Montessori Pre-K2 in Winnetka, CA

Ages 4 to 5 Years

The four-year-old who spent last year learning to concentrate now has somewhere to put that concentration. Pre-K2 is the year the academic work opens up.

Mathematics You Can Hold

The Golden Bead material makes the decimal system visible: a single bead is one, a bar of ten, a flat square of a hundred, a cube of a thousand. Children build four-digit numbers by fetching the right quantities from across the room, then perform addition by physically combining them and exchanging ten of one for one of the next.

By the time a child writes out a problem on paper, she has done it with her hands dozens of times. Carrying and borrowing are not rules to memorize — they are things she has already done.

Reading Takes Hold

Most children in Pre-K2 move from building words with the Movable Alphabet to reading fluently. We work through phonograms, sight words, and grammar — introduced with symbols and small objects, so that identifying a noun or a verb becomes a game with materials rather than a definition to recall.

Children write their own stories, often long before their handwriting is neat. The content comes first.

Cultural Studies

Geography, botany, zoology, and history enter as concrete work: puzzle maps of the continents, land and water forms in trays, parts-of-the-plant cards, the timeline of the day. Children this age want to know how the world is organized, and these materials answer that question in a form they can pick up.

Preparing for Kindergarten — and Beyond

Pre-K2 children develop the habits that carry into elementary school: choosing work, finishing what they start, cleaning up after themselves, asking for help, resolving small conflicts without an adult. We track individual progress and share detailed reports with families, and we’re glad to talk with you about kindergarten placement, whether that’s our own program or a school you’re considering.

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