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Pre-K & Kindergarten Program

3 – 5+ year olds

A beautifully balanced start to learning—where children build independence, strong academic foundations, and a curious, confident mindset. Through hands-on exploration in language, math, culture, and practical life, our 3–5+ learners grow into capable, joyful thinkers ready for the next stage.

Montessori Academy of Virginia

Pre-K & Kindergarten Program (Children's House)

A Foundation for Academic and Personal Growth

Our PreK-K (Children’s House) program offers a rich, dynamic academic experience designed to cultivate independence, curiosity, and a lifelong love of learning. Within a calm, structured, and multi-age classroom environment, children learn mutual respect, develop personal responsibility, and thrive through opportunities for peer mentorship and collaboration.

The PreK-K curriculum provides a balanced blend of intellectual, practical, and creative learning experiences across five core areas:

  • Life Skills (Practical Life)
  • Sensorial Exploration
  • Language Arts
  • Mathematics
  • Cultural Studies (Social Studies, History & Science)

By the end of the 3-year cycle in PreK-K classrooms, students have developed not only strong academic foundations but also essential life skills—focus, independence, compassion, and curiosity—that prepare them to thrive in the Elementary years and beyond.

Tailored Learning for Every Stage of Growth

At our Montessori school, we believe in fostering independence, confidence, and a lifelong love for learning from the very beginning. Our carefully designed programs cater to each stage of your child’s development, building essential skills and a deep connection to their world.

Developing Confident, Independent & Collaborative Learners

Our unique multi-age classroom fosters much more than academic skills. It’s a community where children learn mutual respect, take personal responsibility, and grow through peer mentorship. This environment cultivates a deep sense of confidence, independence, and the ability to collaborate effectively with others.

A Rich, Hands-On Academic Foundation

We make learning deep and intuitive by bringing abstract concepts to life. Through specialized, hands-on materials, children build a concrete understanding of complex topics in Language, Math, Science, and Cultural Studies. This tactile, sensory-based approach doesn’t just teach facts—it builds foundational skills and ignites a genuine, lifelong love of learning.

Self-Independent Activities

  • Though seemingly unsophisticated and easy, these lessons help students develop logical and sequential thought patterns.
  • This includes understanding of mathematical concepts.
  • Developing independence, self-discipline, focus, positive learning habits, self-confidence, and responsibility.

Discovery Activities

  • Children interact with their physical world through their senses. The Sensory/Discovery Curriculum is designed to help children focus their attention more carefully on the physical world.
  • Students begin by simply sorting among a prepared series of objects that vary by only one aspect, such as height, length, or width.
  • They challenge themselves by discovering and focusing on weight, color, sound, temperature, etc.
  • Children understand that Sensory materials are mathematically graded, towards a solid foundation for Mathematics and Geometry activities.

Language Activities

  • Montessori Education teaches all basic language skills phonetically, through letter sounds (as opposed to letter names) with the use of “Sandpaper Letters”.
  • This hands-on material gives each child a muscular memory of the shape of each letter, accomplished through tracing which enables each child to acquire correctly formatted letters in their future writing skills.
  • Once basic letter sounds are learned, they compose their own words and sentences using the “Movable Alphabet”.
  • Students are also introduced to a wide range of pre-reading exercises, sound consciousness activities, dialect, and vocabulary enrichment.
  • Learn early language and vocabulary related to their environment through songs, rhyming, conversations, and being read to.

Mathematics and Geometry

  • The entire Math curriculum offers a clear and logical method to help children understand and develop a strong foundation in all three domains of mathematics.
  • The core of the Math curriculum for this age group includes manipulative materials to learn numerals, quantities, sequences, computation, and comprehension of complex numbers into the thousands.
  • Math materials also offer a tangible understanding of each operation; addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division including an early introduction to simple fractions.

Global Cultures, Botany, History, and Sciences

  • Global studies encourage students to observe, analyze, predict, and discover their surroundings. From a very young age students explore maps, learn names of continents, varying land formations, study of plants, anatomy of animals, life cycles, weather patterns etc. With this solid foundation, every student is ready to investigate the world around them.
  • Zoology and Botany are initially introduced in the classrooms. Students also receive an enhanced, concrete, hands on experience at the Montessori Acres. During their rotating visits to the farm, students are exposed to the natural environments, growing seasons, and animal life.
  • History is gradually introduced and presented through family trees, historical figures, and timelines for clearer understanding.

Knowledge is best given where there is eagerness to learn, so this is the period when the seed of all things can be sown, the child’s mind being like a fertile field, ready to receive what will germinate into a culture.

Dr. Maria Montessori

Life Skills (Practical Life)

Students engage in purposeful, hands-on activities of real-life tasks such as sweeping, dusting, pouring, care of the environment, and grace and courtesy lessons. These purposeful activities foster concentration, coordination, inner sense of order, and the ability to follow complex sequences- all skills that form the foundation for future learning.

Sensorial Exploration

Children refine their senses through exploration of specialized materials designed to sharpen the five senses and help develop keen observational and discrimination skills. Through engagement with materials that isolate attributes of size, shape, weight, texture, color, sound, and smell, children prepare for more advanced concepts in mathematics, geometry and linguistic thinking

Language Arts

Through a structured, phonetic approach Language Arts is introduced, beginning with “Sandpaper Letters” to develop muscular memory and letter sound recognition. Thereafter, children progress to composing words and sentences using the “Movable Alphabet.” Early reading and writing skills emerge naturally as children develop literacy, vocabulary, grammar awareness, and written expression through individualized and peer-supported learning.

Mathematics

Hands-on materials allow children to explore mathematical concepts concretely before transitioning to abstraction. Children gain a deep, intuitive understanding of numbers, operations, and relationships through tactile exploration. The curriculum includes number recognition, sequencing, operations, memorization of math facts, place value, and introduction to fractions—while naturally linking to sensorial, geometric, and algebraic thinking.

Cultural Studies (Social Studies, History and Science)

Children’s natural curiosity is expanded through lessons in Geography, Botany, Zoology, Science, Art, Music, movement, and creative projects, all of which enrich the classroom experience, inspiring global awareness in an age-appropriate manner. Lessons cover landforms, continents, oceans, and global traditions, using maps, artifacts, and storytelling.

History is presented through visuals, while Science in conjunction with the Montessori Acres Farm includes Botany, Zoology, Life Cycles, Animal Anatomy, and Weather patterns—encouraging observation, classification, prediction and early scientific inquiry.

If you think your child would thrive in a Montessori environment, give us a call or schedule a tour

Schedule a Tour

We would love for you to visit our school and learn more.

Testimony

What people say about us

MAV has been a great experience for us and our 4 year old daughter. She has learned and developed so much since she started. She has made friends and is excited to go to school each day!

Regan Hertzler