Loading...WE TAKE GREAT CARE
to ensure our children all experience a carefully balanced, engaging program.
Our days start off with a variety of quiet and active activities available for children to explore at their own pace. We follow this with a morning meeting so all children can be welcomed as part of our community. We also use this time to read, sing and/or discuss plans for the day. Then, our preschool students and pre-kindergarten students separate to their individual learning classrooms.
During the course of the day our students discuss, investigate, discover, play, get to know one another, learn to resolve conflicts, and grow. For example, students may discover how letters can be made with sticks, how water changes and moves, how tall a tower of blocks can get before it topples over, how stories can be developed dramatically through make-believe, etc.
How Kids Learn Best
Play has long-lasting benefits. What is referred to as self-regulation in preschool becomes resilience and perseverance in high school.
Our school offers each student a balanced play-based education designed to meet children where they are so they can make at least a year’s progress in a years time, as measured against themselves.
We expect children in our programs to spend most of their time “doing,” not “watching” or “listening”.
Define Playful Learning
A play-based preschool curriculum is not a laissez-faire approach. It’s not the same thing as giving children “free play” separate from “teaching”. Rather, teachers use the power of children’s developing ideas, interests, and competencies to develop learning – through play, circle-time, and small group activities. Play is not a break from curriculum; play is the best way to implement the curriculum.
Playful learning contains time for both free and guided play.
- Adult initiated, child directed (discovery museum)."Guided play"
- Child initiated, child directed (free play)
- Child initiated, adult directed (co-opted play)
- Adult initiated, adult directed (direct instruction…"chocolate covered broccoli")
Lots of Learning Happens Here
Each day is packed with carefully designed activities structured around the six main development areas. Here are a few example activities:
Language and Literacy Development
- engage in longer conversations with adults and other children using a greater variety of words
- begin to identify the first sound in a word
- identify and name five to ten letters and begin to know sounds for some
- recognize his or her own name and begin to write it using both letters and letter-like shapes
A BALANCED PROGRAM
We give a lot of time and effort into maintaining a balanced program for our students. We are continually adjusting the amount of time inside vs. outside, at high energy vs. relaxed and participating in teacher-directed activities vs. free play depending on the needs of individual students and our class energy.
We maintain a balanced curriculum, one that does not overemphasize a particular area of development at the expense of any of the others. All areas of early childhood development are kept in mind while planning and implementing our daily activities. Above all, we believe a child’s socio-emotional development is the underpinning of all other areas. We know that it is beneficial for children to have a range of social experiences throughout their day, and plan our daily activities accordingly.
Love: Underlying all that we do, we know that love is a vital teacher.
PURPOSEFUL PLAY IS EARLY EDUCATION
Each day is packed with carefully designed activities structured around the six main development areas.
Here are a few example activities:
Social & Emotional Development
Build relationships with familiar adults, talking about thoughts and needs with them. Seek out other children during play time and begin to build relationships with them. Play with other children showing the ability to resolve disagreements with little help from adults. Express a variety of emotions by incorporating emotions into pretend play.
Physical Development and Wellness
Begin to gallop while improving jumping and hopping skills. Trace letters and simple shapes while also showing signs of a right- or left-hand preference. Gain independence with self-care skills such as undressing to use the toilet and remembering to wash hands. Identify healthy and unhealthy foods.
Cognitive Development
Connect number words and numerals to the quantities they represent. Engage in pretend play alone or with others by taking on roles and using props participate in scientific experiments led by adults. Understand history by discussing changes to the community.
Creative Expression
Create detailed artwork that includes people, animals, and things play movement games that involve following directions as well as creating unique moves play a character role in simple dramatic scenarios from books. Repeat more complex melodies and rhythm patterns.
Language and Literacy Development
Engage in longer conversations with adults and other children using a greater variety of words. Begin to identify the first sound in a word Identify and name five to ten letters and begin to know sounds for some. Recognize his or her own name and begin to write it using both letters and letter-like shapes.
Building Brain Power
Take on simple activities like Setting the table with cups and plates independently and continue until the task is done. Pay attention to a person or activity for five to ten minutes. Examine new objects or situations with deeper curiosity. Control impulses with fewer adult reminders.
Education begins the moment we see children as innately wise and capable beings. Only then can we play along in their world.
Vince Gowmon
