Pre-School: Ages 3 and 4 years old

               Mizzentop Day School’s Pre-School Program is dedicated to providing a developmentally appropriate program for three- and four-year-old students. The primary goal of the program is to develop a love of learning. This is accomplished through play, multi-sensory activities and emergent reading and writing activities. All of these are taught with a hands-on approach. The program includes:

  • Accelerated learning made possible by using research-proven programs. Each class provides enrichment or reinforcement in all areas to meet the individual needs of a child.

  • Low teacher to student ratio, which facilitates an individualized program that meets each child’s emotional, social and academic needs. This creates an environment where the teacher is able to quickly answer a child’s question, and can also encourage the shy child to speak easily.

  • Carefully selected, caring teachers and assistants who believe in the goodness and ability in every child. Teachers help nurture each child’s belief in himself or herself, and always motivate learning in a positive way. Frequent communication between teachers and parents is encouraged by the school to ensure each child’s success.

  • A focus on heightened student self-esteem. This is fostered through small group instruction, teacher encouragement, and the building of social skills to encourage friendships. Systematic Training for Effective Teaching (STET) is integrated throughout the day to bridge the gap between the social, emotional, and academic areas of each child’s day.

 Reading, Writing and Literature

              The children are exposed and introduced to letters, sounds, and when appropriate, sight words. Reading high quality literature on a daily basis reinforces all literature-based concepts. This literature serves as a thread that ties together the ideas generated by theme-based units, which are the core of the Pre-School curriculum. For example, when the instructional theme is Spring, children will be exposed to books about “growth” in terms of seeds and plants, and baby animals. Another example is learning to recognize colors and color words using a literature and arts approach. This allows children to reach their learning potential in a multi-sensory approach.

              Phonemic awareness will involve the children in identifying, comparing, classifying and manipulating initial consonants and short vowels. Children are familiarized with objective, action, and descriptive words that strengthen vocabulary and emergent writing sills.

              For those students who are ready for more of a challenge, blending sounds, learning sight words, emergent reading skills, and small group learning will take place using a multi-sensory approach.

              To build on their experience, children are encouraged to use “Kid Print” to express themselves in monthly journals. Children will draw a picture and a teacher will scribe for them. As children gain knowledge of letters they will use “Kid Print” to write in sentence form what they have drawn. Journaling enables children to see their ideas as words and foster self-expression.

 

Centers

              The children also rotate through theme-based centers during “center time.” These may include housekeeping, math and science, blocks, Legos, painting, and/or puzzles. The Housekeeping Center changes in a variety of ways as it evolves into a Post Office, Veterinarian’s Office, bakery, bank or even a hospital to encourage development of their imagination through role-playing.

 

Mathematics

              “Math Their Way” is the Pre-School math series. It is used to introduce children to the world of numbers, problem solving, and critical thinking skills. The elements of this program are: calendar, counting, matching, number recognition, estimating, sorting, compare and contrast, days of the week, money, grouping objects with similar characteristics, and many other elements. Children at this age are curious about all aspects of math. The use of a daily calendar will reinforce patterning, days of the week, months of the year, numbers and counting. Children will use a variety of manipulatives and math-related literature to investigate math concepts and skills such as:

  • Counting to Ten

  • Recognizing numbers to five

  • Sorting and classifying objects by color, size, and shape

  • Recognizing shapes and primary colors

  • Patterning objects

 

Social Studies and Science

              An integrated approach using literature and hands-on activities make units such as trees, insects, dinosaurs, family, community, and space an exciting educational adventure. Hands-on projects and experiments will accompany basic concepts, which will be taught in each unit of study. Children will experience their community and the people who live and work there by going on field trips. Investigating nature outside the confines of the classroom is used demonstrate scientific concepts, allowing students to make a real connection to the world around them.

Special Areas

              We do our best to enrich your child’s experience at Mizzentop Day School by offering a variety of special classes.

The students in the three-year-old and four-year-old programs are exposed to French or Spanish, Computer, Physical Education, Music, Library and/or Drama, depending on the day of the week they attend school.            

              Your child’s exposure to these special areas will depend on his or her total time in our program. It is important to realize that if your child is enrolled only in our two half-day program for example, he will have limited exposure.

              The Pre-school years are a time for experimentation - socially, emotionally, and academically.