St Joseph Private Catholic School Millbrook NY, Dutchess County NY

For children, preschool is a happy place for exploring and finding out new things every day. For parents, a preschool should be a place that focuses on learning yet never forgets the importance of fun. A great preschool encourages development but never pushes your child to grow up too fast. St. Joseph’s 3 year old Pre Kindergarten in Millbrook, Dutchess County New York, is just such a place.

The goal of St. Joseph Preschool 3 is to provide opportunities for children to grow intellectually, socially, emotionally, physically and spiritually in a warm, loving, Christian environment. We want our children to build a positive self-image; explore their natural sense of wonder; discover their creative spirit; learn problem-solving skills; develop self-control and consideration of others; increase coordination, balance, and body image; and know that learning is fun!

St. Joseph Pre Kindergarten believes that children learn through play. Children construct their knowledge by touching, tasting, smelling, watching, listening, thinking and doing. Areas of play include blocks and building toys, dramatic play, art, music, books, manipulative materials and outdoor play. The development of social skills such as sharing, cooperation and participation will strengthen as social learning takes place and each child becomes a valued member of our classroom community.

In our Preschool program, language skills will encompass speaking, and listening. Language becomes a tool for children to express feelings, thoughts, fears and wants. Children will have many opportunities to find joy in children's literature, create their own stories, and acquire a love and enjoyment of words.

Our three year old preschool program focuses on the

following areas using play and structured activities:

Building emotional/social well being

Developing of gross and fine motor skills

Reading:

· Alphabet recognition

· Phonological /phonemic awareness

Print Awareness:

· Identifying top to bottom

· Identifying patterns

· Identifying sequences

· Identifying frequently used words

Listening:

Recognizing and understanding spoken language including:

· Spoken directions

· Stories read aloud

Writing:

· Handwriting

· Composition (describing drawings)

Speaking:

· Speaking audibly in age appropriate pronunciation

· Reciting finger plays and singing songs

· Expressing ideas

· Relaying stories

· Getting needs met

· Asking questions

Math readiness:

· Patterning

· Counting

· Matching

· Identifying shapes

· Sequencing

· Number recognition/identification

The goal of this program is to help children become

independent, self confident, inquisitive learners. Our

curriculum identifies goals in all of areas of development:

Social: to help children feel comfortable in school, trust their new environment, make friends, learn how to function in a group environment and feel that they are part of that group.

Emotional: to help children experience pride and self confidence, develop independence and self-control and have a positive attitude toward life.

Cognitive: to help children become confident learners by letting them try out their own ideas and experience success, and by helping them acquire learning skills such as the ability to solve problems, ask questions and use words to describe their ideas, observations and feelings; to expose them to the skills needed for a successful start in school.

Physical: to help children increase their large and small muscle skills and feel confident about what their bodies can do.