A focus on kindergarten readiness
Owls Class (am) Puffins Class (pm)
Ages 4/5
OWLS: Four or five mornings per week, Mon-Fri, 9am - Noon
PUFFINS: Four afternoons per week, Mon-Thur, Noon-3pm
Within our play-based environment, children are challenged to...
◆Develop inquiry skills ◆Begin investigating the earth and living things
◆Gain understanding of number, counting, basic operations
◆ Master many self-help skills
To set the stage for emergent literacy development, children...
◆Express themselves in storytelling, dramatic play, art, music
◆Delve into books ◆Make creative and playful use of language and writing
It’s all made richer by sharing days with this close family of friends.
Social Skills
Learning how to
develop positive peer interactions is a crucial skill for life-long success. By allowing children to make choices in child-led play, they explore interests and develop their creativity, while building relationship with one another. Adults help them make social connections with their classmates by encouraging two-way conversations, eye contact, making and effectively using “I statements…,” sharing kind words and actions and giving strategies for dealing with challenging situations.
Language development
In our classrooms we help the children to develop language skills in many different ways.
Oral: Teachers encourage children, through both modeling and coaching, to have meaningful conversational exchanges throughout the day with both peers and adults.
Story Craft: Our classrooms are enriched with quality literature. Children have stories read to them at various times throughout the day, and are encouraged to comment, describe what they see, make predictions, and pose and answer comprehension questions. Hearing stories often leads children to take the opportunity to create their own stories or narratives, with an adult ready to assist with transcription.
Phonemic Awareness & Alphabetic Principle: Children are exposed to many types of phonemic awareness activities. We play rhyming games, learn letter sounds and play with nonsense words. Additionally, we provide the children with multiple opportunities to learn to identify alphabet letters, and identify printed letters and words around the classroom.
Mathematical and scientific concepts
Mathematics: 
Children are taught how to count, recognize numbers, create and interpret graphs, classify objects by various attributes and perform simple addition and subtraction functions. We use a lot of games and manipulatives to help the children understand and develop these concepts.
Science: Exploring, observing and discovering the world around them helps to build a sense of wonder in our children. The students care for plants in our garden, learn through “kitchen chemistry” and use sensory information to explore the world as scientists.
Gross motor skills
Our children love to move, run, jump and play, so development of gross motor skills is both fun and active. Children climb and run on our playground, play ball-based games, and generally make their own fun!
Fine motor skills
Children are given many opportunities every day to strengthen their fine motor skills. Examples include working on activities where they manipulate clay, draw, paint and bead.
Artistic Expression
Creative expression is valued in our classroom. Children learn how to use various types of media to create many different kinds of art. They will gain experience in the use of paint, collage, sculpture, and drawing.
