discrete. This approach ensures that children see their focus of study in any given moment as part of a larger story, which infuses that study with meaning and stimulates genuine curiosity. As meaning-makers, they naturally want to see how the story unfolds, and, in turn, how any new line of inquiry contributes to the greater story.
The phases of inquiry remain unchanged from Early Childhood (minus Sensorial Studies), while topics and assignments naturally grow in complexity, such that the educational model "spirals" upward, allowing the student to revisit past lessons in novel and increasingly profound ways. This "spiraling" helps the child to recognize his or her own intellectual growth, and the premise that there are always diverse and deeper perspectives to mine on any given topic.
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Cultural Studies
In the Montessori system, Cultural Study encompasses the traditional disciplines of social studies and science. So in the Lower Elementary Program, children begin their “cultural” work by taking a macrocosmic look at the universe, starting at the beginning of time. Using a timeline to organize their study, they examine the Big Bang theory, the formation of the earth, and the beginning of life, which they look at first on the atomic and cellular levels. As their study of the “Time Line of Life” proceeds, they are introduced to increasingly complex plants and animals, and end with the study of mammals and flowering plants. Along the way, they learn about the history of life forms, and the emergence and development of species. All learning is linked to allow students to attain a broad comprehension of how the sciences of botany, history, zoology, physics, chemistry, and geography all fit together, and have developed in an interrelated manner.
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Math
Montessori hands-on math materials provide a concrete foundation in the four operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. This knowledge allows students to develop problem-solving skills and place math in a real-life context. Students are also introduced to the study of time and measurement, estimation and logic. CAN WE EXPAND ON THIS? WE NEED TO "WOW" OUR READER WITH WHAT OUR LE KIDS ARE DOING IN MATH. NAMING THE FOUR BASIC OPERATIONS AIN'T DOIN' IT!
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Language
The Lower Elementary Language curriculum provides students with an understanding and appreciation of reading and literature, writing and grammar, punctuation and spelling, homophones, antonyms, root words, alphabetizing skills, and research. CAN WE EXPAND ON THIS? THIS ALSO LACKS "WOW" FACTOR. LET'S PAINT A PICTURE OF HOW WE HONE OUR KIDS' WRITING, GET THEM THINKING DEEPLY ABOUT LIT, ETC.
Practical Life Studies
Students rotate through a series of jobs that enable them, as a group, to take care of their classroom. These jobs can range from caring for class pets, to setting up for, and cleaning up after, a daily class snack, to managing recycling, and cleaning up the play area outside the classroom. CAN WE EXPAND ON PURPOSE OF THIS A BIT? HOW DOES THIS WORK TRANSLATE TO SOMETHING VERY MEANINGFUL.
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DO WE HAVE ANY EASY-TO-OBTAIN SAMPLES OF "MIND-BLOWING" WORK (VIDEO, WRITTEN, POSTER PRESENTATION, WHATEVER) FROM LE AND/OR UE FOR ANY OR ALL OF THESE CATEGORIES???
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Upper Elementary Curriculum
LE Curriculum
Cultural Studies
The Upper Elementary Program continues the work introduced at the Lower Elementary level. Continuing their work on the Cosmic Education Curriculum, students, over three years, study the course of human history: from ancient civilizations, to the Middle Ages and the age of exploration, to the civilizations of the Americas, and, finally, those of California. In their science studies, they follow a three-year sequence of earth science, physical science, and then biology. The BTSN handout has lots of great material on each of these phases of the curriculum. Add more from there?
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Math
Montessori math and geometry materials support the students’ move into higher-level thinking in this area of study. Once the four operations are mastered, students move on to study fractions, decimals and percents, problem solving, algebra, logic, graphing, probability, the metric system, and different base systems. Geometry materials, meanwhile, give them a strong foundation in the study of plane figures, area and volume and formulas for computing each; students are also introduced to the concepts of congruence, similarity, and equivalence. Math instruction is highly tailored to each learner and UE children are always working on concepts and exercises that stretch their unique capacities.
