Our Montessori Programs
Welcome to Our Children’s House!
The Primary stage at Pragnya Montessori School forms the foundation of a child’s lifelong learning journey. During these early years, children are naturally curious, absorbent, and eager to explore their surroundings through movement, sensory experiences, and purposeful activity.
Our Primary classrooms are carefully prepared to encourage independence, order, and joyful discovery. Children engage in practical life, sensorial exploration, early language, and mathematical activities that help them understand the world in a concrete and meaningful way.
Learning happens at each child’s individual pace, allowing repetition, mastery, and confidence-building through self-correcting Montessori materials. Mixed-age interactions promote empathy, collaboration, communication, and peer learning within a calm and respectful environment.
By nurturing emotional security, independence, and curiosity, the Primary programme helps children develop strong self-belief and a love for learning. This supportive foundation enables them to express themselves confidently and transition smoothly into future stages of education.
Practical life
Practical life activities are found in all the cultures across time and space. These activities vary from culture to culture. Practical life activities can be defined as activities done every day to look after us and the environment. These activities form the foundation for child’s life and education. Unless practical life activities are performed, there is a vital link missing in child’s life. Children connect with the environment using practical life activities. They grow up in the midst of practical life activities. Even for the new born, practical life activities are done for and around the child.
The interaction of humans with the environment is through movements. These activities help the child in the coordination of movements. For every activity, there is a definite beginning, purpose and an end. These activities are purposeful activities. Both body and mind work together to perform practical life activities. Body and mind coordination occurs through practical life activities. All the practical life activities involve child’s growing mind and body. For example, the technique of washing hands revolves around the movement of wrists and fingers. It is accomplished from careful coordination with the mind. Repetition of these tasks leads to efficiency, speed and perfection.
Children have a sensitive period to create movements. There is an irresistible push to create movements and repeat them. Practical life activities form a vital role in developing their movements. Children are familiar with practical life activities as they are activities in the environment they live in. They have an irresistible urge towards them as they involve movements.
The House of children is prepared with the child’s needs in view. Children are given opportunities in the environment to perfect their movements. Dr. Montessori incorporated practical life activities for the creation and perfection of movements. Children find answers to their needs in these activities. Children have an irresistible push to repeat these activities. They repeat activities with joy. These activities have a greater significance for children. The purpose it serves them is different from the purpose it serves the adults. The adults perform these actions to take care of self and the environment. But, the children perform these activities also to perfect their movements and they obtain internal joy and happiness from these activities. They create impressions and get perfection by performing these activities.
Elementary activities involve basic movements. These movements are required to perform other complex activities. Examples of these activities are pouring, folding, holding a bucket etc. There are not many complex movements in these activities. Children start working with these activities when they enter the Montessori environment. By performing these activities, there is a boost in confidence and psychological growth. They also acquire coordination through these activities.
Children are also introduced to activities which include care of self, care of environment and grace and courtesy lessons. These lessons help the child conduct himself in the environment and a larger society. Grace and courtesy lessons imbibe in the child the discipline required to function in the present day society.
Sensorial Activities
Senses are tools for gathering information. Information is gathered through sensory receptors. When senses come in contact with the environment, they gather information. The parts of the body that gather information do not process the information. Information acquired through the senses is random. Impressions are acquired in no particular order. Based on the elements in the environment, children gather sensorial impressions. Every experience in the environment is a multi-sensory impression. For instance, eating food uses the sense of smell, taste and sight. Information that comes in through our senses has no particular classification. Impressions are taken in as have experiences in the environment. The newborn child has the capacity for limitless experiences. All these experiences are gathered as impressions in his mind sensorially.
Sensorial activities help the child become conscious of the various physical properties of matter. These enable the child to order, classify and comprehend the sensorial impression absorbed from the environment. They help the child develop certain types of motor co-ordination, prepare for the language and arithmetic and helps in sensorial refinement. It enriches his/her vocabulary and also prepares for writing and drawing. These serve as intelligent means of exploration of the environment and support the cerebral development of the child.
