Pre-K
QUESTIONS MOST FREQUENTLY ASKED ABOUT THE PRE-K PROGRAM
How will this program differ from the regular 4 year old class?
The general philosophy and goals of Fairfax United Methodist Church Preschool will guide the Pre-K Program. It will be a developmental program committed to balanced growth in all areas: social, emotional, intellectual, physical, creative, and spiritual. Because we believe that play is the most developmentally appropriate and effective avenue for learning for the child under six, creative exploration and play will be the foundation upon which all learning opportunities are built.
Curriculum themes will be both teacher and child initiated. New and different themes will be introduced and explored. While some aspects of the curriculum theme may be recurrent, children will be a whole year older and bring new understandings and new experiences to the unit of study. Five mornings a week together will allow more time for deeper exploration of the unit theme and more continuity and carry over for more involved projects.
The Pre-K program will continue to support and nurture young children=s emergent literacy. Their fine motor coordination will be better developed and more suited to beginning writing tasks. There will be more print in the classroom and children will be encouraged to dictate and illustrate their own stories. Children who are ready will be encouraged to invent their own spellings and do their own writing. Because children=s attention spans will be longer than the previous year, more time will be spent discussing the story books that are read. Children will compare and contrast stories, make predictions, and answer who, what, where, why questions which demonstrate story comprehension.
There will be more opportunities to weigh, measure, and explore number concepts. These activities will be presented in ways that are meaningful to young children. Following a recipe, graphing the number of children who have shoes with velcro, or recording the daily temperature are ways in which mathematical concepts are reinforced in developmentally appropriate ways. The class also keeps track of the number of days at school to explore numbers beyond twenty. They read numbers in print form and see how numbers build. A big celebration takes place on the 100th day of school where students play number games and share a sample of one hundred items.
The Pre-K year will provide children an opportunity to practice and refine previously learned skills and to master new ones. Although the learning centers and various materials and activities are similar, the possible learning outcomes will be different as children develop and grow. A three year old may scribble at the writing table, a four year old may write wavy lines that look like cursive writing, and a five year old may write his name. At each age, the child is using the same center and materials yet the outcome for each age is very different.
In Pre-K, circle time is where most of the academic lessons occur. The children are expected to sit attentively for the duration of 15 minutes to: hear who has a job, list the directions for the art project, listen to a story, count the number of children present, identify and graph the daily weather, state the date and day of the week, and share personal experiences. A mini language experience lesson helps to expose children to the alphabet letters that make words and create sentences. Here children learn about upper and lower case letters, syllables, punctuation marks, common word patterns and basic sight words. Many children begin to make connections to establish them as emergent readers. Parents often report that their child begins to notice print in their environment. Children will observe letters on cereal boxes or familiar words learned at school for the first time.
The Pre-K program also offers more extensive academic opportunities. In January the class will participate in a Take Home Reading program. Each child will have the opportunity to explore two books per week and practice beginning reading skills that are being explored in the classroom. Word attack skills such a rhyming, sight words, word families and sounding out unknown words are all strategies used to assist the young reader. Many of these words are placed on the Word Wall in the classroom. With weekly practice and exposure to reading print, the child will have the chance to apply their new skills.
Will my child be bored in kindergarten if he spends a year in this program?
Young children are learning all the time and are intrinsically motivated to make sense of their world. We know that children learn best when they have “hands on” or concrete experiences. As children grow older they gain new experiences which enable them to bring a different insight to an activity or problem. Their enthusiasm for new knowledge, their desire to make friends and their enjoyment of group activities makes the Pre-K year very enjoyable. They get used to making decisions while learning more about operating in a group under teachers= care.
Will reading, including phonics, be taught?
The most recent research emphasizes that reading is a complex process that begins long before children begin formal instruction in school. Educators now use the term emergent literacy to describe this developmental process. It is now recognized that literacy encompasses oral language, writing, and reading and these three components are interrelated. For example, as children dictate stories, they come to understand that what is said can be written down and then read back. This kind of activity is much more meaningful than isolated skill development which has no real significance for young children. Literacy activities should provide children with the opportunity to see how reading and writing are useful. The Pre-K class will immerse children in active literacy activities: signs, labels, charts, experience stories, and dictation will be an important part of the everyday curriculum. Alphabet puzzles, Alphabet Bingo, seasonal songs, nursery rhymes and finger plays will be available. Identifying rhyming words, asking children to listen for the initial letter sound of their name, and playing with magnetic letters are more examples of Pre-K literacy activities. A nursery rhyme theme will expose and reinforce familiar rhymes to children as they hear the patterns and cadence of these tales. This then will culminate with a “character day” where children will dress as a favorite nursery rhyme figure, use a prop , and memorize a simple rhyme to present to their class mates. For example, a student might dress in mouse ears and whiskers, hold a clock face, and recite Hickory, Dickory, Dock.
Pre-K offers children who are not kindergarten age an opportunity to experience preschool in a more rigorous way. It offers the gift of time to let a child mature at their own pace, but still offer challenges that a regular 4’s program might not be able to provide. The Pre-K year will prepare your child for the experiences they will need to be successful learners when they attend Kindergarten.
Eligibility
Children must be 5 years old by December 31st of the school year for which they are enrolling, and toilet trained.
Days
Monday to Friday
Time
9:15 to 12:00 noon
Class size
Two teachers and a maximum of 18 children per class.