Frequently Asked Questions

Kinderhouse Montessori has been providing AMI-Recognized Montessori education for children in San Diego, California since 2001. To learn more about the school’s history, mission, and values, please visit the About Us section.

All the head teachers at Kinderhouse Montessori School have AMI diplomas in addition to college degrees. Learn more about the teachers and the administration in the staff biographies in the About Us section.

Normal school hours are from 8:00 am to 3:00 pm, Monday through Friday. After school care is available for later pick ups.

All Kinderhouse Montessori programs for Toddler and Primary are for all five days of the week. Half-day programs are available for Toddler and Primary students.

Click on the links below to learn more about each program:

Toddler: 18 to 36 months, Primary: 3 to 6 years

Summer Sessions

After School Care: Kinderhouse Montessori provides after school care programs to accommodate working parents. Extended hours are available when signing up for the school year.

Kinderhouse also partners with carefully selected third party enrichment programs to provide extracurricular activities on school grounds. Some of the activities include soccer, gymnastics, music and art lessons. These programs are available only for enrolled students. For more information, please refer to the parents section for enrichment program registration forms.

After Care pick up times can be found on the Drop Off and Pick Up page.

Kinderhouse Montessori offers a number of program options to help families with busy schedules. Half day and extended hours are available for many of the programs. All the programs are for all five days of the week.

For children six and under, Montessori emphasizes learning through all five senses, not just through

listening, watching, or reading. Montessori classes allow each child to learn at an individual pace and to choose activities from hundreds of possibilities. They are not required to sit and listen to a teacher talk to them as a group, but are engaged in individual or group activities with materials that have been introduced to them one-to-one by the teacher who knows what each child is ready to do. Learning is an exciting process of discovery; leading to concentration, motivation, self-discipline, and a love of learning.

Children above age 6 learn to do independent research, arrange field trips to gather information, interview specialists, and create group presentations, dramas, art exhibits, musical productions, science projects, and so forth. There is no limit to what they can create in this kind of intelligently guided freedom. There are no text books, adult-directed group lessons or preset daily schedule. There is great respect for the choices of the children, and they easily keep up with or surpass what they would be doing in a more traditional setting.

Children enjoy their work and study and time is never wasted. The children ask each other for lessons and much of the learning comes from sharing and inspiring instead of competing with each other.

Multi-age classrooms afford us the luxury of adapting the curriculum to the individual child. Each child works at his or her own pace, while remaining in community of peers. In addition, the multi-age format allows older children to be the leaders of the classroom community – even children who may be shy or quiet.

The name “Montessori” was never trademarked, so any school or daycare can call itself a Montessorischool. It is important when choosing a school to check that the school is truly following the Montessori philosophy, has properly trained teachers, appropriate learning materials, and so on. One way of ensuring that a school is meeting standards is to look for an accredited school. Dr. Montessori founded the Association Montessori Internationale in 1929 to preserve her legacy. AMI ensures that Montessori schools and teachers are both well-grounded in the basic principles of the method and ready to carry those principles forward in the modern educational world. AMI offers teacher training and conferences,approves the production of Montessori materials and books and, through their AMI-USA branch office, accredits schools. To receive AMI accreditation, each classroom in the school must have:

• A fully-trained teacher who has completed at least both an undergraduate degree and AMI’s yearlong training program;
• A complete set of authorized Montessori classroom materials;
• A three-year range of ages within the single classroom;
• An uninterrupted three-hour work cycle each morning for Primary and Elementary levels, or a two hour cycle in the toddler level.

Every three years, trained consultants evaluate AMI schools at each level as a part of the ongoing school accreditation process. Kinderhouse Montessori is an AMI accredited school.

As in all areas, we follow the child’s needs and development with regards to napping. In the Primary program, the children who require a nap are able to nap and the children who do not remain in their classrooms for a second work period. In the toddler program, all children nap or at least rest between 12:30 and 2:15.

At Kinderhouse, helping the children develop healthy eating habits and awareness early on is very important to us. We do not give the children anything with added sugar or processed foods. The snacks are sent in by families who take turns by week, which gives the children an opportunity to feel a sense of pride and contribution within their classroom community. Snack each day consists of fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, and protein such as cheese or hummus. Each classroom has an organic garden which is used to supplement snacks as well as for cooking/baking when there is something ready to harvest. We are able to accommodate food allergies and sensitivities and serve only vegetarian snacks. For children who stay in the full day program, families send in lunch daily. The nutrition policy applies also to lunches sent from home.

Outside vendors come to our school to offer enrichment programs throughout the year. These classes typically start at 2:45pm. Some examples of our current enrichment programs include My Music Workshop, Soccer Shots, Little Stars Dance Workshop, and Amazing Athletes.

We offer hourly care which is available after the full-day program ends (after 2:30 for toddlers and 2:45 for Primary or Elementary children). The rate for hourly care varies depending on your child’s program (Toddler/Primary/Elementary) and on how far in advance the request for care is made.

Our tuition is annually based. There are 42 weeks in an annual school year where you would pay the tuition over 10 installments. There are 10 installments. The first installment is paid with the registration fee, and the last is due in May for the school year that ends in June.

Yes. There are 42 weeks in the regular school year. The tuition will be prorated based on the number of weeks remaining in the school year.

Our tuition is an annual tuition; so, you will still be responsible for making the monthly tuition payments as you agreed if you haven’t pre-paid your tuition in full.

We offer a check or cash option.