Curriculum

We offer programs for children ranging from 2-7 years old. As a multi aged preschool, we believe that it is important to maintain developmentally appropriate activities while allowing children of all ages to learn from each other.

Toddlers

The focus for toddlers (ages 2-3 years) is self help skills including dressing, potty training, taking care of toys, books and belongings and social skills including sharing, following directions, making friends and conflict resolutions. The toddlers in our group are integrated into our preschool program and actively participate in the same activities as the older preschoolers adapted to their learning level. For example; toddlers are welcome at circle, but not expected to sit through a whole story.

Preschoolers

Our curriculum is a play based theme program. In a play-based program, children choose activities based on their current interests. The term "play-based” is often interchanged with "child-centered". Our play-based Home-classrooms are broken up into sections that we call "Play to Learn Centers" which include a home/kitchen dramatic play area, science area, water table, reading nook, blocks/construction, writing, art, math/manipulatives, light table, puzzles and more. As teachers our job is to manage the children by setting up the environment to be the third teacher and to encourage the children to play while facilitating social skills along the way. Even though it seems like they are just playing, they are learning valuable skills, including important social skills, science, early literacy, pre-math, music and creative thinking. Each "Play to Learn Center" has a list of learning skills associated with it.  For example; In the blocks area children learn: cooperative play, positional words (ie., over, under), geometric concepts (ie., two triangle blocks put together make can make a square), making simple machines (ie., ramps, levers, gears), concepts of balance, size, shapes, fractions (ie.,half, one third), engineering, patterning, physics (ie., how fast will the car roll at this angle) and much more. Academics are integrated into our play and circle times and children learn their abc's and 123's without even realizing it. For example: we do calendar every day incorporating learning days of the week and counting into a concrete activity.

We believe strongly in active play for our group. We have an indoor gym for those rainy days and a large outside playground filled with stimulating gross motor equipment. We get the children outside at least one hour each morning and one hour in the afternoon. When the weather is good....we might spend the whole day outside. We allow the children to explore and play with natural items that they find outside including mud puddles, sticks, rocks, grass and leaves. For example: turning over rocks to find worms or bugs is an excellent way to incorporate science into our outside classroom.

We have a structured daily schedule: 

Pre-K

We have an "Academic Enrichment Program" for the children that will be attending Kindergarten the following fall. This program is a fun way to introduce and practice phonics, writing and math. This formal academic program was introduced to help the children be ready for the new Kindergarten entry standards.

School-Age

While we do offer before and after school care, we do not have a structured program for these children. We believe that after a long day at school, it is time to play and have fun! After school time schedule is arrival, quiet time, snack, outside time, indoor centers, home. Children may choose to do homework and we will provide a space for them, but we believe that homework should be shared with parents.