1. The Preschool Years At Village School:
Building Skills and Confidence Through Play

2. Our Mission & Philosophy
Our mission is to provide a variety of developmentally appropriate learning experiences to promote each child’s social, intellectual, emotional and physical growth. Through rich classroom environments, engaging curricula and guidance from experienced teachers, children are given the opportunity to develop at their own pace and in their own style. At the Village school, we strive to stimulate curiosity and provide hands-on experiences in all areas of learning to ensure that our preschoolers go off to Kindergarten ready to succeed.

3. Skill Development through an Emerging Curriculum
Aligned to National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) and the Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks
Primary areas of focus:
Creative Play
Social/Emotional
Emerging Language and Literacy
Numeracy and Math Readiness
Science and Inquiry

4. Creative Play Focus on process, not product
Dramatic play, block building , open-ended art materials, sensory exploration including play-dough, sand, water
Dancing, singing, creative movement, instruments
Developing confidence in expressing their own unique styles

5. Creative Play With Three, Four & Five Year Olds
Dramatic play with a variety of materials and props promotes self-expression and self-confidence while building communication skills.
Open-ended art activities encourage creativity while building fine motor and social skills.

6. Social/Emotional Skills
Verbalizing needs, wants & feelings in large and small group situations
Developing coping skills, separation from adults, accepting help from teachers
Understanding transitions, routines, schedules, limits and rules
Engaging in play, navigating with peers, taking turns, sharing ideas, problem solving
Building self-confidence and independence

7. Aligning our Curriculum to Develop Social Skills
NAEYC Guidelines for Preschool Learning Experiences
MA Curriculum Frameworks
Relationships/Interactions
1. Relationships
Teachers provide children opportunities to develop the classroom community through participation in decision making about classroom rules, plans & activities.
A. There are opportunities for positive peer interactions
8. Staff encourage pro-social behaviors among children, including cooperating, helping, taking turns and talking to solve problems.

8. Social Skills with the Three Year Old
Using visual supports in various areas of the room to remind children how to follow the classroom rules.
Taking time for ‘teachable moments’ throughout the day to stop and explain rules and routines as they are happening with individual children.
Using puppets to model social skills; showing how to enter into play situations with peers.
Social Skills with the Three Year Old

9. Social Skills with the Four Year Old
Teachers model social skills through dramatic play.
Children practice turn- taking skills independently
Children remind peers of the classroom rules.
Children are able to use a choice board to effectively create a play plan.
Children are able to provide more verbal input in directing ideas for planning emergent curriculum.
Social Skills with the Four Year Old

10. Social Skills with the Five Year Old
Children are able to use problem-solving skills to negotiate peer interactions independently with minimal teacher support.
Children are able to develop classroom rules as a group, providing reasoning to support their choices.
Children are moving away from dependence on visual choice boards & are able to plan their choices on their own.
Social Skills with the Five Year Old

11. Language & Literacy Skills
Sharing information at group meeting, use of open- ended questions to encourage oral language skills and confidence in communication
Increasing letter, word and name recognition through a print-rich environment including labels, check-in boards, names on cubbies/mailboxes
Repetitive poems, rhyming words, songs, finger-plays
Fine motor skill development through a variety of materials offered at writing centers
Recording children’s story ideas as dictated to a teacher for whole class stories or independent journal or writing ideas

12. Aligning our Curriculum in English & Language Arts
NAEYC Guidelines for Preschool Learning Experiences
MA Curriculum Frameworks
ELA Learning Stds/Benchmarks Pre-K
7. Develop familiarity with the forms of alphabet letters, awareness of print, and letter forms.
Learning Standard 7:
Students will understand the nature of written English and the relationship of letters and spelling patterns to the sounds of speech.

13. Language and Literacy with the Three Year Old
Know how to handle a book & turn a page
Explore letters through sensory experiences such as alphabet stamps
Observe print in everyday activities and routines including labels on objects and materials & nametags on cubbies and mailboxes
See alphabet letters displayed at children’s eye level
Associate pictorial symbols with objects or actions such as picture recipes or daily visual schedules
Language and Literacy with the Three Year Old

14. Language and Literacy With The Four Year Old
Dictate words to tell a story
Identify some uppercase letters
Know that there is a link between letters and sounds
Create letters with materials such as finger paint, string, yarn, clay & pipe cleaners
Listen to and explore alphabet books & puzzles in which children can see and compare letters and distinguish one from another
Language and Literacy With The Four Year Old

