Fawn and Fox
Ages 3 Years – 5 Years
Our preschool classrooms are a busy place! Our teachers actively support children’s exploration and interests by providing open-ended materials and a variety of hands-on experiences.
Borrowing from the Montessori educational approach, we have mixed age preschool classrooms. There are many benefits to this approach. Benefits such as older children practicing patience and help skills as they guide their younger peers. Additionally, the younger children learn self-help skills as they watch their older peers. Further, the child spends multiple years in the same classroom, which reduces the number of times a child moves classrooms. Creating a cooperative and community-based atmosphere is a wonderful environment for a growing classroom.
At HCDC, we believe that children construct their knowledge of the world. This means that learning is not simply a process of adults giving information to children. Rather, children discover things through direct experiences with people, objects, events, and ideas.
During their “work time”, children initiate a plan and carry out their intentions. They make choices about where and how to use the materials provided and who they will work with. The teachers become partners in play and encourage problem-solving both with materials and during times of social conflict.
In these classrooms, we focused on school readiness. Therefore, children will gain knowledge and experience through play in the following areas:
- Math– including counting, mathematical operations, shapes, spatial awareness, measuring, patterns, and data analysis
- Science– including observing, classifying, experimenting, predicting, drawing conclusions, communicating ideas, learning about nature and the physical world
- Language– including comprehension of increasingly complex language, expressing thoughts and needs, vocabulary, and introduction to Spanish
- Literacy– including phonological awareness, alphabetic principle, and concepts about print
- Social– including taking care of one’s own needs, expressing feelings in words, building relationships with other children and adults, creating and experiencing collaborative play, and dealing with social conflict
- Creative Arts– including pretend play, music and movement, appreciation and creation of art
- Physical– including fine motor strength and coordination, large motor manipulative skills, and balance
