Preschool Questions & Play-Based Learning

Enrollment is now open! Here are the steps for our enrollment process:

Step 1. Attend Open House or complete a tour of the school. Step 2. Complete the Application and pay the application fee of $100. Step 3. Starting in March, accepted applications will be invited to enroll by completing the registration packet and paying first month's tuition and the annual materials fee of $250. Step 4. When classes are full, remaining applications will stay on the top of the waitlist & will be contacted as space becomes available.

Schedule a tour and see more on our Enrollment page here.

The Importance of Experiences for their Exploring Brains…

Current brain research has confirmed that in early childhood years, positive and varied experiences are crucial to laying the groundwork for later capabilities. In the early years, young children’s brain cells form connections (synapses) very rapidly. These connections are in part formed by interactions, experiences – these positive experiences profoundly stimulate the young brain. By the time they are three years old, they will have twice as many neural connections as adults!

After this, connections that aren’t used are eliminated, called “pruning.” This is a necessary process, just like in a garden whereby you prune away things not needed, so that enough sunlight and food lets the essential things grow and flourish. Children’s brain connections that have been used repeatedly in the early years become stronger and tend to remain; those that have not been used much are pruned away, to allow for that child’s ‘needed’ connections to thrive and strengthen.

Offering these varied and rich experiences in early childhood environments help lay the foundation for the scope of their abilities in these exact areas later on. Expose them now to these experiences and concepts, and their brains will make framework connections that they can rely upon later!

There is an incredible opportunity for a child to think differently using science, while learning indirectly the skills to socialize and communicate, helping to create emotional stability and personal well-being.

Doing science is a social skill.

In addition, children engage in all kinds of cognitive skills while doing science:

Language/literacy skills

•Retells and dictates stories

•Writing as a way to communicate

•Represents stories through pictures and play

•Understands & follows multi step directions

•Understands & uses language to communicate with peers and adults

•Links new learning and vocabulary to explorations

Math skills

•Recognizes, describes, compares shapes

•Understanding of directionality, order, positions

•Match, sort, regroup, compare

•Using standard & non-standard measurements

•Participates with graphs

Approaches to Learning skills

•Chooses to participate in tasks & activities

•Increased flexibility, imagination & inventiveness

•Grows in eagerness to learn and discuss a range of topics

•Ability to set goals and persist to complete tasks & projects

•Increasing ability to find more than one solution to a question, task, project

•Grows to recognize and solve problems through active exploration, interactions, & discussions

These are the many literacy goals (or learning standards) throughout early childhood. Your child's environment will be rich and diverse with integrated literacy learning opportunities. Teachers prepare each child for their next school level, according to the appropriate standards. Many children will be much more than just prepared, and carry with them a deep love of literacy.

Love literacy-related activities
Print goes left to right, top to bottom
Books are magical and full of stories
Letters have sounds
Letters make up words
Words describe things
Words have meaning when put together
Language communicates thoughts and feelings
Language is used to tell stories
Recognize some letters
Grammar
Phonological Awareness
Write some letters, especially their name
Knowledge of characters and string of events

Writing is a visible connection between a child's thought, and their ability to write it down. Symbolic play is a scaffolding to writing, giving voice to complex thinking turning into stories.

There are several writing goals (or learning standards) throughout early childhood such as correct tripod grasp, scribbles that turn into more recognizable items, and most importantly, well-developed small motor skills. Process is honored and nurtured, their stories may be written down for them until they can write their own, and small motor and letter practice opportunities abundant.

Your child's environment will be rich and diverse with integrated writing learning opportunities. Teachers prepare each child for their next school level, according to the appropriate standards. Many children will be much more than just prepared.

These are the many math goals (or learning standards) throughout early childhood. Your child's environment will be rich and diverse with integrated math learning opportunities. Teachers prepare each child for their next school level with developmentally appropriate materials, according to the appropriate standards. Many children will be much more than just prepared, and carry with them a deep love of all things numbers.

Recite numbers to 10
Begin to recognize numbers and their names
Subitize to 3 or 4 (recognize w/out counting)
One to one correspondence up to 5 & 10
Cardinality - last number said is quantity
Understanding more or less
Understanding effect of removing or adding
Simple addition/subtraction to 5 & 10
Group of things can be taken apart to smaller
Sorting/Classifying objects by 1 or more things
Recognize and repeat simple patterns
Compare and order objects
Identify and use simple shapes
Understand positions in space

Arts will be offered daily in a variety of formats for optimal accessibility and engagement. For example but not limited to:

Variety of music, songs, instruments, beats (physics - sound waves; math - beats; large and small motor, sensory)
Free choice play in coloring, drawing, painting/color mixing
Appreciation/study of certain famous artists, then art projects emulating their colors/techniques (this is more guided practice but still different end results)
Loose parts art, sculpture, projects
Free choice play and projects in different kinds of clay, sculpture
Variety of other art medium projects like paper making, art with nature, movie making, beading, mobiles, playing with scale, utilizing light/shadows...unending list!

Our classrooms will be designated by age, eg. 2's, 3's, 4's, etc. The 2-yr old classroom of course will be journeying along that route to diaper-free! By the time they reach the 3's, we expect that most will be potty trained...with a few still 'almost' to that goal. :) It is not a strict requirement per se for the 3 year old classroom; however, they should be almost there, and of course we offer loving conversations, assistance, routines, consistency...all toward that wonderful goal.

That being said, it does help that the routines at home, however it works with your family, matches up with what we do at school. This is something we can talk about together and help come up with a plan, if needed.

In early childhood development, routines, schedules, and a variety of sensory inputs depending on the specific needs of each child is paramount for wonderful happiness and learning. Nap, or rest, time is an essential part of this routine, as these young bodies and brains are so incredibly busy during the days, learning so many things every moment. I say all this as a precursor to the reasoning behind our nap time, not to say every single child 'must' nap.

In addition, nap/rest time is facilitated by our teachers, and children are being supervised at all times; and, this is also a time utilized by our teachers to reflect and journal about the children. All children will have a journal kept with special developmental milestones or learnings, or just special memories, kept.

To these end goals which benefit all the children and teachers in the school, we do require children to either nap, or rest quietly, during nap time, which is scheduled daily from 1 pm to 3 pm. You know your child best! That said, we could always discuss habits, routines, or methods that could facilitate a quiet rest for a child who might struggle with this.

Our teacher to student ratio ranges from 1:8 to 1:4 depending on the age of the students. So in a classroom of sixteen students, there would be two teachers present, or one teacher and a teacher's aide.

We go above and beyond the 'state mandated' ratios, because we believe smaller teacher-child ratios really ensure that children are not only just safe, but able to learn and grow to their best potential!