Preparing for Your Parent Teacher Conference
What to expect and what to ask in your parent teacher conference It may seem surprising to have a parent teacher conference when your child is so young, but we believe it’s important to check in [...]
Engaging Your Preschooler in Purposeful Play
Our Day Early Learning preschool program provides hands-on learning activities that will spark your child’s interest and curiosity. Within our classrooms and with the support of teachers, your child will develop and practice the social skills important for future success.
Preschool Curriculum
All Day Early Learning preschool classrooms utilize The Creative Curriculum, a research-based early child care and education curriculum. The learning objectives of this curriculum are aligned with Indiana’s Early Learning Foundations and include child-focused activities that address language & literacy, math, science, social-emotional, and physical development.
Your child’s classroom will have an individualized lesson plan posted every week. Each activity on the lesson plan is purposeful and intentionally planned based on the teachers’ observations of each child in the classroom.
Everyday experiences help children learn about language
To support language and literacy skills, teachers:
- Help children listen to and follow simple multi-step directions.
- Model and teach children how to ask questions.
- Teach children how to hold a book and turn the pages from left to right.
- Read together in library area and during group time.
- Sing songs with rhyming and repetition that builds vocabulary and encourage phonological awareness.
- Describe things and have conversations that help increase communication skills and vocabulary.
Preschoolers discover mathematical relationships every day when they notice how things are similar or different, sort and match objects, talk about numbers, count, explore shapes, and describe patterns.
To encourage mathematical exploration, teachers:
- Sing songs, finger-plays and nursery rhymes that include numbers.
- Use mathematical language, such as large/small, under/over, up/down to describe position and location.
- Provide toys that engage children in exploring size and shape, such as blocks.
- Provide tools that allow them to measure objects such as scales, rulers, measuring tapes, clocks, timers, and measuring cups.
- Count with children and touch each object as they count.
Life science is learning about living things and preschoolers are fascinated by people, animals and plants.
To promote scientific learning, teachers:
- Provide magnifying glasses to explore objects.
- Plant seeds and water plants with children.
- Ask children to compare different types of leaves and objects found in nature.
- Read non-fiction books about pets, plants, bodies, water, etc.
An important aspect of a child’s development is learning how to interact with peers and how to express their emotions in a positive way.
To help children develop and practice social-emotional skills, teachers:
- Provide children with opportunities to lead and gain a sense of independence through classroom jobs and making choices throughout their day.
- Read books that are related to helping children describe and understand their feelings.
- Model appropriate interactions and help children develop the language to express their emotions.
- Play games that encourage children to stop and go, thereby controlling their actions. For example, games like Simon Says and Red Light Green Light, which require children to think before they can act
Playing outdoors every day is essential for children’s health and wellbeing.
To promote healthy physical development, teachers:
- Provide balls, bean bags and materials for children to roll, throw, bounce, and catch.
- Encourage children to collect, dump, and fill small objects, whether they are natural materials like leaves, seeds, shells, and rocks or they are toys to bring outdoors.
- Teach children how to garden and plant seeds or care for plants.
Preschool Learning Environments
In the preschool classroom, you will see learning centers stocked with materials that are intentionally placed to encourage purposeful and engaging play. Dramatic play, library, blocks, creative arts, science, math, and sensory experiences are all offered to children daily.
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Your Preschooler’s Teachers
Day Early Learning preschool teachers continue to build on the strong social-emotional foundation that starts in our infant classrooms. Teachers engage in play with children, support each child’s growing independence and peer relationships and help children brainstorm ideas about things they are interested in or want to learn more about.
Assessing Preschool Development
At Day Early Learning, we believe in the importance of regularly assessing each child’s growth and development in order to tailor our lessons and activities to the needs of each individual child. All Day Early Learning centers use several methods to assess each child’s growth and development including weekly observations, an annual Ages and Stages Questionnaire (ASQ) and the ISTAR-KR assessment.
Observations
Each week, you will receive written observations of your child’s development on LifeCubby. These observations are used to help teachers create meaningful lesson plans that will ignite curiosity in your child and help us monitor your child’s growth and learning on a daily basis.
Questionnaire
When parents enroll in our program and each time your child transitions to a new classroom, teachers and parents complete the Ages and Stages Questionnaire (ASQ). This tool allows us to help you track your child’s progress in language, problem solving, fine and gross motor, and social-emotional development. It also helps us ensure the right materials and supports are being used to help your child reach the next stage of their development.
ISTAR-KR
In the fall, winter, and spring our teachers complete an overall assessment on your child’s progress using a tool from the Indiana Department of Education called ISTAR-KR (KR=kindergarten readiness). This assessment is aligned to the Indiana kindergarten standards in the areas of English/Language Arts and Mathematics.
Classroom & Staff Assessments
In addition to measuring children’s growth, our learning environments and teaching staff are regularly assessed using classroom observation tools to ensure the highest level of teacher-child interactions. This is important because high-quality environments and teacher-child interactions encourage and promote children’s language, math, vocabulary and social skills.
Stories about Preschool
