“the goal of early childhood education should be to activate the child’s own natural desire to learn.”
–DR. MARIA MONTESSORI
The 5 Key Learning Areas
PRACTICAL LIFE
Luma Montessori learning is not purely theoretical! We know our students need to know how to function not just in school, but in life, so this area teaches students useful skills like food preparation and table manners, how to clean up a room using brooms or dusters, how to roll up and store mats or tie shoes. This builds your child’s self-reliance, capability, and social-emotional intelligence.
SENSORIAL
Children learn, first and foremost, through their senses, and a Luma Montessori classroom engages all five senses on a daily basis. Through specifically designed objects like Pink Tower, Brown Stairs, Knobbed Cylinders, Color Tablets, and smelling bottles, your child refines their fine motor skills and learns to pair the tactile with the intellectual.
LANGUAGE
Language runs across the entire Luma Montessori curriculum, with an early focus on letter forms and phonetic awareness. Tactile materials like sandpaper letters and a moveable alphabet make language a hands-on pursuit for your child. Storybooks, paper, and writing instruments encourage your child to explore the rich world of language every day.
MATH
Concrete learning materials like Number Rods serve as self-guided and self-assessing instruments on your child’s journey to mathematical fluency at Luma. After mastering basic numerical sequences, each child is ready to move on to abstract areas such as place value, addition, subtraction, multiplication, and fractions.
CULTURE / SCIENCE
Through culture and science at Luma, your child explores the greater world around them, both natural and human-made. Maps, globes, flags, plants, artwork, musical instruments, and cultural artifacts all invite children into deeper connection with the wider world and their place in it. COSMIC EDUCATION
HOW DOES THE CURRICULUM WORK?
Each area of study comprises a set of educational materials that increase in complexity. Children progress through the Montessori Curriculum at their own pace, based on their stage of development and interests.
Luma teachers present key lessons to introduce children to the name and learning outcomes of each Montessori material. After a key lesson, children work with the Montessori material independently to practice, explore, and make connections to the key learning outcomes.
New lessons arise when a child is ready to move to the next stage. Through repetition and practice, children master the progression of the Montessori materials, and develop a fundamental understanding of each curricular area.