Dr. Maria Montessori believes that the hand is the instrument of intelligence. Activity of the hand builds the mind. These activities are the experiences the child must have. We offer activities so that development of the mind is possible and gradually build up intelligence. From material objects, we pull the child into a world of ideas. Dr. Maria Montessori uses the psychological technique called materialized abstractions for that purpose. Ideas cannot be given to the child. They are internalized through activities in the environment. Hence, it necessary to give the child physical objects for experience. Dr. Maria Montessori took ideas and put them into materials around which the child would be active and engaged. The mind looks for patterns and comparisons and obtains clues from them to build understanding.
The concept of isolation of sensorial qualities is used in our classrooms. From multi-information impressions, she isolated individual qualities. Only one quality varies in the material. All the other qualities are identical. The child has minimal impact and effect from other qualities as they are the same. Only the contrast stands out. Quality in an object can be isolated by keeping every feature to be the same except the one which needs to be highlighted. After isolation, we compare and reject the ones that are not the same. That work is done by the hand. Dr. Maria Montessori calls this the principle of isolation. All the qualities in the material are the same except the one quality which we want to bring to the child’s attention. By pairing and grading these qualities through the use of their senses, children understand the environment around them.
Language
Around two and a half years of age when the child enters the house of children, he would have already acquired the spoken language with considerable semantic and syntactic potential. The language he possesses would reflect his home environment and may have adapted certain faulty usage. Thus, his language may be inadequate from various points of view. As the absorbent mind gradually gains consciousness, the child needs to consolidate the various human functions and mental faculties, which also include consolidation and further refinement of his spoken language. Since the child cannot achieve this task himself, the prepared environment offers favorable conditions for the task of consolidation through utilization. Spoken language is not concrete enough for the child for his future intellectual pursuits. Therefore the child has to acquire the related language skills of WRITING AND READING.
In order to master the spoken language the child has to work at levels.
- The phonic level
- The semantic level
- The syntactic level
Groups of sounds together form words, which in turn make up sentences and thus a language is formed. Thus sounds or phonetics are the basic units of a language. While the child enters the House of Children along with enriching his vocabulary and structured language he also needs to become aware of the sounds, which are typical to his language. This would not only enable him to improve upon his articulation for the present, but also would serve as an indirect preparation for the future, thus enabling him to acquire writing and reading skills.
In spoken language the child is given sounds of alphabets. Sand paper letters are offered to the child as the symbols of these sounds. Children then work with movable alphabets to form work at a phonetic level. Phonetics help the children understand the spellings of common words and give them a command over language. Even though the children are not taught formally, the writing comes around 4 and a half years of age, as an explosion. Dr. Maria Montessori discovered that any developmental conquests (writing), has behind it, several multi motivated convergent but indirect preparations. When each strain of indirect preparations gains strength and comes into fusion with others, the explosion occurs. Reading also comes as an explosion similar to that of writing as a natural consequence of various convergent developments. Children explore language further by working with parts of speech and structures of sentences. This work is done sensorially to appeal to the child’s mind.
Along with English, which is a primary language for instruction and communication, children are also exposed to Hindi and Telugu. Children explore Hindi and Telugu languages in the same way as they explore English language in the Montessori Method.
Mathematics
Mathematics is an area then which precise relationships between entities can be established. The process would involve evaluation, comparison, calculation and precise conclusions. As a corollary the verification is itself a process.
Numbers are introduced in three distinct stages. At this very beginning the child is given activities and experiences to appreciate the quantitative aspect of an entity. Simultaneously, he is also given the appropriate nomenclature. This is opposed to the earlier practice of the other areas wherein nomenclature is introduced after sufficient experience is not complete without the characteristic activity of counting. In order to count the child needs the number names.
ARITHMETIC IS DIVIDED INTO 6 GROUPS
Concept of Numeration
In this groups the child is introduced to the various aspects of the basic numbers 1 to 9. These include the quantitative value, the number names, the numerical symbols, the sequence & the concept of zero. Therefore the child is offered the basic unit. He is also introduced to the inter relationships between the basic numbers & also as they are related to the basic unit.
