Learning doesn't
pause — it opens.
A guide to the summer rhythm of the Academy — where continuity, curiosity, and discovery continue to unfold.
Not a break —
a deepening.
At Prime, our summer experience is not structured as a separate themed program. We continue progressing through our Montessori curriculum while allowing additional space for deeper exploration and expanded experiences around areas of active interest within the environment.
The rhythm of Academy life continues — expanded by spaciousness, beauty, and possibility of summer — enriched by the beauty and possibility of our prepared outdoor environments.
The Montessori curriculum continues without interruption, ensuring your child's progress is sustained and built upon throughout the summer months.
With more spaciousness in our schedule, children follow their curiosity further — into research, project work, and real-world experiences connected to what they are actively discovering.
Children spend more time in our outdoor environments, where purpose-built spaces invite experimentation, creativity, movement, and quiet reflection.
The social and collaborative life of the atelier continues — through storytelling, shared building, dramatic play, and gathering in our natural environments.
What this looks like
for your child
Primary
Four weeks of seasonal exploration woven into the uninterrupted Montessori work cycle — inviting art, movement, culture, outdoor discovery, culinary experiences, and joyful inquiry. Each week opens a new world.
Elementary
Four weeks of seasonal exploration combining rich on-campus enrichment, specialist experiences in Mental Mathematics, real-world Montessori Going Out experiences, and uninterrupted daily Montessori work cycles.
Summer Explorations
A Continuation of the Life of the Academy
Summer at Prime preserves the calm rhythm, structure, and purpose of the Academy while creating greater space for curiosity, movement, outdoor experiences, creative expression, and joyful discovery.
Children continue progressing through the Montessori curriculum each day through the uninterrupted work cycle that anchors life within the Primary atelier. Around this foundation, seasonal explorations invite children into deeper experiences of nature, culture, science, art, practical life, movement, and imagination.
Summer participation follows the same daily Academy rhythm, allowing children to experience continuity while embracing the openness and energy of the season.
Children observe, classify, imagine, and discover through nature study, movement, sensory exploration, and outdoor classroom experiences.
- Who lives in the jungle?
- What does the forest floor feel like?
- What sounds emerge from the canopy at dawn?
Children explore printmaking through pressing, stamping, rolling, and layering natural and found materials to create works inspired by leaves, textures, animal markings, and rainforest patterns.
Each child develops a personal portfolio of original works throughout the week.
Water, texture, movement, and sensory exploration invite the wonder of the ocean into the life of the atelier.
Children explore textile work through threading, weaving, embroidery, and simple sewing experiences inspired by the ocean.
These experiences strengthen concentration, coordination, patience, and care while creating meaningful artistic work.
Planets, stars, constellations, and questions of the universe invite children into exploration and discovery.
- Shadow exploration
- Constellation observation
- Light and movement experiences
- Outdoor sky studies
Children design, construct, and imagine through rockets, celestial artwork, planetary systems, and mixed-media experiences that invite wonder and experimentation.
The rhythms of growing, preparing, sharing, and caring become part of the work of the week.
Children explore how food reaches the table through plants, animals, farming, growing, harvesting, preparation, and the many ways food is shared across cultures and communities.
Children begin exploring the role of nutrients in simple, concrete ways through experience and observation, including:
- Macronutrients — carbohydrates, proteins, and fats
- Micronutrients — vitamins and minerals
Children begin noticing that different foods support energy, growth, movement, and overall well-being in different ways.
Children discover fruits and vegetables through color, texture, and observation while exploring why variety matters and how colorful foods often support different functions in the body.
Children practice simple meal composition and begin thinking about what helps meals feel balanced, satisfying, and nourishing.
Children begin observing that some foods support everyday nourishment while others may be enjoyed more occasionally — building awareness without creating fear around food.
Children explore why water supports movement, energy, concentration, and daily rhythms while learning that hydration is an essential part of caring for the body.
Children become investigators by observing labels, comparing foods, and discovering where sugars appear in familiar products.
Children explore ingredients and begin noticing:
- Fiber
- Healthy fats
- Natural and added sugars
- Simple ingredient awareness
Children ask questions, compare observations, and begin developing thoughtful food awareness.
Children prepare simple recipes, explore ingredients, set the table, and discover that food is both science and culture.
