Classes & Curriculum
We plan and implement curriculum using an individualized approach that focuses on skills that lead to learning success.
Assessment
Individual assessment measure mastery of early development and academic skills.
Guidelines
Monthly, themed curriculum focuses on all areas of child development from social-emotional facilitation to sensor play.
Development
Milestones are assessed based on national standards for early childhood development.
- Circle Time: Children learn original songs, original finger plays, original flannel board stories, unique games, stories, and child centered activities that relate to the weekly themes. Circle time is the time of the day when we “explore” stories, “experience” songs, ask questions about the world we live in, and act silly.
- Messy Table: At the messy table, children smoosh shaving cream between their fingers. They mix colors and experiment with different textures. They blow milk bubbles and put their hands to work experiencing the world. There are endless opportunities at the messy table!
- Cut & Color Table: Preschoolers are pre-readers and pre-writers. Creative Pre-K provides daily activities that give preschoolers the skills they will need “before” they learn to read and write. These skills strengthen small muscles, reinforce left to right eye movement, and build language skills.
- Creative Art: The creative art projects encourage self expression. Give a child a paint brush and you will see his creativity blossom. Give a child collage materials and some glue and you will see his unique spirit unleashed. The projects are open-ended, creative, and fun!
- Outside Games and Activities: We provide a balance between outside free play and structured movement activities. We encourage outside, dramatic play as well as movement with a purpose.
Our PreFirst Grade program is an excellent alternative to Washoe County School District Kindergarten. The program is all day, developmentally based and we offer a small class size.
- Balanced Literacy: Beginning in Pre-K (and sometimes earlier!) we implement the Balanced Literacy Program, which provides different kinds of reading and writing. Reading and writing are interrelated. The following components are taught:
- Read Alouds: Children experience books and stories they cannot read. This instills concept of story, develops oral language, and sparks interest in literacy.
- Shared Reading: Children participate and get the feel of reading through use of big books and interactive stories, charts, poems, and more.
- Guided Reading: Children learn how to read with support from a well-trained teacher. Teachers use leveled books to individualize instruction.
- Independent Reading: Children read on their own using the skills they have learned in Guided Reading.
- Guided Writing: Teachers work one on one with students.
- Interactive Writing: Students and teachers share the pen to write a message or story.
- Independent Writing: Students practice what they have learned during journal or writing center time.
“Children are born learners. They want to touch, smell, taste, hear, and see everything. Children are naturally curious and creative. Put a preschooler next to a mud puddle and you will see a painter, a sculptor, a comedian, a combat soldier, a pig, a swamp thing, and most of all, a smile.”