Our-Curriculum

Our teachers and staff are guided by HighScope Preschool Curriculum coupled with Mother Goose Time. Our curriculum is research based and meets the needs of state standards.

“Active learning…is the central element of the HighScope Preschool Curriculum. Children learn through direct, hands-on experiences with people, objects, events, and ideas. Trained adults who understand child development and how to scaffold the important areas of learning in the preschool years offer guidance and support”. (HighScope Educational Research Foundation. Copyright© 2009)

Our Curriculum

Mom's Day Out! A Day at Austin Stay n Play!

Discovery Time: Upon arrival children are welcome to explore materials in our manipulative center and interact with each other.

Circle Time: Class gathers in a circle on rug to go over, calendar, weather, name of the week (letters and the sounds in the name), songs, poems, finger puppets, and stories.

Free Center Time: Children rotate around to different learning centers that are set up reflecting the theme of the week/month.

•Art Center: children are free to explore and create their own designs though various mediums.

•Math Center: Number sense is developed by using manipulative objects. While recognizing and counting numbers is important, so is sorting and classifying objects. This helps children begin to notice how items are alike and different, and creates an awareness that is vital for math learning.

•Reading Center: Children can cozy up to a good book in our class library or listen to a book on tape or the computer. Reading literature engages children's comprehension, improves both listening and speaking skills, and increases vocabulary!

•Writing Center: We add a tactile (kinesthetic) component when we practice shaping the letters with different materials. Shaping letters with dough, tracing them on textured paper cutouts, and writing in the sand or salt trays help children internalize the shape of the letter, while developing their fine motor skills. Most experts believe that kids learn best when they are taught using a multisensory approach.

•Dramatic Play Center: This center is the foundation for all learning for young children, and provides them with a variety of valuable learning opportunities. Play is how children begin to understand the world. Children's play develops and unlocks creativity and imagination, helps to develop reading, thinking, and problem solving skills as well as motor skills.

•Computers: Explore and discover with Jump Start World, a 3-D world adventure land. Builds math, reading, and critical thinking. Over 50 skills meeting curriculum national and state standards. Safe because kids are never online.

Snack/Lunch: Each day the students have a healthy snack and drink right after fitness time brought from home.

Movement/Fitness: 30 to 45 minutes of each day is devoted to fitness, coordination, and fun! Children work on fine motor skills, big muscles and small muscles with a variety of exercise movements and objects; including yoga and dance. We will do obstacles courses, parachute games, crawl, climb, bounce and much more.

Sample Schedule Mornings: 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.

9:00 to 9:30 Arrival/Free Play

9:40 to 10:10 Circle Time/ Calendar/ Weather/ New Concept

10:10 to 10:45 Snack/Centers/ Social Play/Free Play

10:45 to 11:30 Movement Yoga/Jumping/Hopping/Running/Balls

11:35 to 12:00 Lunch/ Brought from home

12:00 to 12:15 Group Story Time/ Music

12:15 to 12:30 Imagination & Creativity/Blocks/Puzzles/Science

12:30 to 12:45 Free Play/Social Play

12:45 to 1:00 Pack up to go home