LAMB’s Incas Community is the classroom with the oldest children at LAMB. The Incas Community has twenty three first and second graders, all of whom have been at LAMB since it opened in 2003.
Montessori education is staged in three learning clusters: 3- to 6-year-olds (Primary), 6- to 9- year-olds (Elementary) and 9- to 12-year-olds (Upper Elementary). The Incas community is the first year of the elementary-level learning cluster. The children will stay in the Elementary cluster for three years.
Children in Los Incas continue to explore their world through the Montessori curriculum, but at the elementary level. The subjects the children study are interwoven so they can see the connections among the fields of biology, botany, astronomy, math, language, geography, music, social studies, art and other areas in the curriculum. Children study how all living things have an important role in the web of life and how they are interconnected.
Students have the opportunity to work independently or in groups. They often have the option of choosing their own work. This builds their sense of independence at the same time that it promotes accountability and responsibility. Each student has an individual work plan.
The Incas Community has three teachers. One teaches exclusively in Spanish, one teaches in English (although both are trilingual Spanish/English/French) and the third works in both languages. The classroom is bilingual immersion, with the children and teachers learning and communicating in both English and Spanish. (In their third or fourth year at LAMB, the children are comfortable in a Spanish immersion environment.) They are learning to read and write in both English and Spanish; cursive for Spanish and printing for English.
The students will participate in music classes led by an outside music educator and physical education.