PreK

The Pre-Kindergarten years are a crucial time for children to learn to regulate their own emotions, acquire social skills, and function as part of a group. The emergence of self-regulatory skills and social competence is linked to language skills and early literacy. Language, in turn, is the foundation of early literacy development and long-term reading comprehension. Our Frogstreet and ABEKA Pre-Kindergarten curriculum for four year old's is based on research on the development of early language, literacy, social and emotional skills. It systematically builds those proficiencies identified as critical to a four-year-old's development. We also heavily focus on reading, writing and handwriting to prepare four-year-old for public or private school kindergarten.

Curriculum

An effective Pre-Kindergarten program nurtures a children’s desire to learn and instills a sense of competency as a learner. Our curriculum strives to help children evolve into self-sustaining learners by helping them become conscious of words and interested in learning them.

Our curriculum targets all key early-literacy abilities and does so in activities that draw upon multiple capacities at the same time. We place a high priority on supporting children’s language and vocabulary development – focusing attention on those areas by encouraging children to write for their own purposes and to read a variety of books.

We support phonological awareness through exposure-based approaches such as singing and reading predictable books, tuning into the sounds of language through teacher-led games, and encouraging child-initiated activities such as writing.

Our curriculum draws from the wealth of research on early literacy development that’s been generated over the past quarter of a decade. It provides an instructional program that’s comprehensive. It balances child-initiated activity with teacher-directed activity, and it teaches children skills and concepts that are essential for long-term literacy success. Also, children are repeatedly exposed to Bible stories and group activities that hold their interest and motivate them to do similar types of activities on their own or with others.

Our Pre-Kindergarten classroom engages children daily in journal writing. Written communication is one of the most important skills needed in a child’s development. Moreover, reading and writing go hand-in-hand, therefore journal writing helps a child to read. Journal writing encourages children to explore their minds – while at the same time improving their spelling and grammar.

We believe social skills are as equally important to success in life as academic skills. When children are respectful, kind, polite and honest — they develop character. Moreover, teaching children what behavior to model and what’s expected of them is a daily process.

Assessments and parent conferences for Pre-Kindergarten are conducted two times per year – enabling parents and teachers to have a balanced look at a child’s abilities and potential areas of improvement. To focus on a child’s specific needs and skills, we allow for individualized instruction and various activities as part of our curriculum.

We have a multi-purpose room where four year old's can develop fine and gross-motor skills. It provides an array of activities and toys for the children to enjoy. It’s also an alternative environment for play – as four-year-old's can bring their outside time indoors if the weather is not permitting.