Montessori Preschool, kids 3-7

Review by eFreeware

Montessori Preschool is aimed at parents of children between the ages of three and seven who want a single app to cover the early years of learning rather than a drawer full of separate ones. The developer, BAYARD SA, describes it as a comprehensive preschool environment built by certified Montessori teachers, and that breadth is the main thing on offer: phonics, reading, writing, numbers, shapes, colors, nursery rhymes, drawing and even pre-coding all sit inside one digital classroom.

What appeals to me about the pitch is the classroom framing. Rather than a set of disconnected mini-games, the app presents ten broad areas of learning that follow Montessori principles, with self-correction, autonomy and self-confidence worked into how the activities behave. For a parent who wants something a child can move through at their own pace, that structure is the selling point, and the progress dashboard for adults backs it up.

A digital classroom built around ten learning areas

The core experience is a child working through activities grouped into broad subject areas. The developer lists ten of them, and the range is wide: early literacy, math, logic and coding, shapes and colors, arts and creativity, practical life, a nurse's station, nursery rhymes, a Chinese classroom, and an AR/3D corner where the school's hamster and rabbit appear, depending on what the device supports.

Each area is built around doing rather than watching. In the nurse's station, for example, children have to work out what is wrong with the school's children and animals and choose the right treatment, which is problem solving dressed up as caretaking. The practical life section follows the same idea, with activities like dusting, looking after plants, cleaning a mirror and washing clothes, all drawn from the everyday tasks young children like to imitate.

A reward system runs across the app to keep motivation up, and the developer promises regular updates with new content. The Science Room update is a good illustration of that: it adds a planetarium for exploring the solar system, an axolotl to feed and keep clean, runaway frogs to catch, a weather station that can bring snow or rain, and a T-Rex skeleton to assemble piece by piece.

Math from counting to a million

The math curriculum starts with counting and number recognition and goes as far as tracing numbers up to one million, which is a much longer runway than most preschool apps bother with. Addition and subtraction are introduced through Montessori materials, so the operations are presented with the kind of physical, manipulative-style approach the method is known for rather than as abstract sums on a screen.

That progression matters for a child who stays with the app over several years. A three-year-old can begin with counting and number shapes, while a six- or seven-year-old can still find something new in the larger numbers and the early arithmetic. It is one of the clearer signs that the app was designed as a multi-year environment rather than a single summer's entertainment.

Early literacy and pre-coding

Literacy here follows the Montessori sequence, which starts before reading proper. Children start by hearing sounds and learning to tell them apart, then match letters to names. The Early Literacy class begins with sound games such as "I spy" and carries on to phonics and reading comprehension, so the path from listening to reading is laid out in stages.

Logic and coding sit alongside this as a separate area, with pre-coding and reasoning games. For this age group, that means the kind of sequencing and pattern work that comes before any actual programming, which fits the same learn-by-doing philosophy as the rest of the app.

There is also a dedicated Chinese classroom with numbers, songs and a few words, and the app offers Chinese in both traditional and simplified characters along with Spanish and French. That gives the language side more reach than the single Chinese room might suggest.

Art, music and the AR corner

The arts class mixes color basics, drawing and coloring, and four music games. Nursery rhymes round out the younger end, with sing-alongs including Wheels on the bus, Head, shoulders, knees & toes and Old MacDonald.

On hardware that handles AR, that is likely to be the section children ask for first; on older devices, the 3D fallback keeps it usable.

What it costs and what adults get

The app is free to download, which matters for anyone handing a device to a young child. It does offer in-app purchases, and the developer presents a subscription choice of monthly or yearly. The renewal terms are the usual ones: the account is charged for renewal within 24 hours before the end of the current period, subscriptions can be managed by the user, and auto-renewal can be turned off in the account settings after purchase. Buying a subscription cancels any free trial time you have left.

A dashboard for parents and teachers shows how each child is doing and what to try next. That is the feature that turns it from a set of games into something closer to a teaching tool, since an adult can see where a child is and what to try next without sitting through every activity.

The main trade-offs follow from the design. This is a subscription rather than a one-off purchase, the AR section depends on the device, and the content spans a wide age band, so a single child will only be working in part of it at any given time. None of that is unusual for the category, but it is worth weighing before committing to a yearly plan.

Suited to families who want structure

The app looks best suited to parents who want a structured early-years curriculum in one place and are comfortable with a subscription model, whether they already know Montessori or are meeting it for the first time. It should also fit classrooms and home-schooling setups, where the teacher dashboard and the ten learning areas give an adult enough to plan around.

With over 5 million installs and a 4.2 average from more than 9,000 ratings, it has clearly found an audience since its release in July 2017. That history, plus the steady updates, suggests a product that is being developed rather than left to sit.

If you are looking for a single activity to occupy a child for ten minutes, the scope here is far larger than that. The families who get the most from it are likely to be those who treat it as a regular part of a child's week over several years.

A broad early-years classroom worth the subscription

Montessori Preschool is one of the more complete early-learning apps I have come across in description, and the combination of ten learning areas, a parent dashboard and a curriculum that runs from sound games to numbers in the millions is hard to match in a single download.

The case for it rests on whether you want that breadth and are happy to pay a monthly or yearly subscription for it. For parents of three- to seven-year-olds who want a Montessori-flavored classroom at home, and for teachers who want progress tracking built in, it is an easy recommendation. Anyone after a quick, free distraction for a child will find far more here than they need.

What's new in version 6.5.0

*NEW*: The Science Room expands with 5 new games! - Discover the planets of the solar system in the new planetarium. - Take care of your axolotl: feed him and keep its aquarium clean. - Catch the runaway frogs and bring them home to their terrarium. - The weather station evolves! Control the weather and bring snow or rain to the Science Room. - Build a T-Rex skeleton piece by piece and put it on display.