Preschool Program 24-36 months by September 1

Preschool Program Philosophy

At The Towne Creek School, we strive to provide:

• freedom to independently explore, create and express ideas within a developmentally structured environment
• an environment in which each child feels successful and is an active participant in the learning process
• a focus on the development of appropriate social behaviors, forming a foundation for future interpersonal relationships.

Over the years, it has been proven that children thrive in a holistic learning environment, where they are challenged and nurtured to develop intellectually, physically, emotionally and artistically. When children feel free to explore, discover, create, interact and play, they learn at wondrous speed.

Our curriculum is based on the hierarchical stages of early childhood development, taking into account that each child is an individual, and will learn at his/her own pace. In planning our curriculum, we take into consideration the variety of skills developing at this age, and various developmental levels of the children.

Planning The Curriculum

The daily routine allows for a balance of activities, so that the child is involved in large group experiences, small group experiences, as well as opportunities for individual activity. There should be a balance of active and passive activity, of indoor and outdoor activity.

We strive to teach concepts and to plan activities that are meaningful to the child. Careful planning and observation on the teacher’s part enables the child to develop at his/her own pace and to his/her full potential. The teacher is continually assessing each child in order to determine the level of understanding and to know in what areas the child needs strengthening or reinforcement.

The daily routine provides a variety of experiences that promote growth in each skill area:  physical, social, emotional and cognitive, each of these skills so vital to the development of the whole child:

SOCIAL/EMOTIONAL SKILLS: Sharing, taking turns, verbalizing feelings, getting along with others, are skills that must be fostered and encouraged throughout the early years. The preschool teacher places a high priority on facilitating the development of these skills. Cooperating, resolving conflicts, and above all, feeling good about oneself, are components that make up a happy, well-rounded child.

SELF-HELP SKILLS: dressing, toileting, putting away personal items, cleaning up after snack and lunch

CLASSROOM SKILLS: following class rules, listening and following directions, completing tasks; respecting and caring for personal property, school property, and property of others

GROSS MOTOR SKILLS: climbing, running, tiptoeing, hopping, jumping, catching and throwing a ball, perceptual motor skills, coordination, balance

FINE MOTOR SKILLS (laying the foundation for future writing skills): buttoning, stringing, drawing, tracing, gluing, cutting, coloring, folding, lacing, working with playdough, painting, manipulatives

LANGUAGE SKILLS: listening, recalling, interpreting, expressing ideas and complete thoughts; verbalizing feelings, storytelling, singing, memory skills

LOGIC/COGNITIVE: matching, sorting, classifying, sequencing, memory, and problem solving. Concepts such as colors, shapes, numbers, letters, and the themes for each week.

LEARNING CENTERS
Learning Centers are an integral part of the preschool classroom, providing a wide range of experiences and so much opportunity for growth in all areas of development. Children learn to interact with the materials and with each other in ways that encourage questioning and discovery.  During “center time”, there are many opportunities for one-on-one activity between teacher and child.

The children choose among a variety of centers set up daily in the classroom: Fine Motor, Language, Listening, Puzzles, Block Building, Dramatic Play, Construction with Manipulatives, Sand/Water Play, Art/Creative Expression, Games, Collage, Books, Science/Discovery. It is through the use of Learning Centers that the children reinforce newly learned concepts and skills. As the children are involved in the centers, the teacher is in a position to observe the progress of each child, and to assess his/her needs. The teacher monitors, supervises, listens, and is available to meet the needs of the individual children in the classroom.

PHONICS PROGRAM (Introduced in the Threes classrooms)
We use several resources, including “The Creative Curriculum”, utilizing big books, songs, rhymes, and games to promote phonemic awareness. Phonemic awareness is the understanding that speech is composed of a series of individual sounds. As we introduce a new letter each week, children will match letters to sounds, work on formation of the letter, see that groups of letters become words, discover word families, sight words, rhyming words, use pictures as clues as they are reading. Punctuation and parts of a book are included in our reading discussions. Being excited about reading is a great avenue to learning to read. Once a teacher sees that some children are actually reading, she will use simple readers with those children on an individual basis, and send books home with the children to read with their parents.

Preschool Daily Schedule

*Schedules may vary a bit from class to class, but this gives an idea of the activities that take place during the day and when they take place.