Nurturing Our Preschool Children While Monitoring Developmental Milestones
Preschool for Ages 2 through Pre-K 4
Our preschool program has age appropriate activities implemented with attention to the different needs, interests and abilities of the individuals within the group. Children are encouraged to be expressive, creative and are challenged to grow in their understanding and skills.
Specifically Designed Curriculum
Bible – Bible stories with activities that encourage thought and faith conversations. Pre-K 4 students will have a Bible workbook as they learn the Bible stories and bring them home. Pre-K 2 and Pre-K 3 children will learn Bible stories and the lessons they contain by acting out the stories, songs and games.
Math – The curriculum is called Bridges and it is specially designed to help Pre-K 3 and Pre-K 4 students work with counting, addition and subtraction, sequencing, and math stories that encourage math conversations.
Reading – Pre-K will use the curriculum that precedes “SuperKids”, the program we teach in Kindergarten, 1st and 2nd grades. This new curriculum called “Happily Ever After” teaches comprehension skills as well as decoding (sounding out words).
Language Skills – Part of the reading curriculum is a speech component that intentionally teaches children to form letter sounds.
Phonological and Phonemic Awareness – Students will be led through exercises in identifying sounds that work together to form words. Hearing the sounds comes before spelling words. Students will develop strong spelling skills based on hearing all the phonemes in a word, and then learning the connections between phonemes and the alphabet.
Handwriting – Children will have fun practicing lines, curves and slants that work together to form letters and numbers. Then they will practice writing upper case and lower case letters and the numbers.
All of the academic curriculum is carefully balanced with a play-based classroom environment with plenty of activities for children to work on together. The social skills are the primary focus of the Pre-K classroom.
Each classroom is vibrant with child-centered opportunities for learning that are both teacher directed and student initiated. Learning centers that support thematic units of study allow students to explore both independently, or with adult assistance. Free-play activity allows children to engage in self-defined tasks which allow for skill development, socialization and implementation of ideas.
Learning materials include a wealth of hands-on manipulatives that support the development of the child in both the indoor and outdoor environments. An essential dimension of the St. Paul curriculum recognizes that children are a gift from God and provides them with a foundation for their relationship with Him. Children are nurtured in classrooms that reflect the love of Jesus. They are helped to gain knowledge and understanding of God’s Word, which reveals to them the love of their heavenly Father shown through Jesus Christ, His Son! Children are encouraged in their faith life which guides their daily living, prepares them for successful, productive lives as Christian adults, and sustains them in their earthly walk with God.
