CurriculumOne Year-Old Curriculum
The curriculum for the one year-old classes is based on the “Wee Learn” curriculum. During this year in school, the main focus is socialization, play to develop large motor skills, and active (hands-on) activities with the teachers. There is not an emphasis on structured learning at this age, but routine is very important. Our goal is to have each child have fun and feel safe and secure while they are away from mom and dad for a few hours.
Two Year-Old Curriculum
The curriculum for the two year-old class begins to take on a little more structure. During this year, we begin to work with the children on learning shapes, colors and numbers. We introduce letters, but do not focus on trying to write them. Pre-writing skills are worked on and activities that help to develop fine motor skills are incorporated into the daily activities. Socialization is still a major focus in the two-year old class. Games and activities that are geared around development of large motor skills are used throughout the year. Since routine is still very important at this age, a daily schedule is used and followed every day. All of the activities are designed to be FUN and age-appropriate.
Three Year-Old Curriculum
Once a child gets to the three year-old class, you will find more structure and focus on the language arts and math areas. At this age we introduce a language arts program that uses puppets to represent the letters of the alphabet. The children are introduced to upper and lower case letters and letter sounds. At this point we do not focus on these areas, but they are presented and talked about. We also work with the children during the year on writing their names. A math curriculum, 1-2-3- Math, is also introduced during this year. This program includes the following math concepts: sorting, matching, pairing (1 to 1 correspondence), counting, number recognition, opposites, ordinal numbers, comparisons, and spatial relationships. These math concepts are taught using games and other fun activities. As with all areas of the curriculum, learning through play is what we want to achieve!
Four and Five Year-Old Curriculum
You will notice quite a big change in the curriculum from the three year to the four year curriculum. Up through the three year-old class, the teachers have been working to prepare the children for all they will learn in the 4K and 5K program. While children do learn so much during this year, the curriculum is designed to be FUN and to make learning a wonderful experience.
The 4K/ 5K program includes, but is not limited to, the following concepts:
Language Development: Curriculum used is “The Letter People” - reinforcing letter recognition (upper and lower case), writing letters, understanding phonic sounds and letter blends, Dolch sight words, color words, and journaling.
Journals: Story starter pictures and free writing skills; beginning to sound out and “write” words.
Math: Curriculum used is Saxon Math. The 4K classes use a kindergarten curriculum and the 5K classes use a first grade curriculum. In this area we cover patterning, sorting, graphing, counting (to 100 – 1’s, 5’s, 10’s), number recognition, understanding number value, time, and coins.
Science: The use of manipulatives, observing, describing, recording and predicting are some of the activities used during science time. Our experiments include cooking classes also!
Spanish: Curriculum used is Frog Street Press. Each class has Spanish once a week. Our Spanish teacher uses books, songs, and games as part of her instruction. The children love Spanish!
Computer Lab: instruction by our computer specialist once a week in the computer lab.
Additional “Specials” offered:
Music: All children attend music class once a week.
Chapel: The 3 yr., 4 yr., and 5 yr. classes attend chapel once a week. Bible stories are also incorporated into the curriculum and taught in the classroom. The 1 yr. and 2 yr. classes have the Bible stories in the classroom.
Recreation: All classes enjoy outside playtime every day.
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