This experience invites children to become curious, thoughtful, and confident participants in the everyday rhythms of nourishment and care.
Areas of exploration may include the food areas listed alongside.
Children discover that food is not simply something we consume — it is something we understand, prepare, share, and enjoy.
A child who understands nourishment receives a gift that extends far beyond the summer season.
Joyful sensory exploration within the outdoor classroom.
Children observe, experiment, build, discover, and work across intentionally prepared outdoor environments, including experiences across our sensory environments, outdoor kitchen, construction atelier, and gathering arbor.
Movement, rhythm, culture, expression, and joyful participation.
Where appropriate, experiences may extend beyond the Academy in connection with seasonal exploration.
The foundation remains unchanged.
Summer Explorations
A Continuation of the Life of the Academy
Summer at Prime's Elementary level preserves the intellectual rigor, independence, and purposeful rhythm of the Academy while creating greater space for inquiry, real-world exploration, collaboration, and meaningful work.
Children continue progressing through the Montessori curriculum each day through research, writing, mathematics, experimentation, discussion, and project work.
Around this foundation, seasonal explorations extend learning into deeper experiences of culture, innovation, human performance, and purposeful discovery.
Summer participation follows the same daily Academy rhythm — structured, purposeful, and alive with curiosity.
Through research, storytelling, creative work, and hands-on exploration, children investigate how people live across different parts of the world and begin observing the relationship between geography, culture, environment, and daily life.
- How are communities similar and different?
- How does geography shape daily life?
- What makes cultures unique?
- How do environments influence how people live?
Children discover that although people live differently across the world, many human experiences remain beautifully connected.
Children investigate the world through creation, observation, mapping, design, and cultural discovery.
Areas of exploration may include:
Children investigate: continents, countries, borders, landforms, world navigation. Children begin developing greater confidence reading and interpreting maps.
Children investigate: homes around the world, language and communication, food traditions, celebrations and customs, ways communities function. Children begin noticing how geography influences culture.
Children investigate: famous landmarks, world architecture, design across cultures. Experiences may include landmark construction, design challenges, collaborative builds.
Children may: create passports, build travel journals, design cultural exhibits, research countries, present discoveries. Children discover that understanding the world begins with curiosity.
Through experimentation, design, construction, and entrepreneurial thinking, children explore how imagination, persistence, and problem-solving lead to innovation.
- How do inventions begin?
- What makes a design successful?
- How do ideas become reality?
- How do people create value?
Children discover that meaningful innovation begins with observation and grows through experimentation, refinement, and action.
Children investigate how design, engineering, entrepreneurship, and creative thinking work together.
Areas of exploration may include:
Children investigate: structures, construction principles, design challenges, building and testing. Experiences may include construction challenges, prototype development, collaborative engineering.
Children investigate: value and exchange, budgeting, pricing, production. Experiences may include creating products, simple business models, entrepreneurial challenges. Children begin observing how ideas move into implementation.
Children investigate: problem solving, product design, creative iteration, presentation and feedback. Experiences may include branding, advertisements, pitch presentations, refinement challenges.
Children apply: measurement, geometry, estimation, financial thinking. Children discover that mathematics becomes powerful when used to build, design, and create.
Through observation, experimentation, discussion, and guided practice, children begin exploring how attention, concentration, memory, visualization, and repetition influence the way humans learn.
Children are introduced to the idea that the brain is not fixed — it strengthens through meaningful challenge, focused practice, and repeated experience.
- How does the brain help us think and learn?
- What supports memory and concentration?
- How do people calculate without writing?
- How does visualization strengthen mathematical thinking?
- How does practice improve performance?
Children discover that concentration, visualization, and mathematical confidence strengthen through thoughtful practice over time.
Children explore the connection between brain function and mathematical thinking through guided experiences in concentration, visualization, memory, and mental computatiion.
Using tactile mathematical materials and visual thinking techniques inspired by Japanese numerical traditions, children move from representing quantities physically toward increasingly internalized mathematical thinking.
Areas of exploration may include:
- Introduction to the brain and its role in learning
- Attention, concentration, and memory
- Visualization and mental imagery
- Exploration of traditional Japanese mathematical materials
- Representing numbers physically
- Beginning operations through movement and touch
- Pattern recognition
- Memory and concentration challenges
- Mental computation practice
- Reflection on how practice strengthens learning
- Deep concentration
- Visualization
- Working memory
- Attention and focus
- Mathematical confidence
- Mental agility
- Persistence and reflective thinking
Children experience that mathematical confidence is built not through speed — but through observation, repetition, attention, and thoughtful practice.
