The preschool program is a multi-age classroom setting for children from 3 – 5-years old. It is structured as one large classroom with 28 children and four teachers.
Throughout the day, we gather into smaller, intimate home groups consisting of one teacher with seven children. As a Reggio-inspired program, we base our curriculum on the questions and interests of the children in our classroom. Listening carefully to the children and observing their interactions with each other and their environment allows us to learn what interests them. Children contribute to the educational experience by questioning what to study, what topics to tackle, and how to study the topic as part of a group.
Our curriculum is often taught through the use of long-term, investigative projects, where the topics are presented through a variety of activities:
• Group discussion and read-aloud.
• Books, which may be explored at our Teacher Table for children to gather information, ask questions, and draw their interpretation of what they observe.
• Sculpture with clay, wood, and other textures to understand or express a topic.
• Literacy activities, in which children create a book or story.