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Language
The Language Arts Curriculum expands the study of grammar and creative writing, including poetry, fiction, expository writing, research, playwriting, songwriting, and the writing of restaurant and movie reviews, as well as memoirs. We feature an in-depth literature curriculum that introduces students to reading novels, and discussing them in literature seminars.
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Practical Life Studies
Students run morning classroom meetings, and manage snacks and classroom clean-up. They also develop their practical life skills through such special projects as a once-a-year “restaurant night.” Under their teachers’ guidance, they prepare and serve a restaurant-style meal to their parents, managing everything from the invitations, to the menu and shopping, setup, food preparation, service, and clean-up. The project raises money for charity.
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Middle School (Grades 7 - 8)
Middle School Curriculum
How could ascending ninth graders make the jump from the MFS middle school--consisting of 8-14 students--to a large private or public school in the area? Extremely well, it turns out. In fact, as mentioned in our Track Our Grads section, 100% of our middle schoolers have been accepted to their first high school of choice over the last five years.
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Why are our middle school grads so coveted? Think exposure to a college seminar-like setting where students are challenged to think critically, present articulately, defend passionately their positions, and adapt responsively as needed. Think a hotbed of learning, an incubator if you will, where a handful of students push each other and pull the best out of one another in a joint enterprise of learning. Think that perfect blend of intellectual freedom, personal responsibility, elevated expectations and high degree of accountability that comes from a smartly designed, laser-focused, smaller-group setting.
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And think, amidst all this high octane cognitive development,
adolescents being nurtured emotionally during one of the most complicated developmental stages of their lives in a small, safe and--challenging, yes, but---caring setting. We don't believe that youth undergoing one of the most fragile phases of the lifespan (according to extensive research) necessarily need "big" and "impersonal" "to get ready for the more brutal realities of high school". They're probably sensitive and stressed quite enough, thank you.
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Instead, Montessori sees middle school as a transitional developmental period--where the individual is emerging from childhood but has not quite yet taken on young adulthood--that is best served by a contained environment. One where kids feel connected and protected, where they can gradually navigate their growth rather than adjusting to sudden shocks, such that they have the space and support to experiment with who they are, and organically begin to evolve into themselves--in preparation to explode onto the scene at high school.
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And the repeated successes of our graduates, year after year, in every high school setting imaginable in the area, proves that this preparation is producing self-assured teens, fully equipped for what comes next.
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In the Classroom
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Middle School at MFS comprises no more than 18 students across two grades, with one highly capable Montessori teacher at the helm.
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Where sensorial objects once marked the younger classrooms, middle school happens much more in the student's mind. Imagine three large, round tables, with some students collaborating on long-term group projects related to Shakespeare or the principles of Supply & Demand; others intensely studying pre-Calculus at their own pace; and still more meeting with the teacher for peer review of recent papers submitted, peppering one another with exacting grammatical standards and pushing the envelope on how to better present an argument.
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The middle school hive is buzzing, yet not bustling; quiet, yet active and driven.
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Vision for Middle School Program
Our vision for the Middle School at MFS is a bit like a pre-high school cocoon--a safe emotional space where pre-teens and teens can take social, academic and personal risks, without fear of being excluded, rejected or ridiculed, and where they can build a deep reserve of self-knowledge and inner strength while developing intellectual musculature that will command attention in a high school setting and beyond. We see our middle schoolers struggling in some ways--like all middle schoolers--but doing so in an environment they know always has their best interests at heart.
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Goals for Middle School Program
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Our goals are that our graduates become highly competent writers, capable of articulating ideas and arguments in a coherent, logically consistent, and detailed manner; strong mathematicians, capable of tackling high school coursework from Day 1; independent thinkers and leaders, able to define their own goals, stand up for their own positions, and follow through on the details to accomplish tangible objectives; and emotionally balanced beings who have experienced how a healthy community can simultaneously challenge and support them, such that this model of interaction becomes a touchstone for the rest of their lives.
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Schedule of the Day
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Include?
