Curriculum and Resource Enrichment Programs
We have assembled a wonderfully talented faculty to implement our superior curriculum, which include Willinda’s Phonemic Awareness and Multi-Modality Program LinguaSongs Communication, and the DLM Early Childhood Express from the McGraw-Hill Group. These classroom curricula are designed to meet each child at a level consistent with the individual student’s developmental level. Challenging, hands-on strategies combine with educational discovery centers to provide a well-rounded, multi-modal approach to learning. The intention of the curriculum is to prepare "the total child" for the next levels of learning within a positive and nurturing educational environment. Additional benefits of this program include experiences in teamwork, cooperation, and problem-solving.
Research-Based Curriculum
As parents and teachers, we do our best to help children grow to their fullest potential in a happy, successful, and safe environment.
- The DLM Early Childhood Express curriculum has been designed by McGraw-Hill Companies to prepare young children for future academic success, nurturing each child by offering carefully selected and sequenced developmental and age-appropriate learning experiences. This comprehensive program includes literature, manipulatives, and instructional materials that have been created to keep children engaged and excited about learning.
- High Reach, a McGraw-Hill curriculum for our infants, toddlers and two year olds, is an interactive, developmentally-appropriate curriculum designed to stimulate and develop vocabulary, language concepts, skills, and overall cognitive growth at the age-appropriate level.
- The Willinda LinguaSong series is a multi-modality approach to phonemic awareness and language development. It enhances language acquisition and early literacy through music that features the sounds, rhythms, rhymes, and syllables known to promote sound and language development, as well as incorporates sign language acquisition. It is also a fun, age-appropriate activity that reinforces bonding between children and adults while engaging their young minds.
Observations and Assessments
- The Ounce Scale, an observational tool for our infants, toddlers, and two year olds, allows us to get to know your younger child better by observing their everyday activities. We record notes on your child’s Developmental Profile to keep track of behaviors and accomplishments throughout the school year. The Ounce Scale is not a test, but rather an observation tool to track your child’s development. It is a way to observe children as they play and take part in daily activities, such as eating breakfast, playing, participating in resource centers, and interacting with children and adults. The Ounce Scale focuses on what children can do, not what they can’t do.
- The Gessell Assessment Instrument is administered annually to track the social, emotional, physical, and cognitive development of our three-, four-, and five-year old students.
- The Get It, Got It, Go program measures and tracks letter recognition and vocabulary development.
- Our kindergarteners will participate in Open Court Assessments is a weekly measurement calculating student comprehension on skills taught, their participation, and overall progress (an ongoing assessment built around a student portfolio and teacher observation).
Reporting of this assessment information is delivered to parents twice annually through parent conferences on early release days. Other conferences are scheduled as needed per initiation of parent, teacher, or Head of School. During our summer, the curriculum is thematically designed over the course of several weeks, exploring concepts such as camping, safety, around the world, and the ocean.