The week offers children an introduction to Mental Mathematics and a new experience of how the brain learns through concentration, visualization, and repeated practice. Families who develop an interest in continuing the experience are welcome to explore it further beyond the summer season.
Children move beyond simply identifying healthy foods and begin asking deeper questions:
- What actually fuels the body well?
- How do labels help us make informed decisions?
- How do food and movement work together?
- How do everyday choices shape long-term wellness?
Children become researchers, investigators, cooks, bakers, label readers, and thoughtful decision makers.
Children investigate the relationship between nutrition, movement, and wellness through observation, discussion, experimentation, cooking, baking, comparison, and practical application.
Children prepare foods, compare ingredients, interpret labels, investigate patterns, and experience how everyday choices influence performance and well-being.
Areas of exploration may include:
Children investigate how food groups support the body and contribute to overall health. Areas may include: Dairy, Grains, Fruits, Vegetables, Proteins. Children begin observing how different foods support different functions.
Children investigate: the importance of grains, whole grains vs refined grains. Children compare how food choices influence energy and nourishment.
Children investigate: the importance of proteins, animal proteins, plant proteins, benefits of nuts and seeds. Children explore how food supports growth, repair, and performance.
Children investigate the role of fats in supporting the body, including saturated fats and trans fats, and monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats. Children begin understanding that not all fats function in the same way.
Children become investigators through: Get to Know Nutrition Facts Labels, Sugar Hunters, Sugar Shockers. Children compare sugar content, ingredient lists, food claims, and everyday food choices. Children begin asking: What does this food actually provide?
Children are introduced to the idea that food does more than enter the body — it travels through a remarkable system that transforms nourishment into energy and building materials. Children may investigate the digestive system as a pathway of nourishment, how food moves through the body, how nutrients become available for growth and activity, and the relationship between digestion, energy, and overall wellness.
Children investigate how movement supports overall wellness. Experiences may include Fitness Dice — movement challenges that encourage strength, coordination, endurance, and joyful participation — and Nutrition Toss Up Ball. Children explore benefits of physical activity, strong muscles, healthy arteries, healthy joints, and building healthy movement habits.
Children prepare recipes, experiment with ingredients, compare outcomes, and experience how food choices connect to nourishment and everyday life. Children discover that health is not built through one meal or one workout — but through thoughtful choices practiced over time. Children leave the week with practical tools for understanding food, movement, and caring for the body.
Children continue developing concentration, visualization, mathematical thinking, and confidence through guided Soroban experiences introduced throughout the summer season.
Elementary children extend academic life beyond the walls of the atelier through observation, building, investigation, conversation, and purposeful work across our outdoor environments.
Where appropriate, experiences may extend beyond the Academy through purposeful real-world exploration connected to current investigations and seasonal themes.
Children continue expressing ideas through drawing, design, mixed media, construction, and creative interpretation connected to weekly explorations.
Movement remains an integrated part of the summer rhythm through fitness experiences, games, collaboration, and active exploration.
The foundation remains unchanged.
Going Out is not a field trip in the conventional sense. It is a prepared, purposeful real-world excursion in which children bring their research into the world — observing, questioning, and connecting what they have been studying to real places, real people, and real environments.
- Observe
- Question
- Investigate
- Document
- Collaborate
- Reflect
Unlike standard summer camps where themes are entertainment, at Prime the weekly theme becomes a lens through which children research, question, and go out into the world as prepared, purposeful learners. The curriculum never stops — it deepens.
Elementary children continue their daily Montessori work cycle throughout the summer.
Spaces composed
for exploration
Our outdoor classroom is intentionally composed of purpose-built environments that invite experimentation, movement, imagination, connection and meaningful discovery.
Sensory & Science Tables
Our Outlast Cascade Play Center invites hands-on experimentation, observation, and creative expression — blending art, science, and sensory exploration outdoors.
View environmentOutdoor Art & Kitchen
The Outlast Classic Kitchen supports dramatic play, artistic work, and collaborative experiences — nurturing imagination, language, storytelling, and social connection.
