Overview of our Daily Activities   In very general terms, we would like to give you a brief overview of our daily activities and how they relate to our curriculum and our goals and objectives for educating your children.     Our ultimate goal is to instill in your child a love of learning, self confidence and independence and to lay the foundation for success in school. As your child’s first teachers, we want you to have every confidence that we are preparing your child through meaningful experiences that will ultimately have them ready for kindergarten.  All these experiences are begun at our three-year-old level and built on and continued in our pre-k classes. We stay in close contact with local kindergarten programs.   In no way does this include all the things being taught on a daily basis. The following only serves as an outline to explain the structure of our program. If any of you are interested in reading the Early Learning Contents Standards of the state of Ohio that our curriculum is based upon, there is a copy in the office that you are welcome to check out and review. There are 332 standards for preschools and I am happy to report that our entire staff works very hard to meet all 332 standards. As always, we welcome any questions you may have.   The attached includes activities from a typical day at school and gives the educational philosophy behind each activity.  Circle Time Learning to sit quietly in a group situation Discussing daily routine and what can be expected Listening to your classmates ideas Taking turns speaking Being responsible for a “circle time” job  Building self-confidence Giving them experience talking in front of their class Teaching them to be proud of themselves and their accomplishments Discussion of the theme of the week in circle time and during project time Use of books, pictures and hands-on examples Generates so much learning by sharing ideas Asking open-ended questions to encourage concrete and abstract thinking skills Introduce craft and explains how it ties into the theme Relate theme to child’s experiences and daily life Free Play Opportunity to make choices Learning to share and play with classmates Centers offer wide range of activities Children use their imaginations and develop their creativity Teachers have opportunity to interact with children in an informal setting Teachers have the opportunity to work with children in a one-on-one setting         Craft time Essential to development of small motor skills Small motor skills include cutting, gluing, coloring, writing and painting Excellent way to guide them to working independently Learn to follow two, three and four step directions Fosters pride in their accomplishments Gives the child a concrete example to relate to our theme Encourages creativity and self-expression Learning to work independently within a group     Large Muscle Play Vitally important to their physical development Stresses the importance of exercise Learning to share the equipment and take turns Develops strength and coordination Using their imaginations through creative play Music Develops a sense of rhythm, sound, pitch and tone Using instruments teaches simple patterns Develops movement skills and spatial awareness Monthly songs reinforce monthly themes Introduction of rhyming Putting words to actions and encouraging self expression Musical experience becomes visual through movement and use of instruments or props  Story Time Listening skills Predicting outcomes Interpreting pictures Stories relate back to the theme Interactive stories (repeating common phrases, acting out parts of the story) Seeing the relationship of print to words Grasping the idea of reading from top to bottom, left to right and front to back   Understanding stories for teaching and stories for entertainment Teaching the idea of fantasy/fiction or reality/factual and recognizing the difference Science Encourage the natural scientist-curious, observant and questioning Hands-on approach to learning about the world around us Learning to investigate; asking the why and how questions Learning about our environment Investigating and observing differences in non-living and living things Providing materials and resources for the children to extend their exploration Asking open-ended questions to encourage and guide exploration   Aerobics Learning the importance of exercise Exercise is fun!!!! Following directions and working as a group Movement through music Large muscle development Beginning ball skills Improve coordination through many activities Encourages children to try new things               Circle Time Jobs:  Each teacher has her own jobs. Below are some of the jobs teachers have chosen to have the children do and the academic reasons behind them,   Calendar          -     learning the concepts of months, weeks, days and holidays                         -     recognition of calendar words -         one-to-one correspondence counting or touch counting -         number recognition  -         concept of today, tomorrow and yesterday -         concept of beginning/end of month, week etc. -         concept of left-to-right when counting and saying days of the week Weather -         concept of sunny, cloudy, rainy cold, hot, warm, cool, windy, foggy -         recognition of weather words -         introduction of the seasons -         learning about changes in nature -         how weather relates to how we dress -         simple graphing of the weather -         predicting the weather -         learning the concept of temperature   Reciting the Pledge of Allegiance (pre-K classes) -         pride and respect of country -         memorization -         reciting as a group   The Counter (3 year olds) -         one-to-one correspondence counting -         concept of groups (boys/girls) -         part to whole (Are we all here?)   Number Person (pre-K) -         recognition of numbers 1-10; after Jan.  numbers 1-20   Alphabet Person (pre-K) -         recognition of letters of the alphabet -         learning the beginning sounds of the letters -         associate letters with objects  (i.e. a is for alligator)   *Our three-year-old classes introduce the letters and their sounds by talking about the beginning letter and sound they hear in words that relate to the subject at hand (i.e. names of classmates, days of the week, months, animals, colors, shapes, theme related words etc.)   Shape Person (pre-K) -         recognizes and points out shapes -         relates shapes to objects in their everyday life -         Again, our threes talk about shapes in relation to things they are studying on a daily basis. (Two weeks of shapes are part of our curriculum.)