Curriculum - What do we teach?

ART: We have daily activities in mixed media and methods, focusing on the process not the product. We use clay, play dough, different kinds of paint, chalk, crayons, glue, paste, collage, colored pencils, magic markers etc. Special projects might include paper making, batik, mosaics, marbling, and other forms of multicultural art.

COOKING: We have a cooking activity twice a month. We teach the children to wash hands before cooking and eating, the importance of eating healthy foods, to try new foods, and to sample foods from other cultures. The children learn to spread, measure, sift, stir, cut, knead and blend.

LANGUAGE SKILLS: We encourage quiet talking among the children and provide many opportunities to use language, reading, writing, telling and listening to stories, dramatic play, puppetry, and sharing during group time.

MATH SKILLS: Our shelf work promotes math readiness: one-to-one correspondence, counting, measuring, learning shapes, and using math manipulatives such as Cuisenaire rods, math puzzles, attribute blocks, unit blocks, and a hundred board. Two or three new pieces of shelf work are presented daily.

MUSIC: Singing, dancing, movement, parachute, musical instruments, musical games, dramatic play, nursery rhymes, puppetry, multicultural music, and music appreciation (listening) are all part of our daily schedule.

PHYSICAL EDUCATION: The children have daily opportunities for gross motor play: climbing, sliding, riding tricycles, swinging, jumping, balance beam, throwing and catching balls, and cooperative games.

NATURE STUDY: We study animal groups; mammals, birds, fish, amphibians, reptiles, and insects. Also, we study trees, leaves, flowers, rocks, shells, and ecology.

READING READINESS: The children learn left to right progression, similarities and differences, rhyming, phonetic sounds of letters, using tactile stimulation to learn sounds of abc’s (sandpaper letters). We read a book to the children daily and use the best in children’s literature to enhance our themes.

SOCIAL SKILLS: We teach the children to be polite, to get along with others, to learn social graces, and to resolve conflicts.

SOCIAL STUDIES: We learn about children, customs, foods and languages of other countries and learn to recognize some flags of the world. We become familiar with maps and the globe.

SPANISH: We learn beginning Spanish through singing, dancing, movement, games, puppetry and parachute.