15. Language and Literacy with the Five Year Old
Recognize & name each letter of the alphabet (uppercase)
Identify beginning sounds
Recognize and produce rhyming words
Identify the cover and title pages of a book
Examine upper and lowercase letter shapes by their spatial features
Refer to the words of familiar songs, rhymes or finger plays that are printed out
Language and Literacy with the Five Year Old

16. Numeracy/Math Readiness
Recognizing, extending & creating patterns
Shape recognition and building
Measuring (non-traditional units of measure)
Counting objects, 1:1 correspondence
Matching and sorting objects
Number recognition
Comparing more/less, graphing
Puzzles/spatial awareness

17. Aligning Our Curriculum in Numeracy/Math Readiness
NAEYC Guidelines for Preschool Learning Experiences
MA Curriculum Frameworks
Mathematics Learning Stds/Benchmarks Pre-K
Shapes & Spatial Sense
10. Investigate and identify materials of various shapes, using appropriate language.
Geometry
G1. Name, describe, sort and draw plane figures (i.e. circle, square, triangle and rectangle.)

18. Shapes, Spatial Sense & Geometry with the Three Year Old
Exploring a wide variety of building materials with different shapes
Building simple structures with unit blocks
Matching unit blocks to their silhouettes on the block shelf
Stretching elastics on geoboards to create shapes
Recognizing shapes in the environment
Naming basic shapes (circle, triangle, square)
Shapes, Spatial Sense & Geometry with the Three Year Old

19. Shapes, Spatial Sense & Geometry with the Four Year Old
Create/ represent shapes using a variety of materials (popsicle sticks, pipe cleaners, unit blocks, recycled materials)
Sort parquetry blocks by one or more attributes
Eat snacks cut in various shapes (graham cracker rectangles, cheese triangles, circle crackers)
Counting the number of sides a shape has (perimeter)
Shapes, Spatial Sense & Geometry with the Four Year Old

20. Shapes, Spatial Sense & Geometry with the Five Year Old
Creating increasingly elaborate structures with unit blocks
Creating sketches of block structures
Drawing and naming plane figures (triangles, rectangles, squares, rhombus, etc.)
Creating and extending patterns with parquetry blocks
Feel and describe parquetry blocks, then try to identify them without looking
Manipulating shapes to create new shapes
Shapes, Spatial Sense & Geometry with the Five Year Old

21. Science and Inquiry
Exploring, observing, comparing and describing the world around us. Including collecting and classifying items in nature
Drawing pictures of items in nature / keeping a nature journal
Exploring the five senses
Exploring the nature of physics, balancing blocks, building ramps, observing discovery bottles
Sand/water exploration
Discovering color and light
Cooking projects

22. Aligning our Curriculum In Science & Inquiry
NAEYC Guidelines for Preschool Learning Experiences
MA Curriculum Frameworks
Science Learning Standards
Life Sciences
10. Observe and identify the characteristics and needs of living things: humans, animals, and plants.
Life Science
Characteristics of living things

23. Life Science with the Three Year Old
Exploring how magnifying glasses work to observe natural items
Using our senses to take in the world around us (feeling, smelling, listening, tasting, looking)
Dictating ideas about living things (i.e. “What do you know about bears?”)
Exploring the physical attributes of living things (i.e. smooth skin of the pumpkin, the squishy ‘guts’ of a pumpkin)
Life Science with the Three Year Old

24. Life Science with the Four Year Old
Observing and describing natural items over time (growing seeds, watching an apple decay and grow mold)
Drawing pictures of scientific observations of the various stages of living things in science journals
Making predictions about the outcomes of science experiments
Life Science with the Four Year Old

25. Life Science with the Five Year Old
Beginning to write words independently to name/label natural objects and processes
Conducting on- going science experiments and recording observations and drawings over periods of time (i.e. watching what happens to the physical state of a potato as it decays)
Keeping science journals and sketch books available at the table for children to use independently
Life Science with the Five Year Old

26. Conclusion
The Village School staff strives to focus on the individual child. The “intentional” curriculum plan and teaching through play responds to each child’s readiness and skills. We believe that each child is on their own continuum and our goal is to meet them and help them gain experience and mastery for kindergarten readiness. We encourage and hope for a strong home – school partnership to maximize each child’s experience.
“The playing child advances forward to new stages of mastery” Explorations Early Learning LLC Jeff Johnson