About Us

The curriculum is differentiated to provide a purposeful play environment.  During learning centers and whole group activities children will participate with the teacher and classmates to develop self control and listening skills, learn a new language, engage in cooperative play, use their problem solving/social skills and embrace their creativity.

 

Our goal is to set children up for success, making them feel comfortable, respected and most importantly safe and secure.  Doing this will allow them to be in the best position to learn.        La Luz Preschool provides young children with developmentally appropriate early learning opportunities.  We use this foundation for developing the whole child: social, cognitive, physical, and emotional all which naturally bridge to Kinder Readiness.

 

 

Whole group/ small group activities:

We will use games, songs, and brief direct instruction to explicitly teach Literacy and Math.  More extensive one-on-one interactions with these subjects will happen during center time.

Literacy

read aloud, story telling, dramatic theater, letter sounds and names (I teach letter sounds and lower case letters first as this is needed 95% of the time for reading,) phonemic awareness and sight words.

Math

one to one correspondence when counting, numbers recognition, shapes, matching, time, calendars, counting, patterns, graphing 

 

 

Learning Centers:

Sensory/Science - Hands on learning with weekly science experiments and daily access to sand and water play, plants, animals.  Children experience how things work, and use all their senses to learn how they connect to the real world.  Making these connections fosters a love for learning.  Grass growing, bean growing, planting & gardening, bug exploration, butterfly hatching, caring for class pet and more.

 

Block and MagnaTile Play-  Play is a childs work! Building for children provide both challenge and satisfaction that fosters a wide range of development.  Children create worlds they can manage where they have the ability to solve problems and gain confidence.  Building helps children learn more about sizes and shapes.  While they work, they share, and dialogue with others.

 

English & Spanish Language and Literacy- Every day students will have access to books in both Spanish and English along with age appropriate magazines and newspapers.  The environment is print-rich in both languages with posters, word/picture labels on all centers, schedules , alphabet cards, supplies and equipment.  Children will practice name recognition, printing practing, hand writing without tears and daily/weekly journals.

 

Math- Mathematics skills and understanding will be developed through activities such as matching, one-to-one correspondence, grouping, counting and sequencing numbers. The concepts of time and seasons are introduced, and the children learn the days of the week and months of the year in English and Spanish.

 

 

Large (Gross) and Small (Fine) Motor Skills- Gross motor (Large Muscle) development will include: catching, throwing, running, balancing, sports, dancing and calming yoga. Fine motor (Small muscle) development activities include: cutting, tearing, stringing, coloring, writing, painting, building with blocks, magnets and use of music instruments.

 

Music and Movement-Children will have practiced and learned many songs in both languages, some of which will be on posters with pictures for word reminders, musical instruments will be close at hand to develop rhythm and instrument song connection.  I will also periodically be playing violin for songs we sing in the classroom.

 

Dramatic Play  (Includes dress up & kitchen/caretaking area) - Children learn so much at home with in their family world, dramatic play is where children get to dive into a managable world.  They work on social skills and language development .  Dramatic play brings together all the things children are learning and feeling about the world and themselves.

 

Art- Student will have unlimited access (within boundaries set up by teacher) to many different forms of media, varying from coloring, finger paint, tempura paint, water colors, access to clay, texture coloring, stickers, stamps, gluing and free form art.  We will be using art appreciation and study to direct some of our whole group crafts/projects.