Primary
The Primary Programme is constructed for 2.5 to 6-year-olds. Equipped with an absorbent mind, Dr. Maria Montessori suggested we present this age group with “keys to the world.” We introduce them to all the aspects of their world. She designed a beautiful, scientific, age-appropriate environment that caters to all their developmental needs.
3 to 6 years
The Environment
Each environment is meticulously prepared according to Dr. Maria Montessori’s guidance. She dedicated her life to the scientific study of child development and devised a Method to enthuse them to work on their physical and intellectual independence at every level.
- Dr. Maria Montessori
“There are many who hold, as I do, that the most important period of life is not the age of university studies, but the first one, the period from birth to the age of six. For that is the time when man's intelligence itself, his greatest implement, is being formed. But not only his intelligence; the full totality of his psychic powers."
The Adults
Our staff of teachers undergoes thorough training in the physiology, psychology, mental capacities of child development. They are well equipped to support and cater to the needs of children according to Montessori’s principles. We ensure each of our staff has acquired qualifications certified by the Association Montessori Internationale, (Netherlands). Lovingly, the adults in the environments guide the children to make free choices, become physically independent and socially responsible individuals.
Areas in a Primary Classroom
1. The Exercises of Practical Life are activities unique to a Montessori classroom. Not only do they bring about physical independence, but also improve mental, emotional, intellectual, and social intelligence. Most importantly, they help develop concentration. Learning how to walk gracefully, how to remain silent, is part of the Exercises of Practical Life.
2. Primary children are Sensorial learners who explore their environment using their senses. Sensorial activities refine mental faculties. They enhance their senses and indirectly improve intelligence, for the senses are the eyes and the ears of the brain. The children become more conscious; they heighten their discriminatory powers adding to their intellectual discrimination and imagination based on reality. Dr. Montessori included Algebra, Geometry, Geography, and Botany in this area.
3. We use spoken language every day, from conversations that help the children better express themselves to learning names and nomenclature. Phonics is used to introduce letter sounds, encouraging mentally spelling words even before the hand is ready to write. Children are helped with writing and reading skills and are later introduced to grammar, syntax, and reading analysis.
4. Mathematics is presented concretely with Montessori materials. Through quantity (the material the child can hold and manipulate) to Number cards (1-10, 100, and 1000) help associate quantity with a numeral. Children enjoy learning complex concepts with friends and begin to effortlessly build a solid foundation of categories and place value with the help of material. They learn all the operations and fractions and create impressions in their subconscious mind of the binomial and trinomial cube, the decanomial square, etc., supported by the Sensorial materials. Concepts acquired in the Primary translates into further abstraction as they transition to Elementary.
5. Culture covers everything related to human beings and is introduced to the children through forms such as Art, craft, peoples of the world, flags of the countries, places in the world. Apart from learning about the world around them, the children are made aware of the living world through science experiments, botany, plant care, and much more.