HOPE CHRISTIAN PRESCHOOL

CURRICULUM GOALS/ DEVELOPMENTAL GOALS

The curriculum goals provide a framework for the teacher to use in planning daily activities for the children, which promote social/emotional, cognitive, language, spiritual and physical development.

Social/Emotional Development/Spiritual Development

The Preschool Staff will:

• Promote God’s love with the children through experiences and modeling
• Value and promote individual self-worth
• Teach and model respect for other persons
• Encourage the wonder of life and God’s creation 
• Help children experience beauty in the environment.
• Model acceptance and respect for each child including appreciation for family values and cultural backgrounds.
• Help children develop skills to be productive members of a learning community.
• Encourage children to accept responsibility for the care of materials and equipment.
• Help children recognize their feelings by naming feelings and encouraging children to express feelings in words.
• Help children involved in conflict to problem solve by recognizing and stating the feelings of all children involved and exploring solutions.
• Encourage cooperation in play and shared activities.
• Help children to use language rather than be physical in reacting to frustration and/or in solving conflicts.
• Encourage children to be independent in self-help skills and decision making.
• Help children take responsibility for their own actions and accept mistakes as opportunities to learn.
• Provide the opportunity for children to engage in dramatic play.
• Encourage children to be involved in expressive activities such as art, music, and body movement.
• Help children to acquire a wholesome acceptance of their own gender and body.

Cognitive Development

The Preschool Staff will:

• Provide a variety of age appropriate materials for children to play with, investigate, act upon, rearrange and/or change.
• Provide materials which encourage children to see similarities and differences: use classification, seriation, enumeration and quantification: and to develop spatial relationships.
• Encourage children to observe and participate within the group, talking about their experiences.
• Ask open-ended questions, encourage children to problem solve and to ask and answer their own questions.
• Encourage children to make choices and to follow through with their decisions.
• Avoid excessive praise of the children’s products and/or activities.  Staff will comment in a descriptive manner in order to help children understand and evaluate for themselves.

Language Development

The Preschool Staff will:

• Encourage children to use words to communicate their feelings, needs and thoughts.
• Listen to individual children and respond with interest.
• Talk with children about their activities and use descriptive language to comment on what they are doing.
• Encourage conversations between children by arranging space so small groups of children can play and talk with one another; interpret one child to another when appropriate; refer one child’s question or problem to another.
• Read books and poetry, tell stories, do finger plays and sing songs with the children.
• Help children begin to see relationships between the spoken and written word.
• Help children expand their vocabularies so that they understand and can express: body parts, shapes, colors, textures, foods, letters of the alphabet and numbers.

Physical Development

The Preschool Staff will:

• Provide opportunities and encourage children to be involved in a variety of large muscle, motor planning activities including walking, climbing, jumping, balancing, throwing, sliding, digging, bike riding, pulling, dancing, lifting, easel painting and other activities.
• Provide the opportunity for children to participate in a variety of activities using small muscles and eye-hand coordination including puzzles, table toys, scissors, stringing, floor blocks, writing tables, eye droppers and more.
• Help children become aware of their own bodies, how they move and function and of their position in space.
• Provide the opportunity for children to be inside of, outside of, on top of, underneath, beside, in back of, in front of.
• Provide a sensory rich environment for children to explore, experiment and develop fine motor strength.
• Provide the opportunity for children to eat a variety of nourishing foods and help them to learn simple concepts about food and nutrition.
• Help children acquire such habits as hand washing after toileting, before snack and after they play outside which will promote their health and well being.

Back