Preschool

3 Year Old Children

Children who participate in our 3-year-old program turn three prior to December 2nd of the school year. In an effort to balance the class, our goal is to arrange each class with both boys and girls and with a range of birth dates clustered with several winter birthdays, spring /summer birthdays and fall birthdays. Our three year old classes are designed as an introduction for the child to a group setting.

Components of 3-Year Old classes:

• Provide a nurturing, loving, and safe environment
• Encourage each child to develop independence
• Encourage each child to develop self-help skills
• Strengthen each child's cooperative social skills
• Strengthen each child's problem solving skills
• Provide opportunities for children to learn about themselves and human development
• Provide opportunities for children to play by themselves, alongside another child, or with one or two other children
• Help children learn appropriate ways to join into group play and initiate play with another child
• Provide plenty of space and time both indoors and outdoors for children to explore and exercise their large motor skills
• Provide materials and opportunities for children to develop their fine motor skills
• Provide large amounts of time for children to choose and participate in a variety of experiences that are designed to enhance a child's social, emotional, intellectual, physical and spiritual development
• Provide plenty of materials and opportunities that encourage a child to explore and learn about their environment, to exercise their natural curiosity
• Encourage language development through the use of literature, music, conversation, dictation
• Provide an environment that includes dramatic play, blocks, science, math, puzzles, art, tactile and manipulative experiences

4 and 5 Year Old Children

Children who participate in this program turn four or five prior to December 2nd of the current school year. We, as a preschool staff, are committed to provide each child an opportunity to continue to grow and develop in a developmentally appropriate environment.

Components of our Four and Five Year Old Classes:

• Provide a nurturing, loving and safe environment
• Provide experiences, which stimulate learning in all developmental areas: Social, Emotional, Physical, Intellectual and Spiritual
• The environment is designed to encourage exploration and interaction with other children, adults and learning materials
• Children are allowed to select many of their own activities, which may include dramatic play, blocks, science, math, puzzles, art, tactile and manipulative activities.
• Children are encouraged to problem solve and experiment
  Opportunities are provided to develop social skills such as cooperation, helping, negotiating
• Opportunities are provided which develop basic skills that are meaningful to children such as how reading and writing are useful, opportunities for dictation, sign making, name recognition and writing, letter, and number recognition
• Opportunities are provided to develop phonemic awareness, sounds, rhyming, word games
• Activities are provided to develop language and literacy: listening and reading stories and poems, seeing the printed word in use, participating in dramatic play, informal conversations, experimenting with writing, drawing and copying
• Opportunities are provided for children to develop an understanding about themselves, others and the world around them
• Children have daily opportunities both indoors and outdoors for large motor development
• Children have daily opportunities for fine motor development
• The environment is designed to encourage cooperative play

 

*Each child is viewed as a unique individual, with differing learning styles and levels of ability.