Pre-K Rooms

• To promote a love of learning, and the outlook that every day brings a new way to discover and grow.
• To encourage creativity through open-ended art.
• Exploration and following the interests of the child.
• To strengthen independence through helping only as much as is needed.
• To prepare for later classroom experiences through group activities and a consistent schedule.
• To have an environment and activities that encourage.
• Literacy and to promote a love of books.
• To provide opportunities for social interaction and physical and mental challenges.
• To explore nature and natural learning opportunities.
• To encourage children to think for themselves and be problem solvers.

Learning

We believe that learning should be relevant and the child should be actively involved. We believe learning from the ages of 3-6 should encourage brain and personal development.

Creativity ~ Children express their ideas in many valuable ways from a block structure to singing a song to mixing colors on paper. A child’s expressions and suggestions are meaningful.

Artistic Expression ~ Painting, play dough, dance, clay, collage, drawing and blocks all promote motor skills and allow children to express themselves. As children experience art they learn about colors, shapes and textures, about the world and themselves.

Music ~ Music is important in brain development. Children should be exposed to all types of music. We have music time with guitar and spontaneous music throughout our day.

Math ~ Early math skills are needed before a child learns symbolic mathematics such as addition, subtraction and numbers, To build a foundation for mathematical reasoning it is important that a child first understands: conservation (that the amount doesn’t change even though it appears different, such as a short fat glass of water being poured into a tall thin glass), classifying (able to arrange into groups based on different characteristics), seriating (arranging in order from smallest to largest, etc.), patterning, one to one correspondence (realizing one number represents each item while counting), estimation, comparing.

Literacy ~ L.S. Vygotsky said, “The relationship of thought to work is not a thing but a process.”
We believe reading and writing are developing from infancy.  We model reading and writing as ways to accomplish things.

Books are always available. Printed materials are visible to children, such as signs in centers or labels on shelves for toys. Writing is used functionally (we demonstrate its usefulness when writing down their choices for work time, making a list of supplies needed, writing down questions or what we learned). Children see that writing is useful in everyday situations and have materials available to do their own writing. Children’s individual interests are noted and encouraged. 

All writing attempts are valued, there is no wrong way to write. This encourages kids to try and try. Eventually it will be readable! Kids learn reading and writing by participation!

Social Interaction ~ As children take part in a class of other children they can learn to value others. They have an opportunity for meaningful symbolic play. They can learn not to focus solely on themselves.  Although we don’t encourage conflict between children we see it as a learning opportunity. It can teach another’s point of view and that there are many solutions to a problem.

Science ~ Science is observing our world and changes in it. We take a very hands-on approach to science. Planting a garden, playing in the sand, melting a block of ice, making cookies, mixing colored water, blowing bubbles, freezing or melting substances and predicting the outcome, popping popcorn, experimenting to see which objects sink and which float. All are examples of science and all teach kids about the properties of things in our world. We hope children will become: curious, problem solvers, question askers, experiment makers, enthusiastic discoverers, investigators, observers, nature lovers, predictors and able to represent objects and ideas in different ways.