Decimal system of numeration
The child is introduced to the decimal system which is very simple and yet powerful. It makes reckoning very easy. It is also the basis for the most popular and universal system of measurement namely and the metric system. It has a regular structure. If the concept of numeration (first group) had enabled the child to evaluate the entities from the point of view of their absolute value, it is the decimal system which would help them identify the place value. When these are put together the child is able to work with large numbers with same ease with which he had worked with the basic numbers. Around this period the child experiences are urge and skill to handle large numbers. Taking this into cognizance, the child has to be introduced to various arithmetical operations namely addition, subtraction, multiplication, division. This is the 1st and formal introduction to arithmetic of operation.
The Teens & Tens
As the child is moving towards the end of the II group this is offered. The conventional names of the numbers have no mathematical significance. With English, conventional names are limited to a combination of one ten (11 to 19) and the different groups of tens (20 to 90). Introduction of the conventional names has also given the child the opportunity to appreciate numbers in a linear fashion. In this manner child is able to master linear counting. Though to begin with this group does not have mathematical significance, the later part of the group offers the child scope for memorizing the basic multiples of the basic numbers 1 to 9.
Memorization (basic combinations)
Having been introduced to the nature of the 4 arithmetical operations the child is able to apply them to the various hierarchies. The various combinations of each of these operations as related to the basic numbers are given.
Passage to Abstraction
Having worked with the second group and absorbed the concept of decimal system of numeration and the fourth group where in the child has scope to memorize the combinations for the various mathematical operations. The child is now offered scope to bring these 2 groups together. The child will now perform operations on larger numbers with ease.
Fractions
As part of the sensorial material, the child is introduced to fractions. He also comes across fractions while working with napkins, constructive triangles, binomial cube, trinomial cube and decanomial, square. However a formal arithmetic introduction is given. Having been introduced to the basic unit growing in one direction till infinity the child is also given the sub divisions of the basic unit in the other direction, also going up to infinity. Having been given the basic understanding of the various factors involved in a fraction the child is given scope to utilize them. This is done by introducing the 4 arithmetical operations.
Culture
Culture is the elements of the environment into which the child is born. Every child from birth strives to accustom themselves to the culture into which they are born. Elements in the nature when studied in depth become scientific subject for study but when they are given to the senses and hands, they become items of culture. When the elements of nature are given to the senses and hands of the child, he starts accepting them as part of his life without any questioning thus making those items of human culture.
Various items which are provided as a part of culture are
- The World of Land and Water
- The World of Plants
- The World of Animals
- The World of Shapes
- The World of Man(history)
- Arts, Crafts and Traditions
Welcome to Our Lower Elementary Program!
The Elementary stage marks a significant transition from hands-on exploration to deeper intellectual inquiry. Children at this age are imaginative thinkers who seek to understand connections, patterns, and the reasons behind how the world functions.
At Pragnya Montessori School, Elementary learning is guided by an integrated approach where language, mathematics, science, history, and geography are experienced as interconnected disciplines. This holistic method strengthens understanding and encourages meaningful learning.
Students gradually move from concrete materials to abstract thinking, developing problem-solving skills, creativity, and independent reasoning. Collaborative projects, discussions, and research experiences foster teamwork, responsibility, and respect for diverse perspectives.
The Elementary programme nurtures confident, curious learners who ask thoughtful questions and take ownership of their learning. Children develop academic competence, emotional maturity, and social awareness, preparing them for more advanced learning and responsibility.
Psychology and Philosophy
As a child reaches six years of age, he enters the second plane of development (6-12 years). The second plane child goes through dramatic changes both physically and psychologically. They move away from the concrete towards the abstract. They already have at their disposal the creations in the first plane which are language, some degree of independence, coordinated movement, refined senses, intelligence and memory. This period is a phase of acquisition of culture(which are elements of human knowledge such as Biology, history, Math, Geography etc.) just as the first plane is for the absorption of the environment. There is an immense need for the child to know the reasons of things in the external environment. The child desires immense knowledge ready to take it in with his own understanding. This is the period when seeds of everything can be sown into the child’s mind which is like a fertile field. These seeds sown at the right time will eventually germinate into culture. Imagination is the creative faculty of the child through which the child understands information which he cannot perceive sensorially. It helps him travel through time and space and aids him in abstraction.
