Academics - Early Childhood
The curriculum is based on the belief that children learn best through active learning, direct hands-on experiences with people, objects, events, and ideas. Through play, art, music, science, stories, and themes, teachers provide children with a strong foundation of social problem solving, pre-math, and pre-writing skills.
General Presentation |
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Core Curriculum |
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Curriculum Overview
When creating our weekly lessons, careful consideration is given to how each child will respond to the environment socially, emotionally, physically and intellectually. This careful prediction is recorded in the teacher's lesson plan binder, and can be viewed at any time at the parent information station, directly inside the preschool door. These plans are both developmentally appropriate and individually reflective of what each child will respond to most positively.
As we believe that an individualized approach to curriculum planning focuses on each child's self-discovery, children are encouraged to explore the environment at their own pace. Children often play in groups, and are free to use any areas of the classroom that they choose. Activities in the classroom are often repeated during the week so that the child is assured full exposure to the subject matter. The repetition of daily routines and experiences reinforces learning and leads to the mastery of skills. This mastery is a building block to growth. As growth occurs, children become more interested in their environment, more defined in their explorations, more specific in their inquiries, and more motivated to discover the world around them.
Philosophy
Our preschool program is designed to promote the social, physical, emotional and intellectual development of each child. While striving to encourage development in each curriculum area, our overlying concern is the child's development of a healthy self-esteem, which enables children to inquire, challenge, encourage, support and examine their immediate surroundings and the larger world around them. Beyond that, our general goals are that each child will: enjoy school; be able to follow simple routines; be challenged by new skills; have opportunities for many successful experiences; and develop a nurturing respect for others as individuals.
We believe that each child is an individual. As every child's perspective and innate capabilities vary greatly, their strengths in learning situations do as well. It is our goal to discover each child's special abilities through careful observation and interaction, and to develop an individualized education plan that strengthens the child's overall capabilities. As such, our program is designed to ensure successful situations for each child, and to create a strong sense of self-esteem.
Learning is an active process and children learn best by being agents of their own surroundings. Play is the most vital tool through which a child organizes experiences and gives meaning to his or her world. Through play, our environment is a carefully planned laboratory for investigation; teachers in this environment actively participate in the child's self- discovery by asking open-ended questions that encourage children to think independently.
Language Development
Language Arts
We build on children’s love of language and literature by reading and storytelling. Our teachers enjoy reading and encouraging the development of verbal and written expression. We aid in the expansion of vocabulary by providing opportunities for children to hear and use new words in a meaningful context. Letter lotto, alphabet bingo games, and picture cards help us to explore the sounds of each letter. Dramatic play, music, and puppetry encourage verbal skill development and enhance children’s imaginations.
Teachers take dictation as children compose stories orally, providing valuable pre-writing experiences and empowering students to recognize that their development of writing skills will be a tool for their own stories to become books. Children practice writing their names, and learn to recognize letters and associate the appropriate sound with each letter.
Library
Each week we go to our library and have several stories read to our children by the librarian. Children begin to learn the concept of checking out their own books, appreciation of books, and the responsibilities that carries.
Parents and children participate together in our early literacy program by recording the number of minutes they read to their child each day. Toward the end of each month, parents, turn in their forms that document their monthly reading with four or six of their favorite books and authors. We publish a list of recommended books on our website as a resource for our Early Childhood Families.
Foreign Language - French and Mandarin
We believe that if our children can hear, see and experience the sounds, gestures and feeling of a foreign language, they will develop an ear not only for French but also for learning foreign languages in general.
Through a multi-faceted, interactive approach of songs, poetry, stories, games, art, drama, rhythm, conversation, and visual aids, these young children learn to think in French. Classes are taught drawing from the themes that the children are exploring within their classrooms, so that foreign language is firmly integrated into their world of learning. Research has demonstrated that the earlier the age at which a child begins to hear and speak a foreign language, the greater facility they will have later on for both English and foreign language acquisition.
Cognitive Development
Children are given the opportunity and guidance to work on their thinking, problem solving, conceptual of understanding, and information processing at Saklan Valley School
Science
In addition to the on-going science activities that happen in the classroom, Preschool and Pre-Kindergarten also participate in Science Lab which is taught by the school’s elementary science specialist. In winter and spring, we take our children to the science lab where they delve in to a hands on program with experimental topics ranging among liquid and solids, gasses and air, effects of nature, sink and float, bubble making, and light.
Physical Knowledge
Children are encouraged to observe, compare, and ask questions about physical objects and events. Through concrete experiences with tangible objects, children employ their physical knowledge and observation skills to make and test predictions and inferences about the world.
