Curriculum
OFMS Curriculum Guide
Within the Montessori learning environment, areas of development include practical life, sensorial, language, math, ecoliteracy, art, music, and a peace area. Maria Montessori’s observations and research allowed her to develop materials that nurtured the foundational skills of learning for each developmental area. This includes: control of error, works set out from easy concepts to more complex ones, and allowing freedom of movement for each child, as well as multisensory learning. Montessori learning activities follow a scope and sequence and OFMS is intentional in regularly reviewing and analyzing our benchmarks to assure they meet or exceed Indiana state standards and align with the Common Core standards. They also invite discovery and provide the tools that allow students to discover and problem solve on their own.
Montessori learning activities and materials are designed to be used at every stage of development, moving from concrete ideas to abstract concepts. The materials are beautiful, complete, and purposeful. The child is allowed to explore materials repeatedly until he or she has mastered the concept. Once the student advances to master content concretely, the work becomes abstract and practiced through real world experiences, field studies and internships. For example, the Binomial Cube is presented as a Sensorial work to explore patterns, relationships, and order at the Primary level. At the Elementary and Secondary level, the lesson becomes an abstract algebraic concept with a deepened understanding of the actual formula where students create real world products using the formula.
It is our hope that this curriculum guide will serve as a map to familiarize yourself with our structures and programs. Our curriculum guide visualizes the flow of holistic child/ young adult developed content, introduced and mastered at each of the levels, organized under the headings: social-emotional development, math, language, culture (science, humanities, geography), peace, practical life, spanish, technology, ecoliteracy, fine arts and physical education. Of course, the real fun begins when you see our campus and community of learners in action. We welcome you to visit our beautiful campus with outstanding Montessori educators, mission focused administrators, independent students, and committed families.