The Middle School design is an integration of the current research in human development, the trends and issues in education, and the Montessori philosophy. The mission of the program is to provide opportunities for adolescents to be self-confident and gain self-knowledge, to belong to a community, to learn to be adaptable, to be academically competent and challenged, and to create a vision for their personal future; thus, to empower early adolescents.
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Middle School is structured to provide a place where early adolescents can develop personal power as well as present opportunities to use this empowerment with and for the benefit of others. There are structures in place for enhancing personal growth and self-knowledge, developing communication skills and self-expression, creating a responsive community, learning how to learn, and engaging in meaningful and challenging work.
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Holistic education, an important aspect of the Montessori philosophy, has two meanings within the Montessori community. First, that the focus of the education should be on the whole child for optimal health and growth. Thus, the learning environment should not focus on developing only the
cognitive potential, but the physical, psychosocial, and moral aspects of
the person, as well. Secondly, the academic coursework needs to be interrelated so that the child understands the inter-connectedness of life. Further support for the holistic approach is having the parents aware of the child’s classroom progress. A dynamic student-parent-teacher partnership is an integral part of an optimal learning environment.
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In an academic year, there are five cycles of work followed by an immersion week for retreat, internships, externships, leadership development, or service learning. Each work cycle is five weeks in length and the topics and concepts covered in each cycle are grouped under cycle themes. In the fifth week, there is an assessment of the thematic project work. Students also take the time to write an extensive self-assessment. The cycle format is designed to help students learn organizational, decision-making, and time-management skills. In addition to the work cycles, each school year begins with a Prologue and ends with an Epilogue.
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Classroom Work
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The school day is divided into two kinds of work: individual work and group work. Individual work is designed to make a match between the skills, abilities, and interests of each student, and there are work choices in every academic area to be done alone or in small, self-chosen groups. Individual work is assessed individually with mastery tests that may be written or oral.
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Group work is done in randomly selected groups, which remain in place for an entire work cycle. These groups work together on academic tasks in the thematic units, which integrate all subject areas. Individual written tests, group presentations, and self-assessments of the group process assess the thematic unit.
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Mastery Learning
Mastery learning is a form of personalized learning that gives students the necessary time to master particular skills before progressing to the next level of work. The student takes on the responsibility of learning new information versus merely accepting a low grade and moving on to the next subject. The teacher’s task is to break down the learning steps, offering suggestions for internalizing the knowledge, and providing the time necessary to learn the information. According to research, the advantage of mastery learning is that it offers clear expectations, fosters mastery of a unit of study, is not competitive, and encourages student responsibility.
Summary of the Middle School Classroom
The Adolescent Is:
-An active, self-directed learner.
-A vital member of the classroom, school-wide, city and global community.
-A vital member of the teacher-student-parent team.
-Responsible for keeping commitments and being honest and respectful.
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The Teachers Are:
-Facilitators for learning.
-Consultants for the students.
-Creators of a positive climate for learning.
-Communicators with parents and community.
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The Classroom School Structure Offers:
-A learner-centered environment.
-A developmentally-responsive curriculum and teaching team of Montessori teachers with additional adults as resources.
-Parent-teacher-student partnerships.
-Multi-aged groupings of 12-14 year olds.
-Blocks of uninterrupted learning time.
-Peer and cross-age teaching.
-Autonomy support.
-Opportunities for student leadership development and classroom policy management.
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The Curriculum and Instruction Includes:
-Trans-disciplinary themes.
-Personal learning plans.
-Individualized goal-setting.
-A strong sense of community and social interaction with peers.
-Meaningful and challenging work.
-Activities for self-expression, self-knowledge, and self-assessment.
-Activities that value all nine intelligences (Gardner) and a variety of learning styles.
-Activities to foster interdependence.
-Activities for learning economic independence.
-Activities for self-reflection.
-School and community service projects.
-Meta-cognition and ‘learning-how-to-learn’ strategies as re-occurring elements of the classroom experience.
-Opportunities for travel.
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