-
Social / Emotional Development
-
Emphasizing building positive and healthy relationships with peers and adults; treating individuals with respect and kindness; identifying their own feelings and the feelings of others; promotion of self-regulation of behavior; development of a sense of self and self-worth; creation of a sense of community belonging, and development of conflict resolution skills.
-
Cognitive Skills Development
-
Emphasizing development of thinking and problemsolving skills (over learning of rote information); creating an atmosphere that encourages risk-taking as essential to learning; incorporating content in the areas of literacy, mathematics, science, technology, music, art, dance, social studies and health and safety.
-
Language Development
-
Encouraging language acquisition through opportunities to experience oral and written communication; providing a language-rich environment which includes questioning, communicating needs, thoughts and experiences, and describing events; exposure to books and story telling; written communication, and the skills needed to make sense of print; as well as phonological awareness through playing with sounds, such as in rhyming and letter-sound association, which form the basis for beginning reading skills.
-
Physical / Motor Development
-
Including activities for development of gross motor skills, such as tricycle-riding, climbing, running, balancing, and jumping, and small motor skills, such as doing puzzles, painting, drawing, gluing, pasting and using tools such as scissors, markers and crayons.
-
Philosophy
-
Children are born with an innate drive to learn, and they do so best in an environment that promotes play, that values process over product, and with adults with whom they develop trusting, caring relationships. Each child is an individual, with unique strengths, acquiring knowledge and skills at different rates and different times. By interacting within a physical and emotional environment created to maximize their learning, they develop independence, self-regulation, self-worth, and a sense of belonging in a community, a positive attitude toward school, and a love of learning that will last a lifetime. These are the goals of the PK program at Stevenson.
-
Physical Environment
-
The exciting new outdoor play area is specifically designed to encourage exploration and active engagement within a protected space. In addition to the attractive play structures, also included are areas for riding vehicles, dramatic play, block building, sand play and art activities. Safety is a major goal in the design of both the outdoor and indoor space.
Indoor furnishings, such as tables, chairs, and shelving, accommodate the 4–5 year old child. The room is organized into learning centers that provide areas where children interact with each other and with materials in small and large groups. A rich array of developmentally appropriate materials are available to support learning in all areas.
For example, in the literacy areas, a wide variety of books, writing materials, phonemic games and manipulative letters invite children to experience literature and communicate daily. The mathematics area includes hands-on materials that build an understanding of numbers and number concepts, to count, categorize, seriate, measure, create patterns, and develop an understanding of the concepts of time, addition, subtraction and other mathematical operations.
The science area encourages children to observe phenomena with all senses, explore and experiment, use the tools of science, collect data, to think, question, hypothesize and draw conclusions. In the dramatic play area children explore the roles of adults, create scenarios that expand their views of the world, develop language skills, use symbolization, learn to resolve disagreements and engage with materials and peers to explore concepts and ideas.
For example, in “playing restaurant,” restaurant vocabulary such as “server,” “take an order,” and “customer” could be used, a block could symbolize a telephone, and various restaurant roles could be negotiated, e.g. who is the chef, the server, the customer. Collaboration is also explored in block building; children discover the advantages of working together, using others’ ideas to fulfill a vision, as well as explore such principles as area, size, functionality, and the physics of construction.
-
Parent Involvement
-
You can expect frequent and on-going communication with your child’s teachers. As knowledgeable early childhood educators, they will share their perceptions of your child’s social, emotional, cognitive, language and physical/motor development, informally and formally during parent conferences. In partnership with you, your child’s teachers are committed to maximizing your child’s growth within a caring, trusting, and challenging PK learning environment.
-
Transition to Kindergarten
-
In transitioning to the Stevenson Kindergarten program, Pre-Kindergarten children will have learned the routines and expectations of classroom life. While developing a positive attitude toward school, their sense of themselves as competent learners will enable them to take on an academic program with strength and self-assurance. They will have developed a sense of belonging to the greater Stevenson School community, feeling confident in taking on the challenges that academic life brings. They will have developed a stronger sense of themselves, as well as a strong social peer community, that will maximize their confidence as they enter Kindergarten.