18 month - 2-year-old Overview
Main Focus
The main focus for our 18mos/2's class is social development and to gain independence from mom and dad. As we share with them the love of Jesus Christ, we want our children to become comfortable in a classroom setting away from home. A child's work is play and we provide time for children to explore and discover the beautiful world God created. Children will learn important skills like sharing, taking turns, following directions, and working together. These skills prepare them for the upcoming years of school and will be practiced each day.
Fine Motor
- Working with puzzles, blocks and other manipulatives.
- Tearing paper.
- Lacing beads.
- Creating with play dough.
- Cutting with scissors.
- Drawing, finger and brush painting.
- Movement activities (i.e.: swirling a ribbon, bouncing a ball, songs with actions).
- Running, climbing, and jumping outside
- Exploring the outdoors
- Digging, sifting and pouring
Language & Social Development
- Listening to stories.
- Books and Flannel Boards
- Dramatic play with dress-up clothes, puppets, kitchens, doll houses, cars and trucks.
- Singing songs and poems.
- Counting objects.
- Questions/Answers.
- Discussing daily events and activities.
- Introducing colors and shapes.
- Transitioning from solitary play to parallel play
- Modeling good manners
- Sharing space while painting or playing in centers
- Learning to be more like Christ in all we do
3-year-old Overview
Main Focus
The main focus in our 3's class is play. Within that play, skills are introduced and experienced in a fun, non-threatening way. We strive to continually surround the children with the love of Christ and socialization is our main goal at this age, which includes sharing, taking turns at play and during circle time, and following directions. Classrooms are center based providing opportunities for exploration with blocks, home living, sand/water table, art, writing, science and manipulatives. Children play and work, learning with their peers in smaller groups in centers throughout the day as part of their daily schedule.
Fine Motor Development
- Cutting with scissors
- Tearing paper
- Creating with play dough
- Working puzzles
- Building with blocks/legos
- Coloring with crayons/markers
- Finger painting
- Experimenting with sand and water
- Fingerplays, felt stories, blocks
- Music and movement singing and dancing
- Outdoor exploration: running, jumping, climbing, swinging
Language & Social Development
- Listening to stories
- Sharing ideas
- Dramatic play center/puppets/role playing
- Child and teacher led discussions
Math Skills
- Finger Plays/ poems with counting
- Puzzles - spatial relationships
- Matching like objects
- One-to-one correspondence
- Introducing/identifying shapes and colors
- Counting to 5
- Creating and learning through blocks
As the year progresses
Children will have opportunities to write their first name and trace simple shapes. Opportunities for writing the alphabet and numbers are part of the 4-year old curriculum.
4-year-old Overview
Main Focus
The 4-year old program is focused on kindergarten readiness and preparing children to become disciples of Christ. Our loving teachers incorporate fun with learning; making sure to provide many opportunities to foster each child's learning style. We offer a theme-based curriculum using a hands-on approach that targets the many different intelligences. Through the child's play they are learning skills by participating in creative, developmentally appropriate activities. Many of the following skills are reinforced weekly through the use of centers.
Fine Motor Development
- Cutting with scissors
- Tearing paper
- Creating with play dough
- Working puzzles
- Building with blocks/ legos
- Coloring with crayons/markers
- Finger painting
- Opportunities to use pencils (writing numbers and letters)
- Tracing
- Drawing shapes
- Exploring with sand and water
- Movement and Music: Dance to rhythms, imitate animals, gallop, skip
- Outdoors: Run, jump, climb, and swing
Language & Social Development
- Listening to stories
- Sharing ideas
- Dramatic play center/puppets/role playing
- Singing songs (familiar and silly)
- Playing games
- Question/Answers
- Show and Tell
- Identifying letters - uppercase and lowercase
- Introducing letter sounds
- Writing letters - uppercase and lowercase
- Playing with rhyme, rhythm, and repetition in poems, songs, and stories
Math & Science Skills
- Finger Plays/poems with counting
- Puzzles - spatial relationships
- Matching like objects
- One-to-one correspondence
- Identifying shapes (circle, square, triangle, rectangle)
- Counting objects to 10
- Identifying numbers to 10
- Writing numbers to 10
- Counting aloud to 20
- Calendar skills - days of the week, months of the year
- Recognizing similarities such as color, size, and shape
- Recognizing simple patterns (ex. blue-red-blue-red)
- Building, patterning and measuring with blocks
- Cooking
- Experimenting with different matter
- Using five senses to explore God's world
Bridge Class Overview
Main Focus
Our Bridge class is for children five-years of age, who are not starting Kindergarten this school year. Our primary focus for our Bridge class is to reinforce and extend on the skills introduced in our four-year old program. It prepares the children for kindergarten in a caring and Christian environment. The curriculum is center-based with a hands-on approach. With Jesus as our example, we model love to the children and teach them to grow to become more like Him.
Reading/Language Arts Development
- Speaking and sharing ideas in complete sentences.
- Listening to and talking about stories that are read aloud.
- Playing with rhyme, rhythm, and repetition in poems, songs and stories.
- Using materials, tools and toys to develop fine motor skills (examples: scissors, crayons, pencils, play-doh, blocks, etc.).
- Identifying and writing letters, uppercase and lowercase.
- Identifying letter sounds.
- Introducing beginning sight words.
- Relating printed words with spoken language.
- Introducing pre-writing skills to express ideas.
Math Skills
- Counting objects to 20 and aloud to 100.
- Recognizing and writing numbers 0 through 20.
- Counting by 5's and 10's to 100.
- Creating and understanding patterns.
- Identifying shapes and colors.
- Developing the concept of more or less.
- Introducing basic addition.
- Recognizing similarities such as color, size, and shape.
- Developing calendar skills (counting and recognizing days of the week and months of the year).
Science & Social Studies
- Using the five senses to make observations and discoveries of God's world.
- Identifying changes in daily life (weather, seasons, days of the week).
- Making predictions.
- Asking and answering simple questions.
- Identifying jobs in the home, school, and community.
- Practicing basic school social skills such as respecting property, materials, and other people.
Handwriting Without Tears
What's it all about...
"Get Set For School" curriculum from Handwriting Without Tears prepares Pre-K children for kindergarten. Get Set for School uses music and movement to engage children and help them develop good learning habits. Children learn actively as they play, color, draw, count, build, and sing. We'll be teaching children to:
- Develop social-emotional skills to support learning
- Build physical coordination, strength, and crayon grip
- Recognize letters and numbers
- Learn habits for writing capitals and numbers (Start at the top!)
- Ask and answer questions
- Build vocabulary
- Listen to and repeat a simple story
- Sort objects by size, color, or other attributes
- Count, sort, and, create patterns
- More…
Children will learn important readiness, early writing, literacy, and math skills. These potentially complex subjects will be broken down into simpler tasks that develop on what children already know. This way, they can master skills one step at a time as they build lifelong learning habits. While the Get Set for School curriculum is designed for 4-5 yr olds, there are many tools and activities that we will be doing with all of the children at Little Lambs to help prepare them for handwriting when they are developmentally ready.
Music, Movement, and Chapel
Music & Movement
In Music and Movement, children will come every week to sing, dance, exercise and play. We have lots of fun strengthening all of the muscles in our bodies, from the small muscles in our fingers, to the large muscles in our legs, arms, and stomach. We sing and dance to all types of music while building our vocabularies at the same time.
Chapel
We have Chapel every week to share a Bible message with the children that is age appropriate and based on God's Truth. We have an opportunity and a responsibility to help children move along a path that starts with a general understanding of God (what nature reveals) towards a special, deeper understanding (knowing about God’s love, forgiveness, and the promise of eternal life).