Preschool Precursor (January- June only)
9- 12:15
Young 3’s (fall/winter turning 3)
Designed specifically for our youngest community members, this two day program is the perfect precursor for preschool. Stepping out into the world without a parent will be an easy transition with our nurturing and balanced program. Our 2 day program will provide socialization opportunities and exposure to the bigger world while keeping with our play based, progressive philosophies.
Our program will foster your child’s natural curiosity with developmentally appropriate activities with a focus on the process. Getting messy, exploring, and creating an inviting environment to encourage independence.
The daily routine will consist of free play, circle, snack, outside play and lunch.
Children must be potty trained (we are happy to discuss this with families if you have any questions).
AM PROGRAM
9-12:15pm
Ages 3-5
Importance of Play: Children are naturally curious and take in new information at an astonishing rate. We encourage exploration and experimentation with raw materials as well as selecting toys, activities and materials based around the children’s interests and abilities. All children have unique learning styles and needs, we honor all levels of development and play in our classroom. We value this time in their life to jump in puddles, dig in the dirt, and build a block tower.
Building A Strong Foundation: Your child will be encouraged to be an active participant in their learning process. We believe that children want to learn, and that it’s motivating when classmates and the teacher are excited about learning, too. We strive to make learning meaningful for the children we teach. Our classroom is constructed so children are challenged to formulate questions, predict outcomes, experiment and investigate to gain new information. These are basic skills all individuals need to be successful in future academics.
Social and Emotional Well Being: We support all aspects of a young child’s growth and development. Their social and emotional well- being are essential for future academic success. We facilitate play between the children to help them learn how to be a caring friend, to develop empathy towards others, to resolve classroom conflicts, and to take social risks. Our nurturing environment supports problem solving and learning to navigate the many challenging situations that arise everyday.
Building Independence: Our daily schedule allows children the flexibility to choose between a variety of activities and materials. During morning play children can choose from developmentally appropriate activities selected to promote individual growth and interests. The children are free to move about the room and choose from activities that are selected to stimulate their ability to make decisions, problem solve, and build their confidence. We plan for the unexpected in our classroom because you never know when a spontaneous learning moment will happen. Children will also be challenged to build their self-help skills. We cherish the moment when a child learns to put their coat on by themselves or to zip their jacket independently.
Oral Language and Literacy: Our print rich environment is ideal for little learners to access language in an age appropriate way. We label our materials and provide picture schedules to promote early literacy development. We provide a classroom with a variety of materials designed to challenge your child to improve their listening skills, spoken language, and vocabulary. We engage children in conversation, ask leading questions, and provide open ended questions to foster language development. Our dramatic play area fosters peer to peer language to further develop age appropriate speaking and listening skills. And our classroom library is carefully selected to provide children with a range of material based on interests and levels of learning.
Classroom Community: The classroom community plays a vital role to our program. We have purposely limited the amount of students in the group so that our classroom setting would encourage a supportive, nurturing, and close community. All children are responsible for maintaining the classroom environment. Our program is a mixed age classroom. There are many benefits to this classroom approach for the children as well as our curriculum. To learn more about our mixed age room and how your child can benefit from this experience, visit our blog.
Mixed Age Learning: The entire classroom is structured for multi- level learning and experiences. From our physical layout of the space, the materials we choose, to the activities we offer. Children access information on different levels and the design of our classroom is intended to support this. Our older children gain experience being positive role models for our younger children, as well as providing peer modeling for learning and understanding.
PM Program/
Kindergarten Enrichment
11:45-3pm
Ages 4-6
Based on a progressive school model, all of our lessons will be inspired by the interests and ideas of your children. Our activities are designed to meet all of the learning styles and developmental levels of the group. Most importantly, when the children get excited about an idea, we encourage them to look more closely and learn through their experiences with it. Our PM program is the perfect balance to the academic rigor of the kindergarten AM provided by local school districts.
Our Year: We plan our school year by engaging the children in the learning process. Themes introduced by the children’s interests, will then be brainstormed as a group to develop activities and projects. Past learning experiences included such themes as: architecture, gardening, an art study, and carpentry. Each year is different.
Social Skills and Community: The importance of social skills and community play a vital role in our program. We have purposely limited the amount of students in the group so that our classroom setting would encourage a supportive, nurturing, and close community. Their social and emotional well-being are essential for future academic success. We facilitate play between the children to help them learn how to be a caring friend, to develop empathy towards others, and to take social risks.
A Love for Nature: We feel that nature and our environment are essential to learning. We always plan to be outside, rain or shine. Our classroom organic garden is planned, tended to, and harvested by the children.
We offer a structured daily schedule, but allow flexibility for spontaneous learning.
Our typical schedule for both AM and PM includes:
Free Play
Clean Up
Circle
Snack
Outside Play