Early Childhood:

Curriculum

Schedule

Each day the children will have the same schedule, but with different activitites. We follow large group activities with small; active with quiet. Each day, a preschooler will have a group time experience, time to play in our creative play center, an hour long activity time, half an hour of music in our music room, a small group experience in the art room, and outdoor play.

Language

The major focus or our preschool language program is to help children love reading, to see reading as useful, and to develop the knowledge and experience they need to become successful readers. Reading skills are never taught in isolation, but always in the general context of out total reading program. You will see Country Day classroom walls filled with charts that record favorite poems, finger plays, story ideas and chlidren's thoughts. Recording what children say helps them to understand that reading is just "talk written down." This knowledge makes reading seem approachable and not mysterious.

Math

We focus on developing enjoyment of mathematics in our preschool mathematics program. We want children to see math as useful, functional, and understandable. To further these ends we use a variety of manipulative and fine motor skill experiences as well as concepts taught in the Mathematics Their Way curriculum. THrough interactive and manipulative activities, children learn to explore and discover new concepts for themselves. They have an opportunity to DO mathematics rather than passively learn mathematics.

Art and Music

Country day preschoolers have art and music every day as part of our creative arts program. We strongly believe in the arts as important learning tools and means of self expression. The children attend music for a half hour daily. Music is taught by our music teacher to the whole class in our music room. Art is also an integral part of our curriculum. Through art children can express their creative selves, develop fine motor skills, and cultivate those important planning ahead and organization abilities. Children go into the art room in small groups to work with the art teachers because we want art to be taught on an individual basis. The preschoolers will also have art experiences in their classrooms each day.

"Play is a child's work"

is a motto often heard at Gainesville Country Day School. Play has been found to contribute to children's physical, mental, emotional, and social development. The dramatic play acted out every day in our play center leads to improvement in the verbal ability, creative thinking, group problem solving and acting out of feelings and ideas that are difficult for preschoolers to comprehend or talk about. The manipulative materials in our classrooms help children develop visual discrimination, eye-hand coordination, and manual dexterity.

Outdoor play

Outdoor play is also important, not only for the large muscle skills it encourages, but also for social development. Learning how to play with a group, to share and take turns, to make decisions how to play and whom to play with are all parts of learning.