Primary for Parents

Do you hope to ignite your young child’s love of learning and lay the foundation for a fulfilling future? The Montessori approach to early childhood education will begin that process in a joyful, secure, and loving environment in which your young child will thrive.

The Early Childhood level also called Primary, for children ages 2 ½ – 6, encourages preschoolers to explore and discover, to collaborate with classmates, and to take ownership of their education. The Montessori Method encourages self-directed learning that promotes self-confidence, independent thought and action, and critical thinking, while fostering social-emotional and intellectual growth.

Education for peace is a foundational component of Montessori education at all levels. At the Early Childhood level, the teaching of peace, social justice, and global citizenship is based on fostering respect for all people and living things, and helping children learn the tools for peaceful conflict resolution.

The Early Childhood Environment

In a Montessori Early Childhood classroom, highly trained teachers create a customized environment crafted to her unique abilities, interests, and learning style.

This approach to learning is “hands-on.” Dr. Maria Montessori believed (and modern science has affirmed) that moving and learning are inseparable. In the prepared classroom, children work with specially designed manipulative materials that invite exploration and engage the senses in the process of learning.

All learning activities support children in choosing meaningful and challenging work at their own interest and ability level. This child-directed engagement strengthens motivation, supports attention, and encourages responsibility.

Uninterrupted three-hour blocks of work time allow children to work at their own pace and fully immerse themselves in an activity without interruption. Your child’s work cycle involves selecting an activity, performing it for as long it remains interesting, cleaning up the activity and returning it to the shelf, and making another work choice. This cycle respects individual variations in the learning process, facilitates the development of coordination, concentration, independence, and a sense of order while facilitating your child’s assimilation of information.

A Welcoming Space

A Montessori Early Childhood classroom feels more like a home than a school. You won’t see desks, nor will a teacher stand at the front of the room delivering a lesson to the whole class. Instead, you’ll see children happily working individually or in small groups, at tables, or on the floor near small mats that delineate their own space.

Specially designed learning materials are displayed on open shelves, easily accessible to the children. Classrooms also include low sinks accessible to the children, child-sized furniture, cozy spaces for quiet reading, reachable shelves with work available for free choice, and child-sized kitchen utensils so the students can eat, prepare, and clean up their snack on their own. Teachers gently guide students to help maintain the organization and cleanliness of this environment to keep it orderly and attractive and to help your child understand how to care for materials and clean up after themselves—skills you will be happy to observe carrying over in your home.

The Third Year Child: Kindergarten

During the first 2 years in an Early Childhood classroom, Montessori students look forward to their turn to be a leader. In their third year—often known as Kindergarten—children get their turn and take pride in being the oldest. They serve as role models for younger students; they demonstrate leadership and citizenship skills. They reinforce and consolidate their own learning by teaching concepts they have already mastered to their peers. In their Kindergarten year, they express confidence, develop self-esteem and self-sufficiency, and show responsibility.

Kindergarteners are introduced to progressively more advanced Montessori materials and sophisticated, fascinating lessons. And they experience an important period in which their previous learning from working with concrete Montessori materials begins to become permanent knowledge. A Montessori Kindergarten student sees and feels their personal growth as they watch others make discoveries they have mastered themselves.

Kindergarten is the culmination of the Primary program. Children exhibit the independence, critical thinking, collaboration, and leadership that they have been practicing during their previous years in the Early Childhood classroom, exercising them independently as they prepare to transition into an Elementary program.

The Montessori Early Childhood curriculum follows a 3-year sequence. Because the teacher guides your child through learning at her own pace, her individualized learning plan may exceed the concepts she would be taught in a classroom environment in which all children learn the same concept at the same time.

As children move forward,  they develop the ability to concentrate and make decisions, along with developing self-control, courtesy, and a sense of community responsibility.

In Montessori schools, academic growth is seen as just one part of children’s healthy development. The method nurtures their social, emotional, and physical growth, ensuring that they are, as Dr. Maria Montessori put it, “treading always in the paths of joy and love.”

Areas of Learning: Beyond Curriculum

The Early Childhood classroom offers children four areas of study: the Exercises of Practical Life, Sensorial and Cultural, Math, and Language. What are the presentations in these areas? 

Montessori Materials

Montessori materials are not only beautiful and inviting, but ingenious. They guide the child to discover only 1 skill at a time to allow the child to work independently and master the intended concept: the isolation of difficulty. The materials are also “self-correcting.” This means the child is able to identify if they have done an activity accurately and try again without intervention from a teacher. For example, if a large block is stacked atop a tower of shorter blocks, the tower will fall down. Working with self-correcting materials helps children develop confidence and self-sufficiency and promotes critical thinking. In a sense, they become their own teachers—a skill that will last for life.

Here are some of the many developmental materials you will see in a typical Montessori Primary environment:

Writing Professional Development, 2021

Recommended