This plane also concerns with the exploration of the moral field. They begin to understand the discrimination between the good and the evil. The child is no longer receptive for absorbing the impressions with ease but wants to understand them for himself and not just accept them as mere facts. The second plane child also finds the need to associate himself with others not merely for the sake of company but in some sort of organized activity. He tends to work in groups where each member of the group has a defined status and responsibility. He is eager to learn the dynamics of the society and work with it. The child has shown us that he needs to learn through his own individual activity, should be given mental freedom to choose his own activity and not be questioned about it.
Since the child is craving to understanding everything in his environment which extends to the limits of the universe, a new philosophy of education should be adopted to meet his greater demands. Mere memorization of facts and limited syllabus would not enthuse the child and nurture his appetite for knowledge. Dr. Montessori proposed the idea of cosmic education for the second plane child. Cosmos comes from the Greek word “kosmos” and can be defined as “the universe as an ordered system” or “the order of the universe”. The meaning of cosmic education is the presentation of the universe as an ordered system to the mind of this older child using reason and imagination. She suggested to give the child an idea of the universe as the universe is the sum total of all the knowledge.
Cosmic Education
Dr. Maria Montessori envisaged cosmic education to educate the elementary child. Cosmic education presents the world to the child using reason and imagination. She proposes to give the child the universe as it is the sum total of all knowledge and everything is a part of it. It should be imparted in such a way that it is ordered and enthuses the child’s reasoning mind and imagination. Cosmic education stirs up the child and generate tremendous interest in him to explore the universe. Cosmic education presents the universe to the child as one unit with interrelated entities. It emphasizes on the interrelatedness of the entities in the universe. Cosmic education also does the job of sowing seeds of culture in the child’s mind. The content is not given as dry facts but rather as a profound drama which unfolds as they explore. Cosmic education also imparts in the child a sense of compassion. Through the inter-relatedness among elements, it gives a vision of the importance of each entity thus generating a sense of admiration for it. Great stories and key lessons are the methods through which cosmic education is given to the child.
Cosmic education addresses these mental, social, emotional and spiritual characteristics of the child, and the child reveals these characteristics in an environment that supports them. Cosmic education gives the children the opportunity and the freedom to study, explore and acquire the knowledge of the universe. It helps them understand not only its globality but also its complexity. They learn to appreciate how various cosmic forces work and interact with each other will following the laws of nature. Cosmic education also helps them visualize how many elements in the universe work together to maintain the harmony and order in the universe. It also helps the children study the interrelationships between various forces and elements of nature which explains how our world functions. With these kinds of discoveries, the children come to appreciate the importance of collaboration at a cosmic level.
Cosmic education has a very different approach as compared to the traditional education. In cosmic education, the whole is presented first and the child passes on to the minute details from the whole. The whole forms as the basis on which details are built. This approach aids the child to organize his knowledge and pursue his quest on the basis of his existing knowledge. This approach also helps the child connect the dots between various inter-disciplinary subjects and integrate them into one whole unity.
Great Stories
There are five great stories which provide a broad structure of the evolution of the universe to the present day. These stories give the vision of the whole as a single unit. They are dramatic stories given using rich language and personification. Their purpose is to arouse admiration and interest in the child. These stories are not used to impart mere facts. Their main purpose lies in forming a framework for further exploration. They are given with a sense of mystery for the child to think, reason and explore. These stories open up all subject areas in the elementary environment.
Great lessons are powerful tools to enthuse the child’s imagination. Given in a story format, it generates interest and admiration in the child. This child when presented with the great stories creates the impressions through his imagination. Using his imagination, he explores various aspects of the story as they are not readily available to his senses. The great stories consists of factual information in a story format. It also generates a sense of compassion in the child. It presents all the work done before the arrival of human being and from the arrival to the present day. It emphasizes the cosmic tasks of each of these entities which culminated in the present day. In this context, imagination plays a pivotal role in aiding the child to visualize these great works.
