Primary Program Snapshot
The Primary Program connects children with their own capabilities and creativity, building the foundation for a lifelong love of learning, community, and thoughtful self-expression.
For children approximately 3 to 6 years of age
Children attend 4-5 days per week, Monday through Friday
Mixed schedule options between half, school, and extended day hours are available upon request
Our beautiful, engaging primary environment supports the development of each individual child
Food Program is included in tuition
Program Overview
What to Expect at Bozeman Montessori Primary
A Love of Learning Starts Here
The Montessori Primary program is an opportunity to nurture your child’s individual development within the context of a group setting. They will emerge with a set of skills – social, emotional and academic – while, perhaps even more importantly, knowing how to function within a group.
Your child has extraordinary powers of mind; they possess a once-in-a-lifetime ability to simply absorb information and concepts from her surroundings, like a sponge. The Primary classroom is designed to meet the needs of your child in this crucial phase of life. This period forms the basis for future knowledge and skills, as well as the child’s relationships with self, the world, and learning.
Bozeman Montessori is proud to be a High-Fidelity Primary classroom.
Primary Food Program
For children in the Primary Classroom, Bozeman Montessori offers a Healthy Food Program. We provide morning snack, lunch (served with the option of milk or water), and afternoon snack, in alignment with Maria Montessori’s original vision and to serve the needs of busy families.
The Food Program is included in the cost of tuition
Menus are reviews by a registered dietitian and nutritionist
Menus include whole foods and new tastes and textures as young children begin to develop their palate
In the summer months, we utilize vegetables and herbs from our own gardens
We invite the children’s engagement with the process of growing, preparing, and serving food, whenever possible.
Example Snack Menus
Ants on a log: Celery, cream cheese or peanut butter and raisins
Crackers with cheese and fresh fruit
Steamed carrots, bell peppers and yogurt dip
Hummus, celery, snow peas and broccoli
Homemade applesauce and cheese toast
Example Lunch Menus
Pasta Primavera with vegetables and pesto
Vegetable soup and cornbread
Bean and cheese burritos with cheese, tortillas and fixings
Brown Rice and peanut sauce with tofu and steamed veggies
**We accommodate dietary restrictions where possible, and parents may supplement certain foods from home if needed .**
Supporting the longterm needs of the child
Your child will stay in the Primary classroom for 3+ years, including the traditional kindergarten year which we call the Capstone Year.
Montessori is a unique continuum of education that allows your child to build upon their experiences each year. In the first year, the days will be filled with activities centered around Practical Life. Here, he learns to sweep the floor, bake bread, polish silver and clean the leaves of plants. He experiments with sensorial materials that educate his visual, auditory and tactile senses. He plays vocabulary sound games and sings and dances when children gather for group activities.
As the child continues, she is introduced to sounds and symbols which lay the groundwork for reading and writing in the future. She is introduced to numbers and the decimal system – with the most amazing concrete materials to show her the way. She learns about land and water forms, geometric figures, the political countries of the world; she learns about the parts of plants and animals and about music and art – at her own pace, in her own time.
It is during his third year (sometimes fourth year) that we call the Capstone Year that everything comes to fruition for your child. Reading, writing and mathematical understanding blossom from the many seeds that were planted in the previous two years. The child leaves the program with a strong set of academic skills; but, far more importantly, with the attitude that learning is fun, exciting and boundless.
A Day in the Life
With a Child in the Primary Classroom
As the morning sun streams through the large, east-facing windows of the Primary classroom, our day begins with children being greeted by the teacher at the door upon arrival. After a quick good-bye hug to mom or dad at drop-off, children enter the classroom on their own, carrying their belongings to store in their cubby space. While they may have had a bit of a morning rush to arrive at the school, once here, they can take all the time they need to remove their coat, hang it by the loop on the cubby hook and say hello to their friends. Outside shoes are replaced by inside shoes and the child is ready to wash their hands and begin the day. Sometimes there is laundry to be folded, especially our many reusable cloth hand towels, and children carry replenished baskets of folded cloths to the various classroom sink areas. Pitching in with classroom preparations helps children feel that they are truly at home in a diverse community. Our goal is that no child feels like a guest, but knows that they have the opportunity to be an active participant in caring for their shared spaces.
Plants may need watering, pets may need to be fed, and children may also help set up the morning snack station to be opened a little later on. Cups and small plates are stacked in the classroom hutch, along with small pitchers for pouring water and serving bowls of cut up fruits, vegetables or cheese.
More and more children arrive as the school day begins at 8:30 and they begin to help themselves to various activities that await them in the major areas of the classroom. These choices might include:
Washing vegetables that will be used in the hot lunch or helping with a baking project that is usually served during the afternoon snack
Sensorial activities such as sorting and arranging various materials by shape, texture, or form
Pouring water into land and water forms to experience geography hands-on
Counting sets of quantities and matching them to the corresponding number in math
Playing songs on the classroom bells
Working with various creative media in the art area
Weeding or watering the gardening areas
A majority of activities are designed for one child at a time, but we love small group games as well, such as beginning sound games in the language area. Some children wander between their chosen activities, observing one another, cleaning up a spill or helping another child. Some children might deliver notes or supplies to another classroom and children who are independent readers may visit to read aloud to our toddlers in the next room.
At the end of the extended morning work cycle, children gather together at the big rug to sing songs, play simple movement games, enjoy group stories and celebrate the changing seasons within the culture of the classroom family. As we discuss the happenings of the day, the children hear the teachers speak to a positive and safe emotional climate using gentle care with the words we choose and how we treat our friends.
Afterwards, children head to the cubby area to dress themselves for outdoor play. Older children often help the younger ones with wriggling into snow pants in the winter or donning sun hats in the summer. Outside in the tree-lined play yard, a variety of opportunities for gross motor movement await the children, from swings and slides to trikes and a sandbox to dig in. Children love to make up their own games and are often creative in finding a role for anyone who wants to join because we take great care that no one is excluded.
After outside time, children gather again inside for a lunch served family-style. Homemade soups and casserole dishes full of vegetables are the mainstay and children learn to try new foods such as ratatouille and polenta or tofu, broccoli and brown rice with peanut sauce. Children serve themselves when possible, learning to follow their body’s cues for appetite as they find their own right portion (and often enjoy “seconds” when they find they are really hungry). Cold milk and water are available in small pitchers and children carry their food and drink to the table where they join their friends.
Our meals begin with a celebratory song and expression of thanks for the hands who prepared the food and they end with scraping plates into the compost bucket. Dishes are hand washed (before being sent through our dishwashers again) and floors are swept, chairs and tables cleaned and the area reset for afternoon activities.
Children head back outside for more play while the napping area is set up with comfy cots and the children who nap, snuggle in with blankets and lovies from home for an afternoon rest with soft music playing. Older children enjoy a bit more outside time, sometimes taking walks throughout the neighborhood before returning indoors for afternoon projects and more free choice activities. They may help carry bags of groceries indoors and put things away after shopping runs, enjoy the same kinds of homey rhythms that help them feel connected and grounded to the needs of life.
Parents begin to arrive for school day pick ups on the play yard at 3 pm and some children continue on into the extended day which is often a longer afternoon play time before they help pick up the yard, organize their things to go home and they too, are picked up by their families and they head into their family time at home.
Teachers return inside for end of the day work, tidy the classroom spaces, sharpen pencils, and restock paper and art supplies, before cleaning and disinfecting procedures begin. Another day comes to a close as we prepare for the next!