Language and Literacy

Our curriculum develops a love of language & literature and provides reading readiness skills in a developmentally-appropriate way. It encourages and expands each child’s interest in spoken and written language.

• Children are introduced to letter names, letter shapes and letter to sound relationships through meaningful and age-appropriate games and activities.
• Literacy and language opportunities include a wide variety of multi-sensory activities and are integrated into all areas of learning throughout the day.

Activities include:

• Understanding the association between the sounds of letters and letter symbols
• Identifying and naming most upper and lowercase letters
• Understanding the beginning of sounds
• Developing understanding of concepts of print
• Oral expression including articulation, expanding vocabulary, sentence formation, and structure
• Conversational skills
• Identifying and making up rhymes
• Story comprehension and retelling skills
• Listening and contributing in a group
• Rhyming
• Making up their own stories and storytelling

Science

Children use their five senses to explore the world around them.

Scientific themes and ideas are incorporated into the lesson plans to teach children concepts related to their interests and experiences.

The program focuses on various age-appropriate activities to develop their understanding through experimentation, observation, discovery, and analysis.

Activities include:

• Experiments with Color and Light (prisms and simple refraction)
• Properties of Matter (water, steam, condensation, and ice formation)
• Movement and Machines (gears, pulleys, balance)
• Recreating natural Habitats (forest life, sea world)
• Measurement (cup, half-full, full, empty, inches, feet etc.)

Social Sciences

Children become aware of themselves and their relationship to others including family, peers, neighbors, community, city, country, world, earth, and eventually expanding to the universe. They develop a sense of responsibility for themselves and the world around them. They learn to respect life. We introduce and promote safety in all forms, including earth sciences. Inculcating an awareness of “going green”, pollution, and recycling. They are made to realize the interdependence of the world and that each individual is a contributing part of the whole. A sense of responsibility is inculcated as an individual and collectively. “We are the World” and what we do matters…the future is ours to make it as best as we can!

There is an underlying value component inherent in this curriculum and finds its place integrated throughout the lesson plans and themes.

Activities include:

• Discussing the concepts of self, family, school, neighborhood, and community
• Understanding diversity through discovering similarities and differences of various cultures, family traditions, cultural celebrations, through storytelling that demonstrate differing gender roles, abilities and physical characteristics.
• Focusing on respecting, embracing, and honoring diversity.

Art

Children are given the opportunity to explore materials through experimentation and are encouraged to be creative and discover their artistic talents. They use different art media with painting and three-dimensional art – making collages individually and in collaboration. They have the freedom to express themselves through colors, objects, patterns, & forms and are encouraged to use their imaginations in their creations.

Activities include:

• Paint and watercolor
• Primary and secondary colors
• Drawing with markers, crayons, pens, pencils, and chalk
• Exploring shapes and line
• Exploring various sensory materials (clay, play dough, finger paints)
• Collage materials
• Basic sculpting techniques
• Use of space and balance in creating sculptures
• Murals
• Will be introduced to the works of famous artists and learn about their lives and their unique styles (age appropriate)

Physical Skills

The enjoyment of physical activities and the development of a positive self-image are important aspects of the curriculum. Gross motor skills are practiced and refined through exciting games and various activities. Children cultivate their fine motor skills with developmental materials like clay, scissors, oversized tweezers and lacing beads.

They will participate in age-appropriate activities from the Handwriting Without Tears curriculum.

Fine and gross motor activities offer opportunities to:

• Paint using large and small brushes
• Copy, trace, and cut shapes
• Use a pencil to write and draw
• Develop body awareness
• Creep, crawl, jump, and slide
• Work on balance using balance beams
• Develop balance standing on one foot
• Throw, kick, and catch balls
• Move through simple obstacle courses
• Participate in team relay races

Mathematics

The goal of our program is for the children to develop age-appropriate understanding and insight into the patterns of mathematics through the use of materials and their own life experiences. The objective is to help young children become aware of relationships and interconnections in mathematics and enable them to deal with mathematical ideas and concepts.

Activities include:

• Recognizing numbers
• Rote counting and counting objects
• Identifying numbers up to 20
• Recognizing shapes
• Aggregates (few, more, less)
• Sorting by color
• Reproducing simple patterns and designs and creating original patterns
• Sequencing skills (1st, 2nd, 3rd)
• Sorting by size
• Temporal relations: (past, present, and future; yesterday, today, and tomorrow)
• Simple measurement (full, half-full, empty)

SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, ENGINEERING, MATHEMATICS (STEM)

Our curriculum fosters the growth of a child’s processes, the development of their conceptual understanding and their ability to observe, analyze, make simple predictions (for example, when ice melts it turns to water or when water boils it turns to steam), and make conclusions about the world around them.

Our program is designed to create an environment where children have an opportunity to experiment with materials and work together as a team to discover and learn in exciting and innovative ways.

The daily curriculum integrates this opportunity in the classroom and in the STEM Lab through special enrichment group projects throughout the year.

Activities include:

• Using simple machines to solve problems
• Refurbishing materials such as recyclables and tubing to create new inventions
• Exploration of tools
• Creating story components through innovative design and construction
• Observing and creating simple experiments to demonstrate scientific principles (gravity, weights, sinking, floating, flying)
• Creating habitats from natural and synthetic sources (solar system, rain forest, sea world, farming, community rescue operations, emergency systems)
• Creating cities, schools, hospitals, airports

Social and Emotional Development

Social skills are an integral part of the curriculum. Children learn to develop friendships and take pride in their accomplishments. The focus is on building self-esteem and self-awareness, relating to peers and adults, and expressing & managing emotions. They develop an awareness of feelings in themselves and others and begin to learn the skills of conflict resolution with assistance.

Emphasis in areas include:

• Engaging with peers and adults.
• Building self-awareness and self esteem
• Learning to wait and taking turns
• Adjusting to changes and making transitions
• Expressing and managing emotions
• Self-care and care of belongings
• Following rules and routines

Music

Children are naturally inclined to gravitate to anything musical. They are introduced to simple musical instruments; singing songs, nursery rhymes and fingerplays. We offer a balance of music and movement – free exploration, discovery and expression.

Activities include:

• Moving to a beat
• Using simple instruments
• Listening to sounds and music and identifying differences (soft, loud, whisper, shout, and high & low notes)
• Playing musical games
• Singing simple Bhajans and Sholkas