The Lower Division programs are designed to establish foundations for success in the Upper Division and for life long learning. The Montessori curriculum and teaching methods give children an extraordinary advantage over traditional programs.

At the core of the Montessori approach is the fact that children learn most effectively through direct experience and the process of investigation and discovery. Most children do not learn by memorizing what they hear from their teachers or read in a text; instead, they learn from concrete experience and direct interaction with the environment.

The Montessori curriculum is organized into a spiral of integrated studies. In the early years, lessons are introduced simply and concretely and are reintroduced several times over succeeding years at increasing degrees of abstraction and complexity.

Montessori classes are organized to encompass a three-year age span, which allows younger students to experience the daily stimulation of older role models, who in turn blossom in the responsibilities of leadership. Students not only learn "with" each other, but "from" each other.