Children learn best when they are free to explore what interests them in a safe and nurturing environment.
Our classrooms are set up to encourage children to be active and creative explorers who are not afraid to try out their ideas and to think their own thoughts.
Through both planned experiences and free play we provide a relaxed and interesting place for children to become independent, self-confident, inquisitive learners.
Our goal is to teach children how to learn, not just in preschool and kindergarten, but all through their lives. We allow them to learn at their own pace and in the ways that are best for them. We foster good habits and attitudes, particularly a positive sense of themselves, which will make a difference throughout their lives.
Developmental Goals
The most important goal of our early childhood curriculum is to help children become enthusiastic learners.
This means encouraging children to be active and creative explorers who are not afraid to try out their ideas and to think their own thoughts.
Social: to help children feel comfortable in school, trust their new environment, make friends, and feel like they are a part of the community.
Emotional: to help children experience pride and self-confidence, develop independence and self-control, and have a positive attitude toward life.
Cognitive: to help children become confident learners by letting them try out their own ideas and experience success, and by helping them acquire learning skills such as the ability to solve problems, ask questions, and use words to describe their ideas, observations, and feelings.
Physical: to help children increase their large and small muscle skills and feel confident about what their bodies can do. Children can and should learn the importance of safety practices and limitations.
Typical Activities
The activities we plan for children, the way we organize the environment, select toys and materials, plan the daily schedule, and talk with children are all designed to accomplish the goals of our curriculum and give your child a successful start in school.
Creative:
Children use paint, clay, play dough, water, finger paints, and more provide opportunity for experimentation and self-expression rather than a finished product. Blocks of all sizes offer physical and social activity according to individual development: construction, adventure, risk, and destructive impulse.
Music: Music is experienced by children in a wide variety of ways that tie into the other parts of the curriculum: listening to songs, creating sounds with rhythm instruments, singing songs, dancing, and creative movement.
Science: Curriculum includes hands-on work and observation of seasonal changes, plants, and food preparation. Children also study animals in their natural or zoo habitats.
Language, Literature, and Customs: Children practice using language for social communication and to develop the art of listening. Story time stimulates an interest in literature through stories, books, flannel board stories, and puppets. Classes anticipate and plan for occasions such as Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Easter, and birthdays to gain understanding of holidays and cultures.
Cognitive and Conceptual: Children join in activities and games to aid in learning color, letter, and number skills as well as conceptual activities including comparative concepts, shapes, measurement, position or location, contrasting conditions, and body parts.
Physical and Gross Motor: Children are given many opportunities to use gross motor skills including climbing apparatus, balancing boards, large and small blocks, trikes, and wagons.
Small Motor Coordination: Through the use of manipulative activities such as puzzles, lacing, cutting, and small building materials children exercise eye-hand coordination and aiding visual perception.
Community: Children learn the importance of consideration for others through meeting and observing various people who work in the community such as police officers, fire fighters, first aid squad members, postal workers, and dentists and through charitable projects such as our Thanksgiving Project.
Field Trips
Field trips are planned to enhance the classroom activities and highlight the seasons of the year.
Some of the places our classes have visited in past years include: the Town Library, the Fire Department, the Police Department, the Post Office, Hillview Farm, Trailside Nature Center, the Turtleback Zoo, Memorial Park, and a local dentist.
Parents provide transportation on school trips. A valid driver’s license, car insurance, and registration are to be shown to the teacher before each class trip if this information differs from the NJ State Requirements form that was filled out on the first day of school. Because of space limitations, age appropriate programs, and the responsibility of watching students, siblings may not attend.
