Any person learns the best, when he/she desires to. This is more so for a child. The years spent in the Preprimary program at Mont Ivy Preschools play an instrumental role in igniting this “desire of learning” in a child. The Preprimary program is an ideal opportunity for a child to build strong social-skills and academic foundation, in a safe, stimulating environment.

A new student at Mont Ivy Preschools gradually gets comfortable as he/she becomes familiar with the warm and welcoming teachers, staff and fellow students. In the meantime, a customized Montessori curriculum is designed for him/her keeping his/her abilities, developmental needs and goals in mind.

To achieve the goals, the child is presented with age and ability-appropriate learning tools (called Montessori materials) in a careful, calibrated manner. Each material helps fulfill one (or more) developmental need of the child. And is scientifically developed after decades of observation of human growth patterns.

The material, presented in the right order, also compliments the child’s natural needs and tendencies at that age. Working with materials, thus becomes intuitive and effortless for the child. This is because the materials actively engage his/her mind, hands and body. This all-round engagement results in internal harmony and stimulates wholesome growth.

---

The Preprimary program is a three-years program, after-which a child becomes fully prepared to excel at Grade-1 level of any syllabus (CBSE, ICSE, IB, IGCSE or the State syllabus). The first year of the three-year cycle sensitizes the child to the ways and methods of the Montessori learning approach. Here, the child learns “how to learn”.

The second year presents all the critical building blocks and essential concepts to the child. And the final year is when everything comes together. The child connects all the dots and performs inter-related, advanced level activities. During this year, the cognitive abilities and skills grow by leaps and bounds and create what is popularly known as the “Montessori Magic”.

The solid academic foundation now gets set which yields benefits for many years to come – through the primary years and even beyond. And yet, this is achieved without burdening the child in any way, by practicing the core Montessori tenet of “Follow the Child”.

The 3-year Montessori curriculum broadly covers the following crucial developmental aspects:
1. Practical Life (EPL): Becoming independent, developing concentration and motor skills.
2. Sensorial: Developing and refining the senses and spatial abilities.
3. Language: Building a rich vocabulary, learning how to speak, read, write and comprehension.
4. Mathematics: Developing mathematical aptitude and artihmetic concepts.
5. Culture: Developing general awareness and curiosity about the world around.
(More relevant details here.)

For the continued academic journey after the completion of the Montessori cycle, a child at Mont Ivy Preschools has an assured seat at Grade-1 in a host of Tie-up schools. Tie-ups help assuage any concerns you might have about schooling post Montessori. However, our focus is to ensure that a child can join Grade-1 in any school on his/her own merit.

---

One of the core elements of the Montessori approach is development of social skills. The Montessori program is a supervised Mixed-Age-Group program. Here, children from around two-and-half years to six-and-half years are in the same environment. In such an environment, a younger child learns to hold his/her stead. At the same time, an older child learns to be around younger children without resorting to bullying or other dominant behavior.

On the contrary, a younger child observes older children working with advanced material and develops an interest to work with that material. This, creates a willingness in the child to progress to the next stages. The older children also play a leadership role and influence the younger children.

Moreover, practices such as waiting for one’s turn to use the material, not disturbing another child’s work/work-mat, interacting with adults/fellow students provide ample opportunity to learn interdependence, patience and discipline.

The Montessori program acts as the bedrock of the Preprimary program. Further, each child gets a host of other opportunities for the overall development of personality. These include a structured sports program, outdoor trips, chess classes, dramatics classes, live music exposure, cooking-for-self and a reading program. To enhance creativity and confidence, every child is encouraged to participate in the Mont Ivy Young Author Program and Mont Ivy Young Speaker Program.

Furthermore, once the child crosses four years of age, he/she also becomes eligible to avail the After-School Program, which helps develop other aspects of the personality.

Overall, the time spent in the Preprimary program at Mont Ivy takes full advantage of the once-in-a-lifetime window during which the child learns basic concepts. It is characterized by development of core skills, substantial cognitive development and further refinement of sensorial faculties.

We welcome your child to the safe, caring and nurturing environment of Mont Ivy Preschools. The Preprimary students benefit from the personalized programs and the dedicated review meetings with the teacher(s). This ensures that not only academic, but behavioral and other aspects of the child are also addressed in time, creating green-shoots of an all-round, assertive, original and confident personality.