Math
Young children learn quantitative skills and concepts along with the perception of relationships such as similarities, differences, and sequences of size or amount. Daily, our children work together using a one-to-one number correspondence to help them identify and count out our monthly class calendar. Mathematical knowledge is enhanced through the use of puzzles, matching games, blocks, and manipulative tasks that encourage comparing, discriminating, classifying, patterning and labeling using classroom materials. Students use unifix cubes to count and associate one-to-one correspondence, and begin the practice of stacking them in tens so as begin comprehending place values.
Creative Development
Dramatic play, puppetry, language arts, music, art, and dance serve to foster the child’s imagination and aesthetic appreciation. We encourage the children to experiment and explore a wide variety of materials. We emphasize the creative process rather than imitation and the final product.
Music
Learning new songs, finger plays, and developing a sense of special awareness within music movement activities happen on a daily basis. The early childhood program brings in a music specialist twice a week into each classroom to further enhance each child’s sense of rhythm. Many musical instruments are brought to the classroom for the children to use and explore.
Social & Emotional Development
We strive to consistently help each child grow in cooperation, tolerance, altruism, negotiation, conflict resolution, and mutual respect. We provide a warm, nurturing environment where children grow confident and independent and are free to express their feelings without hurting others.
Physical Development
We prepare children to be ready in their gross motor skills through outdoor play in the little yard with a variety of diverse and adaptable apparatus for climbing, jumping, sliding, swinging, and balancing. In the classroom children have the opportunity to work on their fine motor skills through tracing, cutting, and manipulative activities.
Environment Awareness
We impart a respect for nature and all living things. Children grow plants indoors and out, and care for a wide variety of small animals. We encourage recycling and rarely use just one side of a paper. Many art projects are constructed from recycled items. Nature walks are taken throughout the year as we observe the different seasons and the changes they bring us.
Culture Awareness
We strive to build an awareness and understanding of various cultures by sharing stories, foods, music, games, and holiday celebrations of different ethnic groups with the children. Parents are invited to share their own cultural celebrations by bringing in music, clothing, traditional objects, and foods. Games, pictures, music, costumes and foods are discussed and explored in depth.
Safety, Health and Nutrition
Throughout the year our children learn about good nutrition by the introduction of a wide variety of healthy foods during snack preparation and cooking projects. No foods containing transfats are provided for our children. Children discover the five food groups through hands-on games, projects and food activities. Health practices and information about how our bodies function are integrated into the curriculum.
Through out the year, children also have the opportunity to go through different drills for certain circumstances, i.e., earthquake, fire, stranger. With each circumstance, children learn the danger that is involved and how to respond properly.
Field Trips
Saklan believes that children learn in more depth and breadth when the real world and the classroom are connected, when they see and experience the things they are studying. Field trips expose children to people from varying backgrounds who are passionate about what they do. This, in turn, helps them understand that learning is not limited to the classroom or a certain time of life - it can happen anywhere, anytime.
Sample trips:
- Fire Department – Community Helper & Safety Unit
- Post Office and Public Bus Experience – Community Helper & Safety Unit
- Oakland Zoo – Animals Unit
- Little Farm – Tilden Park – Animals Unit
- Clayton Valley Pumpkin Patch – Halloween & Fall Activities
- Visit a Neighborhood Restaurant – Nutrition Unit
- Live Performance (Dean Lesher Theater)
- Chabot Space Center – Space Unit
- Deer Hill Ranch – Plants & Animals and Spring Activities
Learning Centers
In addition to our learning centers, it is important to understand that learning occurs through all senses in all areas of the classroom. Through every activity that we plan, or every environment that we create, there are sound holistic plans for growth.
Art
This includes an easel for painting, a free-art table which is stocked with pens, pencils, crayons, scissors and paper, and a planned art or language arts activity which is set up differently each day.
Language/Writing
The language area contains a book corner with a cozy reading area, a tape recorder, flannel pictures on a board, and a table with chairs.
Dramatic Play
The dramatic play area changes often, depending on thematic units. It may be a house, doctor's office, fire station or a post office.
Blocks
This area consists of solid wooden blocks, classified by shape and size. The Brio train set, colored wooden blocks, and block manipulatives are rotated.
Manipulatives
Manipulatives include puzzles, duplo blocks, put-take activities, pegboard activities, classification activities by color, size, and shape, stringing activities, and sewing activities. These items are frequently rotated to insure the child's mastery of the process.
Science/Math
A variety of items are explored on the science table and shelves. The items revolve around the thematic units, the daily curriculum, and daily discoveries. A sensory activity is usually available on the science table.
