Education & Leadership: Early Learning
Licensed by the PA Department of Education
Three-Day-a-Week Kindergarten Readiness
The goal of our program is to provide a safe, nurturing, center-based environment in which to encourage children to become active participants in the learning process through exploration of hands-on-materials, integrated learning experiences and developmentally age-appropriate activities and games.
Your child will:
- Be introduced to a new program this year called Zoo-phonics. The Zoo-phonics program fully involves your child's eyes, ears, mouth and body as he/she learns phonemic awareness skills, the alphabet and how to decode (read) and encode (spell/write). The Essences of Zoo-phonics include:
- The Animal Alphabet and Animal Puppets help children remember the shapes and sounds of the letters.
- Letter sounds are taught before letter names.
- Lowercase letters are taught before capital letters.
- The Body Movement for each Animal Letter helps "cement" the phonemic information into memory.
- The alphabet is taught sequentially, and as a whole entity, "a-z". The alphabet is not fragmented.
- Short vowels are taught before long vowels.
- Phonemic patters (at, bat, cat, sat, etc.) are taught first rather than random word lists. Zoo-phonics uses pictorial mnemonics (animal letters), body movements and teaches through physical games and activities. It makes an abstract skill concrete and playful.
- Use a supplemental program called "Let's begin with the Letter People" This program aids oral language development, listening skills, print awareness, phonological and phonemic awareness skills, alphabetic knowledge, writing and vocabulary development.
- Learn to count, recognize and write numbers from 1-31.
- Learn to recite personal information (first/last name, address, phone number and birth date). # Learn to print their names.
- Participate in individual/small group interest centers such as the ABC center, Literacy Center, Computer center and many more.
- Improve fine motor skills
- Discuss and complete activities in Weekly Readers
- Participate in various science activities and experiments
- Go on field trips
- Learn to attend and interact with guest speakers.
To provide and encourage cooperation, positive attitudes and socialization skills, Emphasis will be placed on:
- Learning to share and respect others' feelings
- Appropriate interaction with teachers and classmates during play time, snack time, circle and center time
- Manners
- Turn taking
- Personal space
- Independence skills
Guidelines
- Children must be 4 by August 31
- Monday-Wednesday-Friday: 9:30 AM-12 noon or 12:30-3 PM
2-Day Nursery School
During this 2 day a week program, children are introduced to letters and numbers and will learn colors, shapes, nursery rhymes and songs as well as sharing, waiting in line, manners and taking turns. Some time is spent on concept papers such as same/different and matching. Special parties are planned for holidays with parent committees.
Guidelines
- Children must be 3 by August 31
- Tuesday and Thursday: 9:30-11:30 AM or 12:30-2:30 PM
- Monday and Wednesday: 12:30-2:30 PM
Teddy Me & You
It's not too early for your child to adjust to the classroom setting. Students learn to follow one and two step directions, listen and answer questions, and communicate thoughts during circle time, snack time and play time. Enjoy story time as well! Special parties are planned for the holidays with parent committees.
Guidelines
- Children must be 2 ½ by August 31.
- Tuesday or Thursday: 9:30-10:30 AM or 10:45-11:45 AM
First Friends
This weekly program allows moms and/or dads to develop a network of friends while the little ones form their first friendships. Parents can sit and chat in a support group style setting while the kids learn to interact with each other. Singing songs and playing parachute games makes for some extra, structured fun. Holiday parties are also planned. Parents are encouraged to bring snacks for their child as children tend to get hungry and thirsty while playing.
Guidelines
- Program is for newborns - 2 ½ year olds and their parents.
- This on-going program meets Thursday mornings from 9:30-11:00 AM
- Join at any time.
Annie's Art Shop
In this fun program, children ages 4 & 5 can become familiar with different art medias including paints using both brushes and sponges. Different fabrics are used as well as everyday household materials as art. Generally run in 8 week sessions, children will create holiday themed projects that parents are sure to want to keep and display!
Guidelines
- For ages 3-5 years old
- Call for class days & times