There are five great stories. They are:
- The story of God who has no hands
- The Story of creation of life
- The story of creation of human beings
- The story of communication through signs
- The story of numbers
Key Lessons
After the great stories, child have constructed a framework of the universe from the stories using their imagination. The great stories have also opened up all subject areas for the child to explore. Key lessons help the child to explore details from the great stories. The child can now explore through experiments and materials and fit it in the overall framework provided by the great stories. Key lessons help the child towards abstraction of concepts in different subject areas. This abstraction is done through manipulative materials which appeal to the reasoning mind and imagination. Key lessons are small lessons pertaining to a specific topic. Key lessons provide essential aid to explore the subject further. Key lessons do not contain complete information related to a subject area but just enough to make the child capable to explore. Working on an abstract level is the culmination of experiences with the physical material. Imagination and the reasoning mind assist the child to abstract for physical experiences.
For example, in biology, introduction to types and parts of a leaf are given. With this knowledge, the child sets out to explore different leaves in his environment with his imagination. He will now be able to categorize and classify them independently.
Going Out Sessions
The going out session relates to the elementary children because of their need to explore the wider society which is beyond family and school. The interest of going out comes from the lessons given and the restricted resources available in the inside environment. They learn about the society by going out through interactions. This is organized by the children themselves in response to the need to find out more in order to be able to ask these questions that has arisen from the work inside the environment.
Welcome to Our Erdkinder Program!
The Erdkinder stage supports adolescents as they move toward adulthood with confidence, purpose, and resilience. This phase focuses on balancing academic growth with real-world understanding, independence, and personal responsibility.
At Pragnya Montessori School, Erdkinder learning integrates IGCSE-Curriculum academics with experiential and practical learning. Students explore subjects in depth while understanding their relevance to real-life situations and future pathways.
Strong emphasis is placed on critical thinking, ethical awareness, leadership, and self-management. Learners are encouraged to take responsibility for their choices, collaborate effectively, and respect both individuality and community values.
The Erdkinder programme prepares students not only for academic success but for life beyond school. By developing independence, adaptability, and self-awareness, students are equipped to face higher education, careers, and societal challenges with confidence.
Psychology
During the age of 12-16 years, the child is an adolescent. During this period, we witness the creation of the adult of the species, with the power to procreate and give rise to the new generations that permit the continuation of human group. This is the time when a social man is created but has not yet reached full development. This is the sensitive period when he should develop the noblest characteristics that would prepare a man to be social, that is to say, a sense of justice and personal dignity. For the growth and development of the adolescent, Dr. Maria Montessori proposed the Erdkinder (“The Land Children” or “Children of the Soil”) for the period of secondary education. This proposal includes various experiences of productive work which contribute to strengthen the adolescent’s self-confidence and faith in himself.
Practicum
Dr. Maria Montessori specifies certain establishments or work environments to be a part of the Erdkinder. They are the farm, the guesthouse and the store or shop for the sale of fresh produce and craftwork. The adolescents have a strong desire to work. They are entering adulthood and they require adult like work which adds value to the society. The farm provides them with ample opportunities for purposeful work. Occupations on the farm not only satisfy the adolescent’s need for work but also have an academic aspect attached to it. Work on the farm requires careful scientific planning which imbibes in the young adult a desire to study the academic aspects of the occupation and succeed in providing purposeful work.
Doing purposeful work, the adolescent attains independence and a boost in self-confidence. They desire to be valued and by contributing to the society, they feel valued. Building genuine community is what adolescents are focused intensely on – to belong, to be genuinely accepted, to be recognized, appreciated and valued. They wish to achieve that through genuine contributions to the society.
The shop serves as a marketplace for exchange of goods. The children sell their produce and buy material required for their needs. This avenue opens up to an academic study of economy and commerce. They understand the value of currency as a tool aiding in the exchange of products. This activity puts the child on a road to economic independence. The adolescent does not necessarily aim for personal economic independence but rather for the group as a whole
Study and academic expertise take on new meaning in the Erdkinder setting. Students research and study to become aware and active citizens and fully informed problem-solvers for their community. They work to acquire expertise in science, technology and communication. They strive to understand our time in history and to move the story of human beings toward a new and promising chapter. They learn about other cultures to expand their world perspective, explore different ways of thinking and to tackle relevant issues. They are students of their time and place in history so they can understand the planet we all live on and the people who are our global family.
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