Our Pre-School program offers a wide variety of hands-on material and activities to encourage children to express their individuality and creativity.
Knowing that children learn best by doing, the teachers create a positive environment that contains many age-appropriate activities. The children learn to make choices by rotating interest centers within the classroom. By using the Pinnacle curriculum, the teachers focus on the development of every child’s social, emotional, cognitive, and physical skills.
The goal of our program is to help children become independent, self-confident, inquisitive learners who are not afraid to try out their own ideas and to think their own thoughts.
Pre-school children learn through weekly themes, letter recognition, basic math concepts, geometry, phonics, pre-writing skills, literacy comprehension, basic science skills, music appreciation, art appreciation, and acceptance of individuality.
As they play in centers, they are exploring and developing many skills. To an outsider it may look like they are just building with blocks. But upon closer examination you will notice that they are learning to make decisions about what to build, cooperating by letting everyone have a turn, developing math skills by determining the number and size of blocks needed to construct their building, and basic principles of physics by learning that if they make the ramp taller their car will go higher when it jumps the ramp or faster when it goes down the ramp.
Dramatic Play Area
In the dramatic play area, they are not only pretending to be families, they are learning to use measuring tools, phone etiquette, social skills, manners, self help skills, AND communication skills.
Science Centers
In science centers they are exploring the world around them. Books in their science area help them compare items they see with real life pictures. From these observations they learn weight and size comparisons, natural versus man made objects, seasonal items, animal life, and basic magnetic forces.
Art Center
The art center is a place for free expression. They will develop fine motor skills as well as pre-writing, math, sensory skills, social skills, acceptance of individuality, sculpture, sketching, cutting, chalk, and painting.
Library
The library is a place to read books and develop a love of the written language. By having puppets and props in the book center, children can act out the stories they have heard or are reading. They learn to respect and care for books.
Manipulatives
Manipulatives is a place to use those fine motor skills so greatly needed for school success. They sort by color, size, match item, learn to use clues to assemble puzzles and other mind expanding exercises.
