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CurriculumActive learning dominates the day. Visibly posted, daily written lesson plans incorporate all developmental areas. Exercises include a balance of individual, small group, and large group learning and are presented in the context of a child's world. Teacher directed learning is designed to help children develop linguistically, cognitively, emotionally, creatively, and socially. We recognize that young children learn effectively through play and experimentation. The lesson plan sets aside a minimum of one hour per day for spontaneous child-directed learning and play. Sample Lesson Plan
During child directed time teachers facilitate learning by providing new materials, asking open ended questions and supporting the child's ideas. Children are given transition time to clean up and prepare for the next experience. Child directed learning experiences may include:
Social and Emotional DevelopmentEach child in our program is treated with warmth, care, and respect. Teachers state, model, and guide children in desired social behaviors. Opportunities are provided for children to act in socially appropriate ways through games, drama, music, during group learning, on the play ground, and during child directed time. Puppet shows, felt stories, and books are also provided to help stimulate appropriate social behavior. Lesson plans establish routines for children who are guided and redirected in predictable, positive, and constructive ways. Children are assisted in solving conflicts between themselves. Conflict provides opportunities for learning skills such as; negotiating, asking, stating the problem, and compromise. Passive children are provided with tools to help them become more successful socially. Behavior modification is practiced through the use of positive reinforcement. We encourage each child to master the following goals before kindergarten: follow safety rules, take turns, play cooperatively with peers, interact with a variety of children, choose their own self directed activities during free play, follow directions and class room rules, toilet and wash their hands on their own, put their coats and shoes on, put materials away when finished, follow directions, practice manners, respect others, show no bias, cooperate, accept responsibility, have a realistic sense of their own abilities and strengths, and communicate verbally so they can be understood. Cognitive MathA variety of strategies are used to help children develop skill in math. Experiences are designed for children to seek solutions to concrete problems. Developmentally appropriate math experiences emphasize: process, exploration, inquiry, and solution. Our curriculum exposes children to shapes, sizes, sequences, counting, classifying, recognizing and creating patterns, numerical recognition, reasoning, predicting, comparing, matching, grouping, seriating, evaluating, using pocket charts, sorting, and matching numbers to groups of objects. Learning concrete math is accomplished through the use of: books, games, dramatic stories, poems, felt stories, music, bead stringing, peg boards, block building, Unifix cubes, dominos, pattern blocks, manipulation, art, puzzle assembly, cooking, hands-on science related experiments, computer learning, weather and calendar activities, and the use of concrete materials. Cognitive and Reading LiteracyOur language-rich class room provides open communication between teachers and children. Teachers aid when necessary in child to child communication. They circulate during free play to encourage language skills and help children initiate and respond to conversations with others. During group learning and games children are given time to tell simple stories and experiences, contribute to group discussions; create endings, solutions, and alternatives to stories, learn finger plays, and sing songs. Language arts are encouraged with story time, puppet shows, games, and through music and drama enrichment programs. Our weekly themes are based on letters of the alphabet to help achieve reading literacy. Other ways we support reading literacy in the class rooms are by making books available during child directed time, reading to the children daily, creating games and stories to build alphabet and phonics recognition skills, and having puppet shows. Our music and drama program also support cognitive literacy. Our cognitive learning experiences contain two key elements which help children to learn. The first element is process, this means the child will enjoy what they are doing to learn. The second element is product, which is the cognitive goal the teacher is trying to achieve. An example of process and product would be an alphabet fishing game where each child fishes with a magnetic pole for an alphabet letter (process). After each child "catches" a letter they try to identify it (product). Another example of process and product learning would be a child directed felt story. Each child may select and place a felt object on the felt board (process), and then make up a short story about it (literacy product). We provide ample cognitive literacy and reading literacy experiences throughout the class during both child directed and teacher directed time. Children in our Pre-Kindergarten program learn how to read alphabet theme books. They enjoy making their own books and taking them home to practice reading. These books contain one, two, three, and four letter words called "sight reading words." By the end of the Pre-Kindergarten year children are expected to know; "sight reading words," the alphabet by sight and sound, the difference between upper and lower case letters, beginning and ending sounds, and how to match rhyming words. They should also recognize their own name in the environment, write their names and numbers one through ten as well as the letters of the alphabet, show interest in printed medium, be able to read simple signs in the environment, write their own names on homework, make things that are representational and draw pictures recognizable of people and animals. Large Motor skills
Large motor skill development in children occurs in stages with each one building on the previous one. Each child progresses at their own speed. We encourage large motor skill development in various ways. During child directed time in the class room we provide bean bags, balls, pull toys, dress up clothes and props, bean and water tables, and limited large motor skill equipment. During teacher directed time we incorporate fun exercises that serve several domains including large motor skill such as: tight rope walk, obstacle course, basketball toss, bean bag games, musical chairs, musical mats, parachute games, rhythm stick games, scarf and ribbon dancing, and tumbling. Many of our social games also include a large motor skill element such as; Hide and Seek, Freeze Tag, Simon Says, Ring Around the Rosie, Farmer in the Hay, Duck-Duck-Goose, Going to the Fair, etc. Our lesson plan provides 30 minutes each of indoor and outdoor large motor skill activity during every class. We have sand boxes with tools for digging, pouring, packing, three jungle gyms, three slides, balls for throwing and kicking, a tire for balancing, and a Merry-Go-Round for pushing, and pulling. Small Motor skillsWe offer a wide range of small motor skill development and activities during teacher directed and child directed time such as;
Dispositions (the Arts)In our class room a child's natural inclination to be creative is nurtured and stimulated through a daily balance of developmentally appropriate experiences in movement, music, and the arts. These experiences are both child and teacher directed and are marked by the following indicators;
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