Montessori education is often referred to as cosmic education. The children will here five stories during the elementary years known as the Great Lessons. The Great Lessons are connected stories that span the enormous historical frames of time and space. From this core of story frameworks emanate the details of the disciplines: science, mathematics, social studies, language and religion (Catechesis of The Good Shepherd). The stories provide an overview; the children then investigate the disciplines in detail. Because the unifying thread of the Great Lessons, no subject is studied in isolation from the other. Knowledge is intertwined even though discrete in its parts.