Dear Colleagues:  

Many Montessori schools do not follow a formal curriculum guide. Often they tell us that their teachers' Montessori albums fulfill the need. Although our Montessori albums are invaluable, they do not provide a coherent Scope & Sequence that is clearly understood throughout the school. Furthermore, the ways in which schools commonly record student progress is equally informal. We believe that it is imperative that Montessori schools adopt and use a formal and comprehensive curriculum scope & sequence, and not simply a list of the Montessori materials and major lessons). Done well, this provides a common frame-of-reference for the entire school, in addition to a more sophisticated record keeping solution.

We are very excited about making our comprehensive Scope & Sequence (Infant - Age 12) viewable online, as a free resource for the international Montessori community. The newly revised version has been updated to include nearly 3,000 Montessori lessons carefully organized into the following ten curriculum categories:

• 

  Infants 

• Art, Music, and Movement

• Cosmic Studies

• Geography

• History

• Language Arts

• Mathematics

• Practical Life

• Science

• Sensorial

The result of many years of painstaking analysis of the Montessori tradition to evaluate the age ranges at which we believe Montessori children should commonly reach major milestones, our Scope & Sequence was written in a way that can be understood by Montessori educators, parents, and non-Montessori educators. Lessons/materials are tagged to the appropriate cycle years and are paired with very specific measurable learning objectives. These measurable learning objectives (also known as "elements") help to simplify the process of accurately recording a child's activity in the Montessori classroom.  While the Scope & Sequence is not intended to be a "one-size-fits-all" checklist of lessons, we are confident that Montessori educators from across the world will find this to be a very useful everyday resource and tool.

We are very excited to have optimized the Scope and Sequence for use in the Montessori Compass online record keeping system.  A user-friendly means of recording classroom activity online is something that we feel has been lacking in the Montessori community.  Montessori Compass has developed a Web-based solution that is easy-to-use and quite remarkable. Throughout this Scope and Sequence revision process, the staff of the Montessori Foundation has been in close collaboration with Montessori Compass Co-Founder, Dr. Anita Amos, and her outstanding team. Their contribution to this effort has been invaluable.

Our collaboration produced a sophisticated and comprehensive alignment of Montessori curriculum to the US Common Core State Standards for both Mathematics and English Language Arts, Kindergarten through Grade 6.

In some Montessori circles, the concept of the Common Core Curriculum is a controversial topic. The Montessori Foundation is not an advocate for any set of standards. At the same time, we recognize that the Common Core is a reality all schools face in the USA, and Montessori schools are seeking guidance on this issue. Our goal is to equip schools with an alignment designed to stay true to the Montessori philosophy, along with a record keeping solution that makes it easy to remain focused on your children, without wasting time worrying about standards. By recording your lessons in Montessori Compass, the standards alignment takes place behind the scenes and you can run reports at any time.

Our collaboration with Dr. Amos and her team has also led to some very interesting insights, which may represent an opportunity for Montessori to gain greater attention in the public sector. To no surprise, there are numerous areas in which Montessori curriculum significantly outpaces the Common Core.  For example, the common practice of introducing squares and square roots at the Upper Elementary level, results in our students meeting some of the defined Mathematics standards as much as four years ahead of their traditionally educated counterparts.  

We highly recommend that Montessori schools adopt a comprehensive Scope & Sequence that includes a sophisticated alignment to the Common Core State Standards, along with a robust student record keeping system to track student progress. Montessori Compass is, in our judgement, by far the most user-friendly and complete online solution available.

to view the Scope & Sequence (Infant - Age 12) in its entirety.

http://montessoricompass.com/scope-and-sequence 

to view the Common Core State Standards Alignment for Kindergarten, Grade 3, and Grade 6, please click here:

 http://montessoricompass.com/common-core

  
We hope that you find the material on the other end of these links as valuable as we do. Do check out Montessori Compass. We use it ourselves. The right tool can really make a difference.

Sincerely,

 

Tim Seldin
President, The Montessori Foundation