View environmentOutlast Blocks Construction
Our complete Outlast Blocks collection — including wheeled construction elements — encourages collaboration, problem solving, engineering thinking, and sustained concentration.
View environmentOutlast Arbor
A place for reading, quiet reflection, and conversation — an extension of the social and reflective life of the atelier, for gathering and storytelling.
View environmentLearning outcomes
in the outdoor classroom
Every experience holds the potential for learning. Below is a glimpse into the capabilities and skills strengthened through purposeful exploration in our outdoor environments.
Math Skills
- Whole/part relationships
- Counting and estimation
- Height, weight, and quantity
- Sequence and ordering
- Ordinal and cardinal numbers
- Size relationships
- Geometry — 3-D shapes
- Parallel and perpendicular
Science Skills
- Gravity and cause & effect
- Experience with the natural world
- How machines work
- Observation and inquiry
- Sensory exploration
- Experimentation and discovery
Construction & Engineering
- Stacking, balance, and stability
- Bracing, supporting, and propping
- Ramping and elevation
- Bridging and covering
- Making enclosures
- Changing shape and structure
Social Skills
- Sharing knowledge and experiences
- Working collaboratively
- Building on one another's ideas
- Communicating ideas to others
- Building relationships
- Negotiation
- Considering needs of others
Language Skills
- Vocabulary and naming
- Asking questions
- Multi-word sentences
- Recall and storytelling
- Reciprocal conversations
- Expressive and receptive language
- Using instructional language
- Following directions
Kinesthetic & Other Skills
- Walking, balancing, full body exploration
- Navigating through space
- Lifting, carrying, gripping
- Planning and critical thinking
- Visual-spatial reasoning
- Creativity and imagination
- Focused sustained attention
- Memory and recall
Four children constructing a vehicle together — negotiating where each block goes, estimating how many they need, lifting heavier pieces as a team, mapping a route to Virginia, gathering pinecones as provisions for the journey. Rich language, storytelling, engineering, mathematics, and social development — all emerging from a single afternoon of purposeful play. What appears to be play is often construction, mathematics, storytelling, negotiation, experimentation, and community unfolding in real time.↓ Read the full story below
Four children,
one afternoon.
The conversation begins
Four children, all four years old, gather in the outdoor block area with a vision: they are going to build a vehicle. They talk with one another about what parts they need — wheels, a door, a steering wheel, seats. They share what they know about cars and trucks. Language, negotiation, and collaborative thinking are already unfolding.
Estimating & gathering
As they talk, they gather blocks and begin to put them together. They estimate how many blocks of each shape they will need and make piles — sorting, sequencing, and reasoning about quantity and geometry in real time, without ever calling it mathematics.
Learning to "lock"
They look for pieces that are the right size and shape. They discover the blocks interlock — and use the word "lock" themselves as they figure out how they work. They work together to lift the heavier blocks, negotiating with one another where each piece will go.
Building, refining, resetting
They build, refine, change, and reset. Nothing is precious. The structure evolves as their thinking evolves — this is engineering and critical thinking, expressed through the hands and the body. Patience, persistence, and problem solving in every adjustment.
They climb in
When they are satisfied, they grab two steering wheels and climb up onto the seats they made. Two sit in the front, two in the back. The vehicle is complete. Then, almost without noticing, they begin again. Rich language and storytelling emerge as they set off on their adventure to Virginia.
The journey continues
A teacher offers a map. They look it over and discuss which way to go. They have gathered pine cones, leaves, and sticks as food for the road. They stop for gas, fill the car up, and continue on their way — imagination, storytelling, and the natural world woven together seamlessly.
French continues
all summer.
While summer at Prime is not structured as a separate language immersion program, French continues as part of the ongoing life of the environment. Language is not an add-on at Prime — it is woven into the daily rhythm of the community.
At Prime, summer is not a pause
from meaningful learning.
Seasonal explorations enrich the experience while the Montessori curriculum remains the steady rhythm beneath it.
Children continue progressing through their daily work cycle while enjoying expanded opportunities for movement, creativity, outdoor discovery, language, cultural experiences, and joyful inquiry.
The rhythm of the Academy remains intact while creating space for wonder, exploration, and deeper engagement with the world around them.
Children return to the academic year not having restarted, but having continued — with confidence, familiarity, and joyful anticipation.
This is The Summer Atelier.