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Home > Elementary >
Resource -Pre-School >
Kathleen Gustin
Schedule and Activities
Preschool
is in session Tuesday through Friday mornings from 8:30-11:30, and Tuesday
through Friday afternoons from 12:15-3:15. Typically, 3-year-olds and
"young" 4-year-olds attend in the morning; older 4-year-olds, or children who will go to kindergarten the following
year, attend in the afternoon. Children can attend preschool all four days
that it is offered, or parents can choose to send their child fewer than four
days.
Each preschool session provides individual, small group (3-4 children), and
large group (8-10 children) activities. Our daily schedule includes:
Arrival
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Children learn to take off and hang up their own coats and backpacks. |
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Each child chooses a job for the day. Jobs allow everyone to play an
important role in classroom routines. |
Playtime
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The classroom is divided into several learning centers, including a
playhouse for dramatic play; computer; reading; writing; building; art;
manipulatives (puzzles and small toys); and movement area for rolling,
jumping, throwing, lifting, pushing, etc. |
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Children choose which center(s) they will play at and learn to initiate and
complete activities of interest to them. |
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Adults facilitate learning of new skills and concepts through play. |
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Children learn how to cooperate and play with their friends. |
Review
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Children review or recall the activities they did during Playtime by
circling pictures of the centers where they played, and drawing pictures of
themselves playing. Review sheets are sent home so that children can share
what they did at school with their families. |
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Children who have not yet developed drawing skills may trace around objects
they played with or draw part of a picture that an adult starts for them.
Children with more advanced skills are able to draw and label their pictures
independently. |
Circle
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Calendar—We talk about the days of the week and months of the year, upcoming
special events, and count the days placed on the calendar so far. |
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Schedule—We put up a picture schedule showing activities for the rest of day. |
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Interactive story—we read a story together. Children participate by
commenting about the story, answering questions, and/or “reading” parts of
the story. |
Snack
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Provides opportunities for communication—requesting food and milk, using
describing words to talk about snack, and talking with friends |
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We often have cooking activities and eat what we have made for snack. |
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On days we do not cook, the cafeteria provides a snack and milk for each
child. The charge for snacks for the school year is $27. |
Small
and Large Group Activities
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Group activities include arts and crafts, cooking, dramatizing a familiar
story, playing with play dough, singing and playing musical instruments, and
movement activities. |
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During group activities we also provide experiences with sorting and
classifying, making comparisons, identifying and making patterns, and
writing and drawing. |
Dismissal
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children learn to
put on and fasten their own coats and backpacks. |
The preschool curriculum is activity-based. All skills and concepts are taught
through experiences and activities that occur naturally during the day.
Activities are meaningful for young children—they are hands-on, involve more
than one learning modality (touch, sight, sound, movement, etc.), and build on
knowledge that children already have. We strive to develop activities that
capture and hold children’s interest. When children are interested and actively
involved, they will learn faster and retain information more easily than if they
are passive recipients of information.
Preschool activities are literature-based—tied to a single book that we read
and explore over several days. Books that we choose have simple but interesting
pictures and stories, and repetitive and predictable text. After we have read a
story several times, children are usually able to “read” it to each other.
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