St. Wendel Catholic School

CURRICULUM:  St. Wendel Catholic Preschool and Pre-K strives for excellence in its academic program.  It is a year full of exciting new experiences. All areas of curriculum will be taught by teachers through developmentally age appropriate activities and many opportunities to explore.  All areas will be assessed through informal observations and the use of the developmental progress tools .  The subject areas of concentration are listed below.  As these are presented, children will be allowed to progress at their own speed and level of difficulty according to each child's developmental readiness.  This is beautiful age of discovering, exploring and learning the endless opportunities life has to offer.  We as parents and teachers can unite together to teach our children to love to learn and learn to love in words and actions.    

RELIGION/SPIRITUAL:  Every morning our class begins in prayer, pledge, and a bible story.  What better way to teach our children to give of their first fruits by giving the first part of our day to God.  As we follow the liturgical calendar this will direct the current teaching in the classroom.  We also have visits from our priest.   We will practice the sign of the cross, basic prayers, and children's songs.  Your children will be introduced to some of the symbols of the church, the importance of living the Ten Commandments in natural practical everyday situations, and Virtues, and  have a tour of the church.

SOCIAL:  Social Skills for Success!  We begin by teaching our children techniques to follow directions.  Next, we learn to share, take turns, cooperate, learn to be fair, and how to use self-control in words and actions.  Finally, the children will  begin to understand and correctly implement their feelings and feelings of others throughout the school.

PREREADING SKILLS:  These skills are essential for future readers and we are here to help foster and nurture every area.  Reading begins with exploring and being introduced to the variety of reading materials that surround them.   Here are some more skills we practice: holding a book in the correct direction, turning one page at a time, looking at the books pictures and begin to tell the story,  learning new stories, poems, riddles, finger play stories and retelling the familiar ones, participating in group story time and independent reading time, following in the correct direction (left to right and top to bottom), sequencing, and taking care of our books.   

FINE MOTOR SKILLS/PREWRITING:Here are some of the areas we practice so that our children will have great fine motor skills.  Drawing, tracing, holding scissors correctly, cutting with and without a line, use manipulative materials, correct pencil grip, gluing, tearing paper, writing/drawing, and painting from top to bottom and left to right. 

GROSS MOTOR SKILLS:  It's not just exercise but free play on and off of equipment, using equipment with respect, learn to run, skip, jog, and gallop, learn to jump on one foot and then two feet, and hop on one foot and then two feet, going up and down the stairs alternating feet, climbing, begin throwing, bouncing, catching, and kicking a ball with control,  begin to jump rope, and a variety of other basic gross motor skills.

OUTDOOR PLAY/RECESS:  This is an important part of our curriculum.  Most of outdoor play is free choice recess.  This is when I'm observing skills such as running, climbing on various surfaces, swinging on the swings, and sliding down the slides.  We also practice safety in crossing the street in looking left, then right, then left again.  Is it safe to cross? Finally, we practice walking in a line while crossing the street.    All children will go outside when weather permits.  Inside group games and activities will be planned during inclement weather days.  Please have your child wear appropriate seasonal shoes, jackets, coats, hats, and mittens for outdoor play.   

SELF HELP SKILLS:  The more self help skills a child knows before kindergarten, the more successful she/he will be.  Beginning with using the restroom appropriately, washing hands and face when needed are important skills.  Next, bottoning, zipping, and snapping shirts,pants, jackets, and coats are skills that are life long skills.  Taking the time do practice these skills now, will alliviate frustation later on when they are older.  Moving on to tying their own shoes and lacing other pieces of clothing are some more skills we practice.  We also practice brushing/combing hair, dental hygiene, and folding simple clothes and towels.  Most importantly, we practice cleaning up the messes we make.   

READING AND WRITING:  At this age, reading and writing is intergrated in their entire life.  Here at school we focus on Oral Language and Vocabulary at Show-N-Tell, Morning Share Time, What Shall We Pray for Time, and Share-A-Book Time.  During Carpet/Circle Time we listen and learn stories, poetry, fingerplays, puppet shows, recognizing names, letter knowledge, phonics, and phonemic awareness.  At table time, we develop concepts of print in tracing, air writing, matching, and many more activities.   

MATH:  All math is hands on at this level.  We begin with colors, shapes, and oral counting.  Next, we move forward to recognizing and writing numbers, one-to -one correspondence, sizes, classificiation, order, graphing, measuring, cooking, and finding and making patterns.  Last, we will introduce estimation, prediction, and observations.

SCIENCE:  All science is hands on activities.  We will practice with the children in developing the use of their senses, how to describe the weather and name the four seasons throughout the year.  We will also conduct experiments, practice recycling, and naming textures.  They will be introduced to and practice healthy eating habits through eating the alphebet at healthy snack time.  Finally, they will be introduced to a life cycle  and use a variety of materials/objects in the sensory table. 

MUSIC:  Music is woven into all areas of the children's school day.  Every morning we have a Music and Movement Time.  This is a very active time in learning dancing, rhythm, singing, and playing a variety of percasion instruments.  We also introduce basic instruments in every musical group through sight and sound.  Finally, the students will perform twice during the school year. 

ART:  The children will be introduced to and practice using primary and secondary colors to paint, color, and draw on paper.  They will have the opportunity to paint, color, draw, cut and paste numbers, letters, and shapes.  They will also have the painting, coloring, and drawing area to explore in creating their own master pieces in using a variety of tools.  Finally, the children will be introduced to and practice the use of directional words:  top/bottom, left/right, and front/back. 

SOCIAL STUDIES:  Here we will introduce many concepts.  These include the world, earth, maps, states, key components of Indiana, city, state, neighborhood, community helpers.  We will also practice our phone numbers, addresses, and emergency phone numbers.  More concepts will be safety, integrating respect, friendship, and how to share and take turns.    

FIELD TRIPS:  There will be two field trips a school year for the Pre-K class only.  One will be in autumn and the other in spring.  They will enhance the monthly activities.

CREATIVE DRAMA:  The children will have endless opportunities to learn and explore in this area.  As they act our stories, play dress-up as a community helpers, participate in puppet shows, finger-plays, and making silly faces, they are building comprehension, vocabulary, and long term memory skills.  This area is also used for reinforcement of lessons in identifying animals and their sounds.  Finally, we use this area in exploring our feelings and using our words with people.   

       Pre-K Newsletter    May 24, 2010

A Note From The Teacher: