Full Day Preschool

FULL DAY PRESCHOOL

Arrival: Children separate from their parents at the classroom door and are greeted upon entering the classroom. Children remove outerwear and place belongings in cubbies independently. Focuses on coping skills, independence, social interactions and daily living skills.

Circle Time: Teacher welcomes children to school and leads the morning prayer. Children share any significant happenings from home and ask and answer open-ending questions. Teacher reviews the calendar, the day’s schedule, letters and phonics, and numbers and mathematical concepts. Children also participate in finger plays, stories, music and movement activities. Promotes a sense of community and focuses on social skills including cooperation and listening skills, language development, concentration, pre-academic and academic skills and gross and fine-motor skills.

Theme Work: Theme work may revolve around a book, the season, a holiday, a religious theme, a letter of the alphabet, a current event or a scientific concept. Theme work encompasses many different types of activities and may involve drawing, cutting and pasting, retelling a story, coloring, painting, dictating, moving to music or playing a game. Focus is on listening skills, concentration, language development, pre-academic and academic skills, independence and fine-motor skills.

Recess: Students participate in unstructured outdoor play activities that may include play on playground equipment or movement activities such as running, jumping, and hopping. Focus is on gross-motor development and social skills.

Snack/Lunch: After retrieving their snack or lunch from the snack bin, children sit down at the table and clean their hands. Teacher will lead Grace Before Meals. Children may then begin eating. Children will remain seated until all are finished, and only then will they be invited to clean their spot and get up from the table. Focus is on developing appropriate table manners, social skills and a feeling of thankfulness for God’s blessings.

Religion: The lesson begins with a prayer and children participate in teacher led instruction around the Stories of God’s Love curriculum and celebrations and feasts of the liturgical calendar. Activities involve listening to stories and Scripture, learning prayers and songs, and completing activities based upon the day’s lesson. Promotes a sense of religious identity and community and focuses on developing knowledge of and love for God and God’s creation, listening skills and concentration and builds language development, pre-academic and academic skills and fine-motor skills.

Independent Work: Children complete an assigned activity and then independently choose activities from the various areas of the classroom. Activities are planned according to the interests and needs of the children and focus on pre-academic and academic skills in reading, math, and writing. Children put away all materials from an activity before beginning a new one. Focuses on developing concentration, pre-academic and academic skills, daily living skills, respect, responsibility and independence.

Dismissal: Children gather at the carpet to review activities of the school day and to say goodbye. Children then clean up the classroom, gather their belongings to prepare to go home and then line up. Class is dismissed with a prayer and then students are dismissed from the classroom to their parents. Focus is on cooperation, self-help skills, daily living skills, independence, awareness of God and thankfulness.