Emerson Montessori Elementary and Middle School in Palo Alto

The fundamental tenet of our Montessori-based schools is that students will learn to direct and manage their own learning. Our private elementary and middle schools offer classes where students individually and in small groups, plan and assess their goals in learning.

Come visit our campus in Palo Alto, California.

Curriculum

Language Arts

Students develop skill and fluency in reading, writing, speaking, and listening, the basics of the language arts. They use their language arts as enabling skills throughout the curriculum.

Mathematics

Students’ self-directed explorations and applications lead them naturally to the learning of fractions, geometry, weights and measures, estimation, and word problems. Older students will progress to algebra and high school math subjects. 

Science

The school encourages the “doing” of science by means of hands-on activities that lead to concept development. Field trips help integrate real experiences into the science program.

Social Studies

Teachers invite and guide students to become familiar with the heritage of the world, to learn of its significant figures, its cultures, its epochal events, and the places where history was and is being made.

Global Languages

The school offers foreign language training in both Spanish and Chinese, which is intended to produce limited fluency by age 9 and conversational fluency with peers by age 12.

Arts

Performance and museum attendance, theory and history of the arts, and the development of an aesthetic sensibility are integral parts of this curriculum.

Physical Education

Students acquire increased body awareness, control, and wellness through stimulating games and sports calling for cooperative and competitive efforts.

Computers and Technology

Students learn how things work and how to make them work, and invent new things that incorporate their skills and knowledge.

Thinking Skills

 Through modeling and encouragement, they learn to develop and manage their interpersonal skills and to cooperate and become effective, courteous, and happy members of a learning community.

Life Skills

Food preparation, gardening, animal care, technology maintenance, and care of the environment are essential components of each student’s growth and development.