Classroom
Eight distinct learning centers in this classroom enable children to explore, discover, and develop a range of essential skills.
Pre-Kindergarten Program
A Strong Foundation for Kindergarten
At The Children’s Courtyard, Pre-K is an essential stepping stone to kindergarten success. We ensure that children achieve significant development advancements, learn effective communication, and develop collaborative skills, by working independently and in groups through our tried-and-true early childhood educational approach.
Our Pre-K program explores:
- Problem-solving
- Responsive listening
- Using language to learn
- Social and collaborative skills
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Art Center
Be creative and express yourself. In this center, children learn about a variety of art techniques, different color concepts, and cooperation.
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Block Center
While developing hand-eye coordination and learning to be inventive, children also use counting, sorting, and patterning opportunities to build goal-setting and critical-thinking skills.
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Dramatic Play Center
Learning to express themselves emotionally, through collaborative pretend play, allows children to make sense of real life and further develop their early writing and reading skills.
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Math Center
Numbers and simple math concepts, such as addition and subtraction, are introduced through sorting, ordering, and measuring activities.
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Music & Movement Center
Children work on physical coordination, communication, and cooperation while having fun by dancing, moving, and singing.
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Science Center
Through an exploration of physical and earth science concepts, such as plant and animal lifecycles, children learn to classify, analyze, predict, and experiment.
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Reading Center
Print awareness, word recognition, and story reasoning are all key literacy skills that children work on developing in this center.
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Writing Center
Letter and word recognition and formation, segmenting words into sounds, and putting sounds together to make words are all ways that children learn to succeed at written communication.
Curriculum & Developmental Scales
Our Young Achievers™ educational curriculum for kids follows the HighScope philosophy. The foundation of the HighScope approach is active learning—in which students have direct, hands-on experiences with people, materials, and ideas—and a robust Plan-Do-Review process. Our digital lesson planning tool generates customized curriculum, based on teachers observing and assessing children, while children achieve milestones across 10 developmental scales:
- Approaches to Learning
- Creative Arts
- Language
- Literacy
- Logic & Reasoning
- Early Math
- Nature & Science
- Social Studies
- Physical Development/Health
- Social-Emotional Development
Approaches to Learning
Planning, setting goals, and interacting with others and the environment.
Creative Arts
Expressing ideas and feelings with music, movement, visual arts, and drama.
Language
Using expressive and receptive vocabulary and conversation skills for effective communication.
Literacy
Demonstrating phonological awareness, alphabet knowledge, reading and writing skills.
Logic & Reasoning
Effectively using sequencing, problem-solving, and symbolic and critical-thinking skills.
Early Math
Understanding numbers, patterns, sorting, and ordering, plus using numbers to add, subtract, measure, and graph.
Sample Activity: Are We In Half?
Milestone: Understanding fractions.
Desired Outcome: Child separates a group of objects in half.
- The teacher invites the children to help count how many children are in the group, then writes the number at the top of a large piece of paper with a marker. (Interested children can help write numbers.)
- The teacher says they are going to try to divide the group in half by sorting in different ways. The children help decide on a way to divide themselves (boys and girls, shoes and sandals, green shirts and not green shirts, etc.). The teacher writes this way on the paper.
- Once the children are divided, they count how many are in each group. Did the larger group get divided in half? The teacher writes these new numbers on the paper.
- The teacher and children continue finding different ways to divide the group and determining if they are divided in half.
Nature & Science
Understanding the natural and physical world; observing, describing, predicting, and gathering data.
Sample Activity: Red, White, and Blue Flowers
Milestone: Questioning and developing hypotheses.
Desired Outcome: Child asks “what will happen if” questions to help predict a future event.
- Children fill two containers with water (not quite to the top). Children count the drops as the teacher adds red food coloring to one container and blue to the other.
- Each child snips the end of a flower, chooses a color, and puts it in the container. The teacher asks questions, such as what color the flower is, how plants and flowers get water, and what they think will happen as the flowers soak in the colored water.
- Throughout the week, flowers are kept in a safe place and the teacher encourages them to check on the flowers, plus talk or write about what is happening.
- At the end of the week, each child selects a flower to bring home.
Social Studies
Understanding themselves, their families, communities, and their world.
Physical Development/Health
Successfully using fine and gross motor skills; understanding health and nutrition.
Expert Corner: Get Moving, Get Learning
Movement provides brains with blood and oxygen—the core elements for powering brain function. That’s why active learning is so important for young children. It’s how we engage with children every day at school—now you can do the same with them at home.
Expert Corner: Get Moving, Get Learning
Movement provides brains with blood and oxygen—the core elements for powering brain function. That’s why active learning is so important for young children. It’s how we engage with children every day at school—now you can do the same with them at home.
...children’s brains are more alert when they are moving. This is why it can be so important to incorporate movement into educational activities, such as practicing literacy skills.
Dr. Susan Canizares
Social-Emotional Development
Demonstrating self-awareness; showing respect and empathy for others.