The class meets four mornings a week: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday (9:15 am – 12:15 pm). Parents may also add Wednesday mornings to have their child attend five days a week.

Ready to learn

Children are more likely to be successful in kindergarten when they arrive ready to learn. This means that foundations have been laid in the child’s brain upon which they can build their intellectual or “academic” skills.

These foundational skills like impulse control and self-regulation, focus, concentration, effective verbal communication, mental flexibility (ability to adjust to transitions), ability to follow directions, and resilience (ability to bounce back from frustrations and disappointments) need to be in place before the children can successfully learn academic content in a classroom setting. Put another way, the “how” comes before the “what”: skills for “how” to learn need to be developed before academic content can be successfully taught.

Our play-based environment and curriculum focuses on the “whole child” (i.e., nurturing children’s physical, social-emotional, and intellectual growth) and encourages the development of these important foundational skills.

In preparation for kindergarten, children have ample time and opportunity during free play time to:

• Develop their fine motor skills through many different kinds of manipulative materials that strengthen the hand muscle and finger control needed for holding writing tools, forming letters and numbers, and cutting with scissors.
• Do hands-on math and science activities that develop their curiosity and experimentation, as well as a beginning-level understanding of concepts such as length, measurement, comparison, symmetry, testing hypotheses and scientific reasoning.
• Develop literacy skills through fun and interactive small group activities like making books and dictating stories, and writing their name daily as part of the “Question of the Day.”
• Develop and practice social skills such as cooperation and conflict resolution.

Learning through play

PNS embraces the joyful, spontaneous benefits children receive from exploring and experimenting in a safe and nurturing environment. We believe that this natural and essential activity called “play” is what enhances cognitive, social, and emotional development in children. The merits of play as a vehicle for imagination, discovery, invention, problem-solving, social interaction, self-regulation, creativity, role-playing, and language/literacy development are limitless. In our 4-5s class, teachers begin to introduce a few more optional science